Ask the Flying Monkey (August 19, 2008)

Q: Your discussion of Weeds made me think about the actor Guillermo Diaz who plays drug dealer Guillermo Gomez. I read somewhere Mr. Diaz was openly gay, but I could not verify that. Is it true? It seems interesting that he has played mostly thugs and tough guys throughout his career. If he is openly gay, it has not hurt his ability to be cast in non-gay roles. – Joey, Portland, OR

A: Diaz is definitely gay, and you may have read that right here on AfterElton.com when we interviewed him in 2005. And he’s another openly gay actor who has found great success playing straight and gay roles (his most famous gay role might be La Miranda in Stonewall [1995]).

But Diaz’s career has probably never been hotter than it is right now thanks to his break-out turn as Guillermo (ironically named before he had been cast in the part), Mary Louise Parker’s coolly charismatic (and adorable) drug dealer on Weeds. In other words, it’s the perfect time for another full-length interview with him. We’re working on it!

Guillermo Diaz

Photo credit: Chad Buchanan/Getty Images

Q: I know there has been a lot of controversy over the years regarding movies such as The Silence of the Lambs, Basic Instinct, Dressed to Kill, The Fan, and Cruising. I actually have all of them on DVD and as a 37-year-old gay man, they never really have bothered me, content-wise. For me, characters such as Buffalo Bill, Catherine Tramell, Douglas Breen, Bobbi and the killer(s) from Cruising represent one character and one character’s actions only. The filmmaker’s never imply that these people represent the gay community as a whole. I wonder if the same people who protest these films also protested Queer as Folk, which to me, not only showed the lead adult having sex with a minor, but also showed him to be rampantly promiscuous without any feelings for his partners. This show was produced by two openly gay men. Did they get the same kind of scrutiny the others did? – Keith, Arlington, MA

A: Want to open that can-o-worms, eh?

Okay, think about what you’ve written: literally all the big-budget Hollywood movies until, perhaps, Philadelphia in 1993 that featured major gay male characters portrayed them as insane villains and serial killers. Worse, these movies often played on the audience’s fears of gay people and discomfort with behaviors that violate gender norms, using people’s prejudice to make them hate the villain more, and make the audience feel better when the hero finally vanquishes them (usually violently killing them). Furthermore, for decades, Hollywood refused to show even the briefest of romantic kisses between men, but had no problem showing scenes of explicit, violent gay male rape and suicide — again, usually to freak out the audience a la Deliverance (1972).

Clockwise from top left:
Michael Caine in Dressed to Kill, Ted Levine in Silence of the Lambs,
Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, Al Pacino in Cruising

You don’t see a problem with that picture? You can say these filmmakers are not implying that these individual characters represent the gay community as a whole, but what if the only African-American characters Hollywood ever showed were black men who rape white women? Stingy Jewish men who cheat people? Chinese men who speak with funny accents and plot to take over the world? You, and Hollywood, could say, well, these only represent these characters, not all black or Jewish or Chinese people. But the fact is, these portrayals would be deeply, profoundly offensive and racist, reinforcing the most insidious of stereotypes. And for people who don’t know any actual out gay people, these gay portrayals really do shape attitudes. Why not hate gay people, and vote to deny them all rights, if they’re all just serial-killing freaks anyway?(And for the latest example of this check out our review of The Clone Wars.)

I’m all for gay characters having flaws, but there has to some semblance of fairness and balance first. Otherwise it’s just attitude-shaping propaganda. (For the record, Hollywood’s shockingly anti-gay history is all exhaustively documented in Vito Russo’s book, The Celluloid Closet.)

But as for Queer as Folk, the Flying Monkey inches closer to your POV. I went to see the first four episodes of the British version with a group of three gay friends. As I was watching it, I felt myself growing literally physically sick to my stomach. When it was over, three out of the four of us thought it was horrible, just the worst, most appalling representation of gay people imaginable — gay life as seen by Pat Robertson. We didn’t know any gay people like the self-centered jerk that is Brian, and we didn’t want to know them. Ditto for the rest of the superficial, whiny, sex-obsessed lot.

Next Page! Where are TV's "manly" gay men?