Superbad elicits some Supergaybaiting from Richard Corliss

It seems that comedy's current white-steeded knight, Judd Apatow, can't make a film without people splitting into teams and debating whether he's a homophobe or the second coming of Phil Donahue (who, granted, is still alive and probably not ready for a second coming anytime soon).

Some people found The 40-Year-Old Virgin homophobic because of the much-quoted "You know why you're gay?" discussion between Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan. Others thought it was refreshingly lighthearted in the way that straight men were joking about gayness clearly without harboring any discomfort with or underlying hatred for it.

Likewise, some people found Knocked Up's gay-playing group of buddies to be insulting and found the film's use of "faggot" to be utterly unacceptable, while others (myself included) thought that the word, while of course horrible and never welcome, was clearly not being endorsed in the context in which it was used, and that the friends' obvious comfort with one another and their own sexualities was refreshing.

Enter Superbad, the next critical and box office darling to come out of this comedy camp, and its murky allusions to homosexuality, which have led to an intriguing variety of responses.

A writer for Seattle's The Stranger notes: "the most effective aspect of the movie, for me at least, is how it digs into the romance of straight-guy friendships." He then points out how shocked he was to see Time critic Richard Corliss' jaw-droppinlgy boneheaded review, which has the audacity to actually gay-bait producer Apatow and writer Seth Rogen: "Why don’t Apatow and Rogen just do the honorable thing and tell the world they’re gay? It would save them a lot of time wasted pretending their movies are about young men growing up and finding the right young woman."

Ah, I see: He didn't like their movie, so they must be gay.

I don't read Time, because ... well, as a friend once said, "Time is for people who don't have much of it left." But I headed over and was appalled at the bile that Corliss is allowed to spew in his reviews. Calling Will Ferrell gay for making Blades of Glory? Actually, calling "Homo!" on any man who has made a movie that challenges the head-butting and towel-snapping school of male bonding by admitting that genuine affection absolutely does exist between straight men? Here's a choice passage:

"Maybe Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler should come out of the closet too. In Ferrell's movies, male merging beats female interest to a pulp, and his latest, Blades of Glory, allows him several opportunities to stick his face in Jon Heder's crotch. Sandler's summer hit, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, took guy-guy friendship to its logical conclusion: two firefighters get married."

Actually, the marriage wasn't the conclusion, it was the setup. The conclusion was that friendship is more important than prejudice and that love conquers all ... but apparently sissified sentiments like these went over Corliss' determinedly heterosexual head.

The critic is of course quick to point out in a paragraph likely inserted after the review was written that he is a "liberal New Yorker" and a "card-carrying homophiliac" (which means he either loves gay or ... bleeds gay?) and that of course his gay-baiting of these filmmakers and abject horror at any suggestion of gayness in buddy comedies TOTALLY don't come from a place of squeamishness about male intimacy. Because that wouldn't be "liberal New Yorker" of him, and he'd never get a decent haircut in this city again.

Our own review of Superbad ruminates on the gay-seemingness of the straight relationship of the movie, and there does seem to be evidence that the filmmakers at least wanted to undermine straight buddy movie conventions. (Many viewers see the gay subtext, many don't.) But Corliss' gay witch hunt, launched against these characters and then men who create them, is preposterous: Just because he apparently can't imagine a world where straight men show affection for one another doesn't mean that the rest of the country (judging by the success of these comedies) might not be ready to live in it.