"New York Times" to Hollywood: Enough with