Seven of Cinema's Worst Sissy Villains

Great post Brian! Wish I'd thought of it. I too am going to have to disagree with the inclusion of Jamie Gumb, though. Scary as hell, but hardly a sissy. And while his gender identity issues may have been a driving source of his villainy. He isn't reviled/feared by others in the movie specifically because he's gay.

I'd swap him out for this one (or 2 actually): Remember the despicable, mincing Bond villains Wint & Kidd from Diamonds are Forever? They'd be on my list.

Don't forget the gay couple consisting of Sidney Greenstreet and his "gunsel" Elisha Cook Jr.

 

In Rope Arthur Laurents is very clever and subtle in evoking an entire urban sohisticated gay milieu, complete with Fag-Hag who gets passed around by the boys for bearding purposes. Also it's pretty well-established that Granger and Dall may have been lovers at one time, but now they're friends -- partners in crime. Dall suspects Jimmy Stewart's professor to be gay. The murder is a means of "outing" him. He is of course wrong. Had Hitch been able to cast his orginal choice for the part of the professor -- Cary Grant -- things would have been a lot different. And that's why Cary turned Hitch down.

Robert Walker's Bruno Anthony in Strangers on a Train is my favorite gay villain. He really wants to seduce Farley Granger. (get in line!) But as with so many Highsmith characters who followed in his footsteps (and this book was the very start of her long career) he wants to get them to commit crimes too.  

 

The scne where Walker nearly strangles a owman at a party because Pat Hitchcock reminds him of Granger's wife is one of the best things Hitch ever did.

 

The book was gripping as hell, but onscreen--despite the actor's best efforts, especially in the final face-off with Starling/Foster--Gumb made no sense at all.  ("It puts the lotion on its skin"--oh PLEASE!)  And I'm a guy who tends to get creeped out by horror movies; that villain, for me, was so ridiculously over-the-top that I barely found him frightening, just absurd.

Will Patton did a good job playing a slimy gay weasel in "No Way Out," despite the script's obvious hatchet job on the character.  And Judith Anderson's demented intensity as Mrs. Danvers almost made her oddly tragic in "Rebecca," especially her stoicism during the fiery climax.  Yeah, Clifton Webb's motivations in "Laura" are downright perverse, but in an odd way, his obsession with her sort of works--it's not necessarily that he sexually desires her, it's more that he wants to own her and possess her like a living doll. 

...about Brandon and Phillip. The reason behind their villainy is, I think, that they're upper-middle class sociopaths bored with the high society lifestyle. Their lives are predictable, and so they commit the "perfect crime" simply to shake things up.

Maybe I'm biased because Rope is one of my favorite Hitchcock movies. The suspense is incredibly well-crafted -- all those long takes mean the audience can't escape!

I'd replace them with Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt from "Murder by Numbers." That's another Leopold/Loeb style pairing that I think is much more gay panicky.

Don't forget another film from 1991, JFK, with Tommy Lee Jones and Joe Pesci ... ick.  And Jones was actually nominated for an Oscar for this role!

THE MAN HAS A POODLE NAMED PRECIOUS.

No, seriously -- his sexuality and gender identity are directly connected to his psychosis -- and the fact that he dresses in women's clothing, tucks away his genitals and dances in a mirror, and practices asking people if they want to &#^@ him is clearly meant to suggest that he's queer, at least in a very superficial sense of the word. I think his sexuality is definitely used as a "horrific" element to scare the audience.

I thought of putting Wint and Kidd on there! Great suggestion!

In Peter Lorre's defense, he was forced to tone down his performance as Joel Cairo by Jack Warner, who insisted that the character shouldn't be played as "too nancy." He later played more robust gay men in "The Chase" and "Double Confession" (both of whom are thugs who appear to be carrying on with their bosses.)

What Peter seems to me to be doing in this film is doing a sort of subversive parody of Mary Astor, the breathless, wide-eyed beauty in distress (notice his similar poodle cut hairdo.)  

