it does get better, and some of it is fab.

[erastes]

-

Just seen that the Ginsberg film – Howl, has had a hugely disappointing opening – just barely breaking a quarter of a million over 18 theatres. (the “obscene” quiz is frankly wrong and baffling, don’t go there)

I wonder if it’s because, frankly, people want something a bit more upbeat for a fucking change when it comes to GLBT films. With the meteoric rise of gay romance in the last few years – and knowing that more and more gay men are enjoying the genre – perhaps more people are wanting something more enjoyable. I love stuff like Changeling, and Girl Interrupted, for example – but I’ll watch Tomb Raider over and over and over and over. Why can’t we film stuff like The Steel Remains – rather than GLOOM AND DOOM. 

In the flavour of UK Coming Out Day, let’s all consider how we want a more positive attitude to gay issues in the next year. Why does it always have to be gloomy?

Comments

[m-barnette.livejournal.com]

No kidding. I get tired of the whole gay themed films = doomed characters bit. Like Brokeback Mountain. It's as if everyone has this mindset of: They're gay, so they have to: A)die, B) live a miserable life C) fail at everything they do D) all of the above.

I find the entire mindset at the least irritating and at the worst disrespectful. It's as if they're saying, "You chose to be gay, therefore you will live a horrible life and never be successful, then you will die young and unhappy because you chose the wrong way to live."

Great, we get the politically correct 'Coming Out Day' but the mindset of mainstream thought hasn't changed a jot.

Clicked the eggs.

Apparently the DC has already stopped dropping the new eggs. This is why I don't donate to the DC. If you have a job or don't dump your existing eggs to get the new ones you're left out of the 'special stuff.' I like Unicreatures much better. Everyone can get the special holiday stuff, not just the kids with no jobs.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

oh - that's odd - I didn't know that - i definitely saw more black eggs on there this morning. i'm a bit of a scrooge I think - i never consider donating to anything like that. it's a business and they should run it on business lines, with advertising, rather than charity. I can see Dragon's Den going mad at that idea "how are you funding it?" "oh, we are going to ask people to give us money." "I'm out."

[m-barnette.livejournal.com]

Well apparently they are still dropping, I'm just not at the site when it's happening. Something about needing to do work, rather than hanging out watching for eggs...

[seraphim-grace.livejournal.com]

i blame Gore Vidal!
no seriously, he wrote all those god awful books about how hard it was to be gay, it meant that literary authors were more interested in the struggle than the romance
the exact same thing plagues black novellists
at least things are getting better
i mean i love those fantastic historical gay epics and i feel cheated if i don't cry, but that's not the same, those are often undone by politics or whatnot, not just sexual persuasion

but i know what you mean, at least Philip Morris is cheery for the most part - it's a love story not an oh woe it sucks to be gay movie

[m-barnette.livejournal.com]

I'll have to see if I can find that movie. I know Em Veinglory has mentioned it a few times, as have a couple other people I know.

So that's why so much of gay lit is doom and gloom! Great, one guy writes about how much being gay sucks and we're stuck with that as the 'literary form' forever. Figures.

[seraphim-grace.livejournal.com]

look at the famous gay authors
truman capote wrote about prostitutes
james baldwin who way gay, jewish and black had the holy triumvirate of things against him and yet wrote one of the most powerful gay novels / romance novels ever - Giovanni's room which isn't about the struggle to be gay in a homophobic world but rather the damage that dabbling causes to those who are gay - if you read one "gay" novel in your lifetime make it that

although if you read essays about Vidal they're full of the best literary commentary short of vaginal dentata
characters achieve "Salvation through sodomy" and moments of "rectal revelation"
but the books, dear god they're all the same and sooooo boring
guy has gay affair as a teen, seperates with love of his life, has a series of unsatisfying affairs with other men, finds first love who is straight and was just really drunk

(reminds me of a joke
what's the difference between a straight man and a gay man
about twelve pints of lager")

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly. I want more stories in which LGBT (anti-)heroes, and sometimes *also* villains, of whatever gender have fun and adventures in whatever time and place they find themselves in. Then they live happily ever after, or at least until the next adventure occurs (I like grumpy anti-heroes who get forced into situations they don'twant to be in, who then get on and enjoy it quite a lot amongst the snarking).