Ask the Flying Monkey! (February 12, 2008)

Welcome to a new feature here at AfterElton. Here’s how it works. You, the reader, ask me a question, preferably something related to gay male entertainment. Then I, the AfterElton Flying Monkey, go happily flapping off in search of an answer and report back the following week.

So what do you most want to know? The gayest Oscar moment of all time? The highest charting single by an openly gay singer? Whether or not that shirt makes you look fat?

Ask the AfterElton Flying Monkey!

Ready? Then let’s get started, shall we?

Q: Motion pictures have shown gay couples kissing and even making love. What is the most famous scene, however, of a gay couple on the big screen simply holding hands like any other couple? What about on the small screen?
-Brian, Council Bluffs, IA.

A: Famous” is a subjective term. Which is another way of saying, “My answer might still be right even if someone suggests something far more obvious!”

In the recent spoof, Meet the Spartans, the Spartans march together skipping and holding hands (and singing “I Will Survive”). But I doubt that posterity will be any kinder to this movie than Rotten Tomatoes.

Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas hold hands in a hospital scene in Philadelphia, and sweetly slow-dance together in a later party scene. Likewise, there are several great hand-holding scenes in Trick (which is the AfterElton Flying Monkey’s favorite gay romantic comedy of all time); I think the best is when Gabriel’s friend Perry (the wonderful Steve Hayes) makes up with his schlump of a boyfriend (Kevin Chamberlin) and the two of them walk off to their apartment together holding hands, thereby depriving Gabriel and Mark of yet another place to finally sleep together.

But the most famous gay movie hand-holding scene of all? I boldly assert that it’s a scene from The Wedding Banquet, Ang Lee’s 1993, pre-Brokeback Mountain gay love story, where Wei-Tung reaches over and holds his partner Simon’s hand while simultaneously holding onto his fake wife, Wei-Wei. Why is this the most famous? Because it’s not in the movie itself, but on the fricking movie poster.

As for the small screen, that’s a little tougher since, as you know, gay men on television are not allowed to actually touch. Still, there was some gay hand-holding between the two male leads in a "gay" storyline on last season's Nip/Tuck. And there’s been some oh-so-sweet hand-holding of late between gay teens Luke and Noah on the CBS soap opera As The World Turns.

There’s also a fascinating scene in Rock Hudson, the 1990 TV movie about the life the Rock Hudson. Network television, torn between the conflicting impulses to highlight the most salacious aspects of Hudson’s life while at the same time never actually showing men kissing, features a dimly-lit pool scene with a bunch of speedo-clad young men…hugging and holding hands. The result? It’s a hug and hand-holding orgy! Unintentionally hilarious.

Next Page! Is Tom Cruise gay?

Have a question about gay male entertaintment? Ask the AfterElton Flying Monkey!