News, Reviews & Commentary on Gay and Bisexual Men in Entertainment and the Media

"Gay Zombies": This is why I still have a job

Sometimes I look around at the media landscape and think, "You know, maybe things aren't so bad. Maybe gay visibility and understanding and common decency are really making headway, and I should start sending my resume over to Cat Fancy Online before the groundswell of gay acceptance renders my job irrelevant."

And then I come across sh*t like Gay Zombies.

A product of the always-inspired College Humor site (I still can't decide if the name is more of an insult to college or to humor), Gay Zombies (or at least, Gay Zombie, as the clip itself apparently can't be bothered to decide) pretty much sums up everything that makes me want to curl into a ball around a bottle of Maker's Mark and cry myself to sleep every afternoon night.

Rampant dated gay stereotypes (hairdressing! fashion! lisps!)? Check. Predatory gay sexuality? Check. Straight white men running around beating gay men in the face with shovels as "comedy"? Check.

The thing is, these guys probably think that they're being "irreverent" and "daring" by making this. Maybe they're not homophobic at all. But if so, they're also apparently too stupid or insensitive to realize that what they've created isn't sending up stereotypes, it's reenforcing them. And I honestly don't know which is worse: a "filmmaker" who has a blatantly anti-gay agenda, or a "filmmaker" who is so utterly incompetent in the crafts of storytelling and satire that they don't realize that what they're creating is toxic crap.

(And Gay Zombie dudes, lest you think that I'm just some bitchy queen who doesn't "get" horror movies, I run a horror website and can out-zombie you any day of the week. Maybe Gay Robot is hiring interns?)

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  • friday13fan's picture

    If they would have avoided

    If they would have avoided the limp-wristed stereotypes for the zombies, it would have been more of a funny comment on straight paranoia--how many people think that people can actually be "converted" or what-not. Even more clever would have been to have parents locking their children in closets to protect them from the conversion (and stuff like that). Zombies are great for revealing the absurdity in all types of behavior. So, I don't think Gay Zombies fails there, but it fails in that it doesn't make explicit the absurdity of the stereotypical traits that it exploits. To me, guys necking with white makeup would have been enough to sell that they were gay! I think it's a little hyperbolic to say that the filmmakers are utterly incompetent and creating toxic crap, but I do see where you're coming from. They could have done much better.
    snicks's picture

    and that right there. folks...

    is the future of our country

    visit my personal blog!

    Dan McCallum's picture

    Zombies...

    I heart zombies but not so much in this case.
    db's picture

    CREATURES FROM THE PINK LAGOON

    Brian, have you seen the movie Creatures From the Pink Lagoon?  It's more a comedy than horror but it uses zombie and gay movie cliches to examine the changing gay mores over the years.  Just wondering if you had an opinion.  I don't think it's a GREAT movie but it's interesting and certainly more thought went into it than this.
    brian's picture

    I did!

    I caught it a few years back at the Fire Island Film Fest, where they had an all-night horror marathon. It was cute and had some fun moments, and I liked the retro vibe and "scare film" element (especially at the rest stop). It's really bogged down by its budget, like a lot of indie stuff these days (I'm one of those weirdos who thinks that digital technology is actually ruining filmmaking because it removes several necessary obstacles that are part of the filmmaking process, but that's just me). But a noble effort.

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