Ask the Flying Monkey! (February 8, 2010)

Have a question about gay male entertainment? Send it to aftereltonflyingmonkey@yahoo.com! (Please include your city and state and/or country.)

Q: Recent discussions about "appropriate" gay movies for high school students got me thinking about how many gay movies include full frontal male nudity. I'm not complaining. When it's part of a sensual sex scene, I get it. But, for example, watching Redwoods, I noted that Everett's brother and partner both get naked at different points in the movie, and in neither case did it really enhance the plot or was it necessary for the scene. Why do you think male nudity is so prevalent in gay movies? Is it the obvious reason that the audience appreciates it? Is it more of a sociological reclaiming of the types of nudity that women endure in straight films all the time? Or are the directors just pervy? – George, Cambridge, MA

A: Gratuitous film nudity is in the eye of the beholder – except in the case of Redwoods, where I think we can all agree those shots were indeed completely gratuitous. Even more weirdly, they were both very minor characters – and not, damn it, the movie’s handsome leading men.

Anyway, I’ve noticed this recent trend in gay movies too, and I think you’ve put your finger on the three most salient causes. Here’s how I break it down and where I place the responsibility:

Sociological Reclaiming: 2%

Pervy Directors: 20% *

Appreciative Audiences: 78%

*higher in cases like Pedro Almodovar

Okay, so I’m teasing Pedro Almodovar, but the fact is, gay directors are simply acting like heterosexual directors have always acted when it comes to objectifying women in their movies. I’m continually amazed by the cluelessness of heterosexuals who are shocked by how gay men sexualize other men and yet don’t seem to see that they’re literally surrounded by the sexualizing of women by heterosexual men (and, often, by women themselves – see bra, push-up).

But it’s so ubiquitous, so unbelievably commonplace, that it’s invisible to most straight people.

Antonio Banderas in Pedro Almodovar's Law of Desire (1987)

Anyway, sexualizing and objectifying actors is part of what film does, so it’s hard to say exactly where the “perviness” of gay directors segues into their “sociological reclaiming” of onscreen nudity and legitimate broadening of the notion of male and on-screen sexiness.

Regarding the responsibility of the gay movie-going audience, keep in mind that, in America at least, this is a phenomenon mostly limited to very low budget indie gay film – exactly the kind of project that the mainstream media (and often even the gay media) ignore. The producers of these movies are baldly and shrewdly doing whatever they can to get attention among their target audience.

And it works! How many more people do you think will rent Redwoods now that we’re talking about it here? (Before you do, here's my review.)

As a playwright with a couple of gay plays, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told by people in the theater, “Get your actors naked in the first act and you’ll triple your box office.”

Hell, Naked Boys Singing!, an extremely mediocre play, has been running for something like ten years! Trust me: it ain’t because of a clever score.

I suspect it also doesn’t hurt that most gay movies are now enjoyed in home theaters, not public ones where people might feel some semblance of shame.

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