"Gay" DVDs for "Straight" People

Meth-massage addict Pastor Ted Haggard... Instant-message predator Representative Mark Foley... toe-tapper Senator Larry Craig... And now, yet another pink skeleton has been forced out of the Republican closet: Washington State Representative Richard Curtis. Like Foley, Curtis denied and denied and denied he was gay. Then, this week, the press obtained official documents that showed Curtis had admitted to police he'd solicited a callboy, and the callboy was blackmailing him. I kinda feel bad for the dude. It's sucks that we live in a world where guys like Curtis are blackmail-ably ashamed to be honest about who they are.

In honor of Curtis and his predecessors, this week's recommendations all have a touch of gay to help our more prudish fellow citizens overcome their homophobia.

The New Doctor Who Seasons One and Three (2005, 2007)
Shall we enumerate the "firsts" of the new Doctor Who series? The Doctor was joined by his first black companions. For the first time, The Doctor was regenerated with an openly Northern accent. And yes, Captain Jack Harkness (played by John Barrowman) became the first non-heterosexual in the known universe. Created by Russell T. Davies (the pen behind the British series Queer as Folk), Harkness is a pan-sexual time traveler, which means he's into men, women, aliens, robots, and any other unclassifiable partner he comes across. He turns up in the final five episodes of the first series, and then returns for the last three episodes of the third series.

In between, he starred in a simultaneous spin-off called Torchwood, which you can read all about on MaryAnn Johnason's site as she blogs her way through the DVD collection. You might also want to rent the third series episode Gridlock, in which a pair of granny lesbians help the Doctor locate his companion Martha Jones in a gigantic subterranean traffic jam. Harkness isn't in that episode .... or is he?

Philadelphia(1993)
When's all said and done, Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia is perhaps the single most important film to confront the stigma of AIDS and influence greater society to understand the epidemic that transcends the bounds of sexual orientation. Plus, it's one of the great courtroom dramas of the '90s, with Tom Hanks beating the romantic-comedy protagonist typecasting that had until then ruled his career.

He plays a gay attorney suing his firm for firing him when they discovered he had AIDS. As his courtroom representative, Denzel Washington's performance is as intense and nuanced as his role in American Gangster. (On a personal note, one of the great mistakes of my youth was picking this film for a date with junior high school hottie Mindy F.)

The Times of Harvey Milk(1984)
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1985, The Times... chronicles the rise of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to serve on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It's a film of liberation and justice... that is until the end, when a conservative politician in the fits of depression, assassinated him along with the city's mayor.

V For Vendetta (2006)
I'm going to keep saying it, even if no one else agrees. Natalie Portman was a red herring; V was gay. Exhibit A: The absolute campiness of V's Guy Fawkes costume. Exhibit B: His flashbacks place V in the medical experimentation prison where gays and lesbians were sent. Exhibit C: Stephen Frye's gay subversive variety-show host was added to the script in order to parallel V. Exhibit D: He doesn't make it with Natalie Portman (My gawd, did you see Hotel Chevalier?). Either way, V for Vendetta was still honored by several LGBT organizations as one of the best films for highlighting issues of discrimination and intolerance based on sexual orientation.

Once you've dutifully screened those, you should be ready to move on to Brokeback Mountain (2005), and after that, The Fluffer (2001). If you're still feeling a bit homophobic, rent and re-screen the entire Harry Potter series, this time with the knowledge that J.K. Rowling had always imagined Dumbledore as gay.

_____________________
D. Maass

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