Sep 05, 2007 5:20 PM GMT
Interesting think piece in the San Francisco Chronicle on September 5 about the
DVD release of "Cruising"
If you don't know about this movie, it stars Al Pacino who plays a cop going undercover into the gay leather community to solve a series of murders in New York City.
It was controversial at the time because of the way that the gay world was projected...all based upon stereotypes. In other words, at the time, it used the prevailing notion that gay men were either into being trussed up in leather and whips, or were effeminate queen types and were sociopathic, sex-crazed people.
There were demonstrations or threatened demonstrations upon its release. But the interesting issue is that it demonized the sexual frenzy that its stereotypes projected on all gay men. But, in retrospect, it MIGHT be seen as a purposeful overstatement of a behavior in which a good number of gay mendid indeed engage...right at the start of the trickling of evidence that a "gay plague" (AIDS) was ongoing.
I may have to rent it and resee it in the context of today's world.
John
DVD release of "Cruising"
If you don't know about this movie, it stars Al Pacino who plays a cop going undercover into the gay leather community to solve a series of murders in New York City.
It was controversial at the time because of the way that the gay world was projected...all based upon stereotypes. In other words, at the time, it used the prevailing notion that gay men were either into being trussed up in leather and whips, or were effeminate queen types and were sociopathic, sex-crazed people.
There were demonstrations or threatened demonstrations upon its release. But the interesting issue is that it demonized the sexual frenzy that its stereotypes projected on all gay men. But, in retrospect, it MIGHT be seen as a purposeful overstatement of a behavior in which a good number of gay mendid indeed engage...right at the start of the trickling of evidence that a "gay plague" (AIDS) was ongoing.
I may have to rent it and resee it in the context of today's world.
John