 

Jame Gumm now and forever! Of course, the best untold story of Silence of the Lambs and the infamous Jame Gumm "tuck n' dance" scene is that arby's bought product placement for it. By accident I am sure. But still. Love to have been a fly on the wall at THAT marketing post mortem meeting.

Other gay sissy villains:

King Mufasa (Jeremy Irons), the gay sissy villain in Lion King.
Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd from Diamonds are Forever, the gay sissies who set out to kill Bond.

OK, First of all, the horror of Jame Gumb was not that he was gay, but the lengths he went to in madness to try to become a woman. Second of all, Prince Edward and his lover Phillip weren't in drag, they were being fitted for ornate, long tunics...a very comon type of clothing at the time. They just were very fancy for men's tunics. And lastly, Dave, you mean SCAR. Mufasa was the farther and was voiced by James Earl Jones. Scar wasn't realy a sissy either, if your going to include him, you might as well include Zorg from Fifth Element, Jafar from Aladin, Prince John from Disney's Robin Hood...oh wait, he really was a sissy...

I know that at least in the book, Silence of the Lambs, it is explicitly made clear that Jame Gumb is not a transexual; instead, he is a disturbed individual that feels alien to his body and makes a decision that he will skin women to make a women suit. I am not for sure if the movie made it clear that he would not be considered transexual according to t any psychologist. Of course, that does not mean that the audience would not perceive him to be transexual.

On another note, these villians are some of my all-time favorite characters. I loved the character Bruno. The interesting thing about the villians being gay is that it adds sexual interest between characters, giving it another level. Hitchcock stated that he liked to film sex scenes like murder scenes and murder scenes like sex scenes. Anyway, a cool villian is suave, cultured, and sophisticated, and, according to the stereotypes, this is often interpreted as gay.

Another character that needs to be on the list is one of many George Sanders's characters.

I was going to say Jafar from Aladin.

Interestingly, there IS a non-stereotypical same-sex character in POCAHONTIS (along with the mincing sidekick of the villain). Watch the best friend of John Smith (Mel Gibson). He's CLEARLY in love with Mel's character, so much so that he causes the whole war between in the Indians and the white folks, once it becomes clear that John is in love with Pocohontis.

It's subtext, but it's pretty clear subtext when you see it that way.

But hey, at least they have a "butch" gay guy, even if he's evil.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Mulan. Lots of coded gender/sexuality related issues there.

I always though Scar from "The Lion King" read as gay. In one scene he examines his nails, he shows no interest in lionesses until the realization that a king must have an heir, an elevated pinky finger and limp wrist, more of a lioness shape than the barrel-chested Mufasa, etc.

Some quotes:
Scar to Simba: "I shall practice my curtsy."

Simba: "Uncle Scar, you're weird."
Scar: "You have no idea."

Although a lot of Disney characters fit the bill, too. Jafar (Aladdin), Judge Frollo (Hunchback of Notre Dame... I swear it was an animated version of Bea Arthur in drag), Prince John (Robin Hood), Kaa (The Jungle Book), etc.

hey, my post disappeared!

did i offend?

RJ, agreed, that's what i said in my post (which was the first comment) that has disappeared.

the movie did make it clear. like i said, i can't remember the exact lines but hannibal tells clarice that he wasn't a true transexual and he had unsuccessfully applied to gender reassignment and then switched his M.O. to woman suits. i think it's in the scene when he clues clarice in to the fact that buffalo bill "covets" what he can't have.

and the book goes into more detail as well.

so i guess maybe what you're saying Brian is that the idea that gay=villian is true when watched by the unwashed masses but not by those who can actually listen to dialogue and follow the guy's pathology and not focus on his sexuality/gender dysphoria. and i dont mean for that sentence to read as snarky, because like i said in my first (missing) comment is that i recognized the character of jame gumb as pathological and not an evil, slashing transexual/queer.

gotta talk about Tim Hardaway