Queer Beacon

Iron Man (2008) - Shipwreck 3

Even though RDJ's portrayal of a superhero was a little over the top for me, I still liked Iron Man -- the gay content, not so much.

In Iron Man, RDJ plays a rich arms dealer (he owns a company that manufactures high tech missiles) who, after being kidnapped in a rogue country, is forced to rethink some of his values and actions. Cute.

While being driven in a military convoy to this site where he was going to make a demonstration of the latest weapon developed by his company, RDJ acts all surprised when he realizes the driver is actually a girl -- not so nice to the butch looking ladies.  Later into the movie, RDJ makes a joke with real life homophone Terrence Howard -- something about Terrence going out with a tranny or something like that.  Very derogatory. Not nice.

Death at a Funeral (2007) - Shipwreck 3

In Death at a Funeral, Matthew MacFadyen's dad dies and his funeral is a complete disaster.  We see all sorts of uncomfortable situations -- all (poorly) tied up by a single bottle of Valium (actually filled with some sort of acid).

The movie relies way too much on the workings of the powered-up-Valium pills, which keep crossing the paths of many of the invitees and supporting the mayhem.

The first victim of the crazy Valium pill is Alan Tudyk, who then goes on to spend most of the movie high and naked.

In addition to the Valium plot, the story pretty much revolves around Peter Dinklage's character and his affair with the dead guy (we learn that from the trailer).  With the Shipwreck rating, you can tell I did not like the way in which the gayety was handled. 

To the movie's credit, I couldn't tell any homophobic slurs, but still, I couldn't help but come out of the movie with the impression we were made fun of in a bad way.  My hubby seems to agree with my take on the movie, but a great friend (gay, also Brazilian, hot and sort of single) who saw the movie with me thoroughly enjoyed it -- I think he was not at all bothered by the portrayal of the gays.  I don't know, maybe just the bitter old queens are bothered by this one...

I will talk about the gay content in Death at a Funeral after the jump (I will reveal a lot, be warned).

300 (2007) - Shipwreck 3

By now, I hope that all of you guys will have seen the Snickersgate incident.  In that incident, Snickers made an ad for the Superbowl which was shady on the gay side (I thought it was only shady, well, at least the ad they actually showed), but commentary outside the ad itself made the ad clearly homophobic, it showed that the company (and the ad company behind the ad) expected a homophobic reaction from the public.  Actually, worse than expected: incited it.

Something similar went into play in 300.  In 300, we follow Gerard Butler in the role of Leonidas, a Spartan who gathered 300 of his hottest warriors to stand up against an evil empire (without realizing that they, Spartans, were just as evil, but that's another story).

The movie is a nice technical achievement, I liked the grainy images, excellent photography, and I loved the costumes (or lack thereof):

It was nice to see that the buff guys had to suck their gut quite a lot, you can tell that; so, I'm not alone there. But the movie is not all that. It's not.  The reviews have been (mostly) great; but I will have to disagree.  It's not a bad movie, but you should not have high expectations. Unless, of course, all you want is to see this man:

Before going into the gay content, let me just say that I had a big problem with the racism in the movie.  You can read about that at The Independent.  I am not even going to try to go into the historic inaccuracies -- you can read about those at The Toronto Star.

Now to the gay review. 

I will differ from a few of the reviews of 300 on the gay front as well.  I did not really find it homophobic (ta-dah!).  The movie itself is not homophobic, I think.  People have been saying that Gerald Butler's character reference to Athenians as "boy lovers" is homophobic, and I can see where that comes from, for sure.  But I think that to say that that is necessarily homophobic is incorrect: I believe the reference to Athenians is offensive to Athenians (not gays) on a different ground: Athenians would be pedophiles.  While it is true that the two (gays and pedophiles) are unfortunately, and often, equated, the two are far from being the same thing and one would hope that a reasonably intelligent person would know that.  So, to say that the "boy lovers" comment is necessarily homophobic is a bit of a leap.  If you want to make an effort into seeing goodness behind people's shady comments, this would be a good time.

But that's not all.  Another accusation of homophobia in 300 comes from Rodrigo Santoro's character being effeminate.  The character is king Xerxes, who is portrayed as (someone who thinks he is) a god.  A god full of flaws (and maybe his effeminate nature could be seen as one additional, or even the main, flaw), but it didn't really came out that way for me, and remember that I am the one who is usually quite sensitive about the way we the gays are portrayed.  For a king to be effeminate is not a homophobic stance and that didn't really bother me (even though he is the villain).  As I have said before, I love the fact that people can be seen as effeminate, even though I would prefer if they were not the villains in the movies.

