The 25 Most Gay Straight Movies Ever Made
Same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts nearly two decades ago, and across the US back in 2015, but somehow Brothers , which premieres this weekend, represents the first mainstream gay romantic comedy ever. released by a major studio. you believe .
Since I’m drenched in gay comedy, this statement struck me as rather dubious, if not based on the technicality of the definition (didn’t we all hail Island of Fire from Disney-owned “independent” Searchlight Pictures earlier this year?) … until I I didn’t remember that LGBTQ representation in the era of modern blockbusters tends to be limited to indecisive homosexuality (Poe/Finn), background kissing between minor characters, or discreet, asexual relationships like those in The Eternals . Next to that Bros might as well be My Big Fat Gay Wedding .
On the other hand, Hollywood has been making gay films since the advent of this form, albeit with plausible deniability. The late 1920s and early 1930s were a golden age for films that explicitly (or almost so) dealt with queer characters (Garbo, Dietrich, and Hepburn were bisexual icons before the term fell into widespread use); the same can be said for the independent-minded 1970s. In other cases, the representation was purely subtext—sometimes the filmmakers would sneak up on themes that would not have been on the radar of the censors, but would have hit the right audience or emerged as unintended subtext. In other words, sometimes even the most heterosexual films are gay as hell—the inevitable result of overzealous efforts to be straightforward.
Some of the following films have a definable context that makes queer reading necessary, or at least plausible. Others are just actually gay, not necessarily wanting to be gay.