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

It's been the year of the stealth gay for Hollywood movie marketing

I may sound like a broken record here, but is it really impossible to market a gay movie as a gay movie in the United States? Whether it’s gay characters as a small story point, like Valentine’s Day, or a very, very gay movie like A Single Man, the answer seems to be yes.

Adding to that pair, we now have I Love You Phillip Morris, the critically acclaimed, but commercially troubled Jim Carrey/Ewan McGregor movie due to be released March 26^th after multiple reschedules. I’d forgotten about the film, frankly, until the Russian movie poster scrolled past this morning, and I realized that it wasn’t the same as the one I’d seen used in the States.

Notice anything different about the marketing?

So in Russia, where they can’t even hold a gay pride march because the mayor of Moscow thinks we’re sub-human, it’s fine to show the leads walking together, glammed up a little, walking miniature dogs (universal symbols for same-sex loving dudes). But in the land of the free, and the free market, we have Jim Carrey, alone, dressed up like a 1950s insurance salesman.

Cannes had these billboards up last year.

It’s not like the movie hasn’t had press in the States showing that the movie is about a man who comes out of a car accident gay, and turns to a life of crime to support a fabulous lifestyle. It’s even got a kernel of reality to it as it’s based on true events. Entertainment Tonight ran an interview with Jim Carrey where he kisses Ewan halfway through, so the fact that it is gay is out there in the mainstream media.

So what do movie studios expect to gain with gay-free marketing of gay stories? Surely they’re not hoping to trick bigots into the theater, and say “no refunds” when they run out halfway through, angry at being tricked into watching 'mos on screen. And the producers can’t believe blog entries like this will generate buzz with a gay viewership that feels increasingly disenfranchised, quite the opposite. Frankly, I’m baffled.

The French trailers for the film leave the central romance intact. We’re not embedding them here because the language gets a little rough for our standards, but are available at Trailer Addict.

So, anybody have any ideas why gays are so unmarketable in the United States? What’s the strategy here?