On a slightly positive scene (the one in Rodrigo Santoro's tent), we see some girl-on-girl action, something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere.  I think the scene was supposed to show the bacchanalian bent of the Persians, I guess; but again, that didn't bother me and I actually found that scene to be a little on the positive side.

But in the end, I will indeed give the movie a shipwreck score because of the "boy lover" comment (to a small extent) and because of a declaration from writer-director-asshole Zack Snyder (that's him on the left and on the right, "acting" in Dawn of the Dead).  The "boy lover" comment, after all, isn't nice and some people unfortunately equate "gay" with "pedophile", and I bet a lot of the straighties in my theater (a packed theater that clearly predicted the strong opening) did just that mental association.

The stronger reason for my shipwreck score indeed does rest on Zack's comments, which relate to my opening thoughts: the real homophobia in 300 actually lies outside of it, it lies in the bigoted mind of Zack (by the way, I think the other people involved with the concept of the movie should also be put to blame).  Here's Zack's childish question, posed in an interview to EW: ''What's more scary to a 20-year-old boy than a giant god-king who wants to have his way with you?''  So, he is indeed turning Xerxes into a homo who wants to have his way with Leonidas, and that is supposed to scare young boys (it should lure them, but whatever).  Not nice.  Zack was specifically referring to this scene, where Santoro "tops" Butler:

Frank Miller's stories already resulted in a movie with homophobic content: Sin City. Shame on them all for letting homophobic undertones into their work.

Oh, and the acting was a-t-r-o-c-i-o-u-s.

The piece from EW is after the jump (where Snyder does concede that ''Some people have said to me, 'Your movie is homoerotic,' and some have said, 'Your movie's homophobic.' In my mind, the movie is neither. But I don't have a problem with people interpreting it the way they'd like to.'') Eff you too, Zack!

Final Destination 3 (2006) - Shipwreck 3

Final Destination 3 was pretty bad.

In this installment, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is about to embark on a roller coaster ride, and just before the ride starts she has a vision of the accident that would kill everybody on it.  After she throws a bitch-fit like I've never seen, she manages to get out -- with a few other people.  The accident happens as she predicted, killing everybody who remained on the roller coaster.  Next thing you know, Death is out to take care of the people who got off the ride.  I must admit the freak accidents were usually pretty ingenious, and gory.

Mary and Ryan Merriman, who also escaped the roller coaster wreck, spend their days trying to protect themselves and the other people who escaped the hell ride.  The pictures Mary took at the amusement park are supposed to help the two saviors predict how the others will die...

The first Final Destination was pretty good, Final Destination 2 was mediocre, but this one sucked.  To make matters worse, this third installment had no hotties (except for Texas Battle, who barely showed up, and two hot chicks who display their silicone boobs).  I will not bother with a 4th installment.

We had two bits of bad light for us gays.  In the first scene, Ryan asks Mary (who holds the pictures that can predict the future) whether his death will involve an embarrassing situation, like a death with something up his butt.  Not too nice.  Having something up your butt should not really be embarrassing (although I agree that, in public, anything up your butt, gay or straight, can be embarrassing).

Then, later, at a high school gym, Mary and Ryan are trying to save this guy, and another guy training at the gym calls the players in the rival high school "Bruin faggots."  That was bad, particularly in a movie so geared towards young straight guys.  Like, it's still okay to curse using a homophobic slur.

At least you get the chance to eliminate that homophobic slur in the DVD.  The DVD gives you a chance to choose the fate of a few of the characters.  The feature was pretty cool, but I don't know if you should spend even more time with this piece of crap.  Anyway, if you do take the "choose their fate" option on the DVD menu, you will be asked at some point whether Mary should take a further look into her creepy death-predicting pictures -- if you choose yes, the guy they are supposed to save at the gym dies faster, much faster, and the other guy training does not get enough screen time to utter the homophobic slur.  Take that, sucker.

Shame on James Wong and Glen Morgan, the "writers."

Sin City (2005) - Shipwreck 3

Good movie.  Damn it.  I hate when good movies happen to homophobic movies. 

The flick tells us the story of Mickey Rourke's character, a street fighter trying to avenge the assassination of this woman he slept with once.  Dark, smokey scenarios.  Elijah Wood is great in his cameo. 

Unfortunately, Mickey Rourke's character says a few homophobic slurs.  Not nice, especially in a movie with strong appeal to a straight male audience. 

Hopefully Sin City 2 will do better in the gay area.

Inside Man (2006) - Shipwreck 3

Very good movie, not excellent though.  Bad gay content.  It is upsetting that Spike Lee covers some important subjects in the movie, including issues related to more than one religion and race.  The gays, screw them.

In the movie, Clive Owen is a clever bank robber, Denzel Washington is the detective in charge of the case, and Is She/Isn't She? is a powerful outsider.  I'll call her JoFo.  She needs to keep a big secret.

Consider this dialog.  A judge: "You are a magnificent cunt." 

JoFo: "Thank you." 

Gotta love her anyway.  As someone once said, I'll see anything with JoFo in it.  She attended Yale, she must know what she's doing.

Now to our queer movie review.  The cop and the bank robber start negotiating.  This is early in the movie, I'm not giving anything away, don't worry. 

Clive tells Denzel he'll soon be in a Jacuzzi with 6 beautiful girls named Kimberly and Amber, and sucking on pina coladas.  The homophobia that ensued was predictable.  Denzel warns Clive that instead of being in a Jacuzzi, Clive will be in a prison shower, and instead of girls it'll be two guys.  And what Clive would be sucking on would not be pina coladas if he doesn't surrender himself.  Clive gets really riled up with the comment, like that's the worst thing a man can get.  Awful.  Awful content. 

I know rape is rape, in prison or not, and that of course no one would be interested in that, and that it would be awful and all, but you know what I'm talking about here.  If Clive's character were gay, do you think the detective could have used a similar threat?  Like "threat" him with two girls?  Of course the comparison is far from perfect, but you get the drill.

And the favorite homophobic slur nowadays makes an appearance too.  This trampy character calls someone a cocksucker.  We do not see who that someone is, but probably a cop.  Name calling.  Nice.

There is no come back for the gays, no other mention.  Just the bad stuff for us. 

The religious and race issues all, I mean all, get avenged or corrected.  Now, that actually makes the movie's homophobia sound even worse because if the issues were all left uncorrected, it would not be homophobia, it could actually be a positive thing to have everybody look bad.  That is, if the religious group, racial groups and gays were all seen as bad in the movie, it would have been clear that the movie was trying to criticize people's attitudes towards those groups.  It would be effective criticism.  But, when everything else is thoroughly corrected, except homophobia, the criticism is then turned to the gays themselves.  The message becomes "it is wrong to slur or pre-judge other people based on their races and religion, but it's ok to slur the gays."  I am pissed off.

JoFo how could you let that happen?  Out, out damn celebs!

There were two hostages that looked like they could have been boyfriends, just by their demeanor towards each other during the movie, we see them a couple of times, they are muscular chelseaboy types, so I thought something good was going to come out of there.  But I was wrong, it is not at all further suggested they could have been gay.  Pity.

Shame on Spike Lee.  Shame on writer Russel Gerwitz.

Wedding Crashers (2005) - Shipwreck 3

The movie stars Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as two wedding crashers, usually on the prey for single ladies.  I really liked the cameos by Will Ferrell and Bradley Cooper. The movie is pretty silly (and pretty funny), but it portrayed the token gay character in a weird way.

Our Mr. Gay here is played by Keir O’Donnel (new to me too), he is the brother of Vince Vaughn’s love interest. His character is dysfunctional and weird, and he hits on Vaughn in a very awkward night visit (Vaughn is repulsed by an almost kiss, the works…).

Our Gay’s grandma, played well by Ellen Albertini Dow, says quite a few homophobic remarks to her grandson (and also against Eleanor Rosevelt -- why not?), but that part is not so bad because her remarks come off as something uttered by an old, crazy hag. The granddaughter (Vaughn’s love interest) says her grandmother could never change (her racist/homophobic nature)…and that was pretty bad. People (old and young) can and often do change their phobic nature.

North Country (2005) - ShipWreck 3

The movie tells us the story of Charlize Theron’s character, a beacon in the rights of women as they pertain to their work environment. Some nasty guys in a mine do some nasty things to the few women working there. The movie was ok. Theron’s performance was excellent.  She is one of those actresses, she will either get an Oscar or she will just blow.  Hard.

The reason for the low rating is pretty (I like this word) upsetting, specially given Theron's outstanding declarations in the real world, you have got to see this. Michelle Monaghan’s character, who works in the mine with Theron, uses gay slurs at least twice in the movie, and she refers to a few guys as homos when they do nasty things to her or do not attend to her desires. Nasty and shameful. I did not like her character at all and I actually was hoping something very bad would happen to her to teach her a lesson.

I did not give the movie a lower shipwreck rating because when Monaghan calls Woody Harelson’s character a homo (he is the lawyer in the movie) he does not react too badly, as if that would not bother him much.

Shame on the movie. It advances women’s rights but set us back in a bad bad way.