Not To Be Seen: Another Gay Movie Only Goes Gay Overseas

That's exactly what they're hoping - and don't call them Shirley! That's just asking for a defamation lawsuit!

Seriously, I'm as baffled by the strategy as you are, Ed. Those marketing strategies have been around for decades, and haven't been viable since the Reagan administration, if ever. They know that there will be those who will hate being subjected to "Teh Gays," but they're counting on the fact that only a portion of those folks will be angry enough to ask for their money back. In their minds, that's money in their pockets that wouldn't be there if the previews and posters were honest about the content of the film.

As for the producers, I don't think they're the ones that are squeamish about the content - after all, they're backing the film with their bucks. I'd wager it's more likely the studio execs who buy the films that are going by an outdated playbook when they count on word-of-mouth in the gay community to spread the word about gay-inclusive projects. They seem to figure they're already doing their part by putting the movie into theaters and onto DVD and other release venues. I'm afraid we're stuck with this retro strategy until a more enlightened generation of studio execs takes power.

I think that this speaks to how pigeon-holed gay movies are: they are either big important serious films like Milk, Brokeback, or Philadelphia or small fluffy gay film fest movies.

I Love You Phillip Morris is having trouble because it doesn't fit comfortably into the stereotypes.  It looks to be a sweet/funny/romantic dramedy in the mold of Bridget Jones' Diary, Jerry Maguire, or Almost Famous.  This film looks like it could be a trailblazer in normalizing gay stories and relationships on film.  Trailblazing is a tough way to go because Hollywood executives are cheap, lazy, and cheap.  They are so afraid that audiences only want to see know quantities that those are usually the only types of films that they greenlight.  The same goes for the marketing in the most familiar way possible.  Unfortunately, the movie going public justifies their reticience to finance and support interesting films.  Of the top 20 grossing films this year, only 9 were not a sequel or reimagining of a known property.

Gays are unmarketable in the US because Americans want another Brokeback Mountain: a gay movie that straight people - even those who find homos icky - will go and see. 

Great!  The problem is that we want to ignore the Brokeback business model!  We want to subversively sneak the gay in under the public's radar, just like we've lived our lives! Brokeback was always discussed as a gay film.  Why do we try to hide, even after such a success in visibility?

America's forgotten that, unless the movie in question is Avatar or The Chronicles of Narnia or Max Payne II, those people aren't going to see your art house flick anyway!  If they get offended, what can they do?  Continue to not go see the movie?

And what about those baby gays who have no idea who Philip Morris is?  You're telling me a queer boy from Hicksville, Alabama is going to go drive to the nearest art house and see ILYPM for kicks?  Without knowing Ewan McGregor kisses a dude?  Heck no: you're losing the target teenage audience, guys!

The reason that gays aren't marketable in the US is that liberal and corporate and, most importantly, LGBT Americans have forgotten the golden rules of publicity, war-politics, and gay-marriage: "controversy is good press," "appeasement is evil," and "love is not." 

That interview was last January?  They are talking about Inauguration Day!

Guess the flick has had release problems if it's been completed & shown in Sundance almost 1 year ago.

Hollyweird,  One of the Homophobic Capitals (along with Moscow!) of the World 

 

I love the poetry of the French trailer "A," which uses Johnny Mathis so brilliantly (especially in that wonderful shot in the prison yard at the end).  However, it spends FAR too much time on the set-up before he gets to prison and meets Philip.  Though it's highly unlikely we in America will see that trailer of Jim Carrey topping the other guy from behind, the re-editing of it helps keep all the side plots before he goes to prison to a minimum, and gives Macgregor more time. 

I'm frankly a little surprised they didn't just market this as a too-weird-to-be-fiction story, with a tagline like "Based on/Inspired by actual events.  No, seriously."  If people know it's inspired by real people, in a weird way they might be more willing to cut it some slack and check it out.  And God bless Jim Carrey--some might squawk about the get-up he's wearing during that prison hallway stroll, or his character's avarice and amorality, but it looks like a pretty fearless performance.

It's quite funny that the promotion of I Love You Phillip Morris isn't being sensored in Russia, the most homophobic country in Europe, but it is in USA. There's something not right about this picture.

Here is where A Single Man and ILYPM part though. They only de-gayed the promotion of A Single Man while they went much further with ILYPM. The movie was apparently "too gay" at Sundance, and had to wait 6 months until a distributor dared try to go for it. And even then they cut out three of the five kisses in the movie, cause, you know, straight people can't see gay people kiss, it might actually make the love story realistic!

This is all really sad, they alienate more people than they would get by doing this. And it will come back and bite them in the butt in the end.

 

Harvey Milk: You gotta give 'em hope.

Cardinal What's his name must still be in charge in Hollywood.  It started in 1934 with the Legion of Decency and the ever so wonderful PCA (Production Code Administration).

It was a HUGE mistake to make that kind of poster for Russia... People wont go and watch this movie. Only openly gays (i think 10-20 percent of all gays in country), women like me and the biggest fans of Jim and Ewan. The others can simply anonymously download it from internet. Because everybody in russia are ashamed of going to the cinema on a film with such a gay poster. Weird reality...

Yet one of the best movie I've seen this year is You I Love, a quirky funny take on a gay relationship.  Part of the movie looks like it was filmed in Bloomingdale's.  Russia has come a loooooong way.

 

 

Aime-mois moins, mais aime-moi longtemps

What a difference the trailers make. I really don't care for Jim Carrey movies so I had written this one off. But the French Trailer looks better. I might consider seeing this film. Ewan McGregor looks very good in it.

I hadn't even realised that A Single Man was about a gay character until reading it here. The trailer makes it looks like Colin Firth is a straight widower concerned whether it's too soon to have an affair with Julianne Moore's character.

where ILYPM is featured and given a Gay!la party on its debut January 14:

 http://www.psfilmfest.org/festival/film/reserve.aspx?id=3954&FID=40

and then replays Friday at 1:30.

The Gay Film Festival is later in the year. 

 

 

Aime-mois moins, mais aime-moi longtemps