Queer film classics
It's shaping up to be a relatively 'queer' year in mainstream film, with movies
about gay cowboys (Brokeback Mountain), a transsexual woman (Transamerica), and
an 'out' gay writer (Capote) front and centre at this year's upcoming Academy
Awards.
A good excuse then to see what great queer films have come before them, paving
the way to some modicum of mainstream movie success and acceptance.
In 1959 Billy Wilder's Some
Like It Hot saw two of the biggest 'straight' stars of the day (Tony
Curtis and Jack Lemmon) cross dress and spend most of their screen time trying
to convince their unsuspecting female counterparts they were a gals, 'just like
them'. Playing jazz musicians who join an all-girl band – and on the run from
the mob - the film also just happened to star an actress who would go on to be
one of the most celebrated gay icons: Marilyn Monroe. It's a great comedy with
genuine pathos, and though not an out and 'out' queer film, it's a terrific
bridge between gay and straight cinema way ahead of its time.
Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972)
was also another mainstream movie hit that featured gay and bisexual
characters, and a superb, rich sense of camp and bohemia. Set in 'Nazi-era"
Berlin, Liza Minnelli plays adventurous dreamer Sally Bowles, an American
ex-pat who sings and dances for a living at the local Cabaret club. The film
co-starred a young Michael York as Sally's eventual 'bi' lover Brian Roberts,
and went on to win eight Academy Awards that year. And rightly so. It speaks
volumes about the changing nature of human nature, politically and socially,
with musical numbers to die for.
Hedwig & The
Angry Inch (2001) clearly takes much of its inspiration from Cabaret,
also a high-end queer musical that packs plenty of punch, wrapped in a velvet
glove. Writer/director John Cameron Mitchell also stars as Hedwig, a
transsexual cabaret singer whose rock star boyfriend has run off with her
songs. The film is hilarious, moving, with rockin' good rock opera numbers. As
far as contemporary drag film musicals go, it doesn't come much better than
Hedwig.
Then there's Boys Don't
Cry (1999), a queer film that upset Oscar bookies when Hilary Swank
(Million Dollar Baby) won the Best Actress Oscar for playing a girl who wanted
to be a boy. Taken from a true crime case, Boys Don't Cry is the story of
Brandon Teena (formerly Teena Brandon), a young Nebraskan woman desperate to
transform into the man she always knew she was. Brandon was royally punished
for his assertion, but not before we see the grace and compassion in which he
tried to live his life, ultimately overwhelmed by brute ignorance, harsh
bigotry and violence.
- Megan
Megan Spencer has spent way too much of her life in the dark, all for a good
cause though - watching movies as a professional film critic. For the last six
and a half years she has been serving the ever-increasing hunger for film and
DVD reviews as radio triple j's resident film critic, and a year ago joined the
new line up of long-running SBS-TV film review program, The Movie Show.
Every now and then she pops up into the light to make her own films,
documentaries (her latest is 'Fantastic Brutality', a documentary about an
obsessed wrestling fan, to be released next year). She has also written about
film for many publications including J-Mag, Limelight, Inside Film Magazine and
the Age Green Guide.
And the impossible question to ask a film critic: what's her favourite film?
"Blue Velvet would be at the top of the list, so would Fight Club... But then
again American In Paris makes me cry every time."
Megan has also been part of the Foxtel's Project Greenlight Australia as an
on-air panelist and judge.
