Video Blogs
TV Shows:
Find Articles On:
Who's onlineThere are currently 24 members and 826 guests online.
|
Famous "swishbucklers" in film
Aargh! Ahoy mateys! 'Tis National Talk Like A Pirate day. So we’re walking the plank here at AfterElton.com to bring you our short list of gay pirates in film. Well, who knows if they’re actually gay or not – their orientation isn’t much discussed. But pirate characterizations do tend to skew towards the flamboyant, don’t they? What is it about pirate roles that make actors think they have to camp it up? We call them “swishbuckers," and here is our Rogue's Gallery of the breed. We’re sure we’ve missed some, so drop your favorite scallywags in the comments! 1.Erroll Flynn as Captain Blood. Captain Blood launched Flynn’s career and, arguably, it’s his dashing and somewhat flamboyant portrayal of the title character that set the mold for playing pirates onscreen. But what’s up with those extensions? He looks like Britney at the VMA’s. 2. Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films He's a relative latecomer in the field, but he has quickly become the gold standard for pirates in touch with their feminine side. Dirty fingernails and all, he's sorta hot.
3. Robert deNiro as "Captain Shakespeare," the cross-dressing pirate in Stardust Hey Robert, did we really need another swishbuckler so soon after Johnny Depp? Unlike, say, Travis Bickle, this is unlikely to be one of your defining roles. Yeah, I'm talkin' to you.
4. Kevin Kline’s singing, dancing swashbuckler from Pirates of Penzance It’s a Gilbert and Sullivan musical, for goodness sake, so Kline has some license to camp it up. 
5. Any portrayal of Captain Hook. Whether in the Disney animated film Peter Pan, or the live-action Spielberg-directed Hook, for some reason the good Captain always seems vaguely gay, and not in a good way. Doesn't help that he's always running around chasing after the lost boys, and the 2003 live-action Peter Pan (with Jason Isaacs) pushed Hook to chickenhawkish extremes.
Anyone we should add to this rogues gallery? Let us know. Submitted by on Wed, 2007-09-19 09:14. |
 Recent Comments
Recent blog posts
|
Welcome to AfterElton.com!
- Login
- Join Now!
News, Reviews & Commentary on Gay and Bisexual Men in Entertainment and the Media
Captain Blood
Uh, have you even seen this movie?
- Kirby, moviedearest.blogspot.com
hey kirby
No new Pirates to add but....
here is a piccy of Jason Isaacs. Pretty swishy costume, anyhow.
If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
Hey Dennis
I watched Captain Blood about a year ago and don't recall anything particularly "fey" about his performance, at least no more then any of his other films (the swashbuckler genre pretty much lends itself to some flamboyance, as you noted, especially from that era).
Flynn was pretty much playing himself, as he usually did (even at that point). The general consensus is that he wasn't much of an actor (Bette Davis ripped him apart while they were filming The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, for example), but he has great screen presence and, of course, was very popular at the box office. (And with the ladies ... he was a notorious womanizer ... put it this way, Jude Law was well cast as him in The Aviator).
When I first saw the list, he just stood out as not fitting in with the other, more obvious examples. Especially since his character starts as a doctor who is wrongly imprisoned and only becomes a pirate when he escapes ... in other words, not a typical pirate.
On the other hand, you have to wonder about Douglas Fairbanks in The Black Pirate ... check out his little black short shorts, which he actually wears pretty much throughout the entire film.
- Kirby, moviedearest.blogspot.com
I've Gotta Crow!
afhickman
"It takes a village (to make Village People)"
Check out Gene Kelly in "The Pirate" if you want to see swish (who wears short shorts?). But my candidate for swishbuckler of all time is Cyril Ritchard, from the TV version of "Peter Pan" with Mary Martin, who was certainly the butcher of the two. I'm unable to provide pictographic evidence, but anyone who's seen Ritchard perform would surely agree.
Errol was Bi
It is pretty clear that Errol swung both ways and supposedly he had a Greman Doctor as a boyfriend which led to suspicions that he might be a Nazi spy. Mostly he was a bad drunk. I would take Captain Blood off the list and replace it with the fairly homophobic Bob Hope in Monsieur Beaucaire, though he was actually a con man in that one, just living in the 18th Century, ergo, kind of a pirate. Robert Newton in TREASURE ISLAND, could be construed as gay especially the way he goes after the young and tender Jim Hawkins. Did I hear someone say peg boy?
Bob Hope
Hope's screen persona was always kind of "nellie". See The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender for the proof.
- Kirby, moviedearest.blogspot.com
I am a big fan of pirates of