Ask the Flying Monkey (November 11, 2008)

Q: I wonder if you know anything about a couple of Robert Altman movies with queer plot points, Streamers and Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean. Within the last few years, a number of Altman films have been released or re-released, but these were absent. Is it because of the queer aspects? Any idea of when they might be released? -- Patrick

Director Robert Altman

A: It’s not because they’re queer, but rather because these films, made in 1982 and 1983, came at the lowest point in Altman’s career, after his first big budget studio foray, Popeye, tanked, destroying the clout he’d accrued from hits such as Nashville (1975) and M.A.S.H. (1970), but before his triumphant return to respectability with The Player (1992) and Short Cuts (1993). Altman famously battled Hollywood during his entire career and sometimes had to get very creative with his financing. Streamers and Jimmy Dean were both made on a shoestring, and it shows. Jimmy Dean, for example, is basically just a filmed version of the stage play upon which it is based.

Still, it’s a real shame that the Monkey could discover no plans to release these films on DVD (at least in the US or Canada). Streamers, which stars The Wedding Banquet’s Mitchell Lichtenstein and Matthew Modine, was decades before its time in its affecting look at gays-in-the-military. Meanwhile, Jimmy Dean, which includes a transgender sub-plot, is notable for its amazing cast, including Sandy Dennis, Karen Black, a pre-Misery Kathy Bates, and, in the role that first proved to Hollywood that she could be a serious actress, Cher.

Other Altman films with gay characters include The Company (2003), Gosford Park (2001), A Perfect Couple (1979), and M.A.S.H. (1970) (sort of).

Q: I know that shows like Xena: Warrior Princess have had major lesbian subtext between their main characters, but has there ever been a show with a gay male subtext? And I mean a real subtext, something the writers were aware of and played with, not just wishful thinking on the part of viewers, like Sam and Dean on Supernatural. – Lucy, Madagascar

A: There are those who would say that Starsky and Hutch, Batman and Robin, James and Gregory on House, and even Kirk and Spock all share a deep and abiding love for each other, but the Monkey doesn’t think any of those qualify for what you’re suggesting because, even if there have been some eyebrow-raising scenes of seemingly gay subtext, they were probably unintentional on the part of the creators.

The original Star Trek's unintentional gay subtext

Still, there are definitely examples of male TV duos where at least one half of a male duo is clearly in love with other half, even if it is never quite expressed: Andrew and Spike on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer; Charlie and Marcus on Survivor: Gabon; and Detective Bayliss and Detective Pembleton on Homicide: Life on the Streets. And Christian seems to have had more than a man-crush on Sean on Nip/Tuck (so much so that the subtext eventually surfaced, and Christian spent season four questioning whether or not he was gay).

Interestingly, there are even examples of gay subtext on a “gay” show like Will & Grace, where Jack was clearly in love with Will, even though he never said it in words. And in the first season of Queer as Folk, Michael was deeply in love with Brian — though, again, he didn’t express it.

Next page! Catching up with Hedwig, and National Novel Writing Month.