It might be different if I was talking about gay heroes, but I’m not. I’m talking about gay villains--the effete, simpering wretches who have been flouncing, mincing, and leering their way across movie screens for decades.

I was reminded of this stock character while watching Batman Begins, this summer’s vastly overrated effort to jumpstart the Batman franchise (because, you know, there just aren’t enough superhero movies these days).

In Batman Begins, Cillian Murphy plays Dr. Jonathan Crane, a prissy psychiatrist who has concocted a nefarious plan to take over Gotham City, but who also completely collapses into sniveling hysteria at the first sign of brawny bat latex--only to be quickly replaced by the movie’s “real,” more macho villain, who goes on to do actual battle with the caped crusader.

How did someone as weak and cowardly as Dr. Jonathan Crane get to be a super-villain in the first place? I guess the Association of Super-Villians will take anyone they can get these days --sort of like the U.S. Military.

This Batman Begins character, of course, joins a virtually endless list of suggestively gay male villains in movies such as Rope, Diamonds are Forever, In Cold Blood, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Psycho, Jeepers Creepers 2, The Silence of the Lambs, Stargate, Strangers on a Train, Die Hard, Suddenly Last Summer, Aladdin, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and many, many other films.

Like in Batman Begins, most of these effeminate or openly gay characters are truly nasty folks, but unlike other villains, they’re also profoundly weak, panicking at the first hint of male testosterone.

To tell you the truth, I thought we were done with this hoary old cliche. After all, don’t we have GLAAD in Hollywood now? The Lavender Mafia? Rosie O’Donnell kicking butt?

Then I thought about it. And I realized that this stereotype never really disappeared at all.

In addition to Batman Begins, lately we’ve had the gay half human/half demon in Constantine, Kevin Bacon’s evil gay boss in Beauty Shop, the lecherous son in Wedding Crashers, Mr. Gray in Dreamcatcher, and not just one evil gay villain in Mel Gibson’s The Last Temptation of Christ, but two: King Herod and, the ultimate bad guy of all, Satan.

Thanks, Mel! Knew we could count on you.

Page 1 / 2 - Next