Let's Move Beyond The Gay Movie Ghetto

Today, I ended up reading a couple blog posts by Max (whose blog I just found and already adore) in which he talks about introducing the guy in his life to various gay-themed movies.  I threw out a few other titles that Max didn't mention of movies that I thought were well worth introducing Brandon to.  As is often the case, this got me in the mood to watch a few of my favorite movies in the genre, myself.  As such, I powered up the Wii, logged into Netflix, and started doing a search of some of my favorite titles.

Alas, Netflix doesn't stream the movie I really wanted to see, "The Broken Hearts Club," so I ended up settling for the first and second movies in the "Eating Out" series.  I suppose that's just as well.  I was tired and far more willing to let myself fall asleep during those movies than I might have been if I had been able to go with my first choice.  And since I adore that entire series, I was perfectly happy to watch (or doze off through) those movies.

There's no rule that says these two
can't be gay lovers who unleash
the next mummy's curse.

But as I got thinking about gay-themed movies, I got thinking about how they're all so much alike in a sense.  From where I sit, I can count the twenty one movies in the genre that are sitting together on a shelf -- and as I can immediately think of other titles that are not among that group, I know I have even more such movies than that -- it occurs that every last one of them (okay, "Jeffrey" is slightly different, given how much it focuses on the issue of dating in a world where HIV exists) is a story centered on somebody coming to terms with their sexual orientation, two people (usually men, though I do have a couple titles that are about lesbians) try to find love together (and because "Jeffrey" still fits this pattern, I only give it partial credit for being "slightly different"), or both.  It occurs to me that in many ways, Hollywood -- even the smaller movie studios that focus on "gay themed" movies -- are failing us by keeping us locked in a certain type of movie.

I want a different kind of gay movie.  I want a movie where a hero happens to be gay, but whose heroism is defined by something other than his (or her) sexual orientation.  I want a movie about Wyoming Smith, who faces the same kind of perilous traps and adrenaline-inducing fights and escapes that Indiana Jones faced, but rather than drawing beautiful woman closer in triumph, runs a hand along the well-muscled arm of his local guide and companion, says, "I couldn't have made it through without you," and gives him a passionate kiss.  I want a comedy where zany things happen to Tim at the office, and he comes home to tell his husband Bruce about it.

You see, heterosexual protagonists get to do all kinds of things in their movies.  They get to be adventurers.  They get to be down on their luck and trying to make a comeback.  They get to discover the massive conspiracy which forces them to run for their lives until they decide to fight back.  And they get to have all this while kissing women (or men, in the case of the rare female protagonist) or have a thirty second scene of steamy sensual foreplay (and presumably sex, though I'm usually spared actually seeing that part) as a brief interlude before the driving action of the main plot resumes.

I want that for gay protagonists.  I love my protagonists who spend entire movies building romances and/or coming to terms with their sexuality.  But I think it's time that Hollywood enables those protagonists to branch out and become romantically and sexually active gay protagonists that also do other amazing and story-worthy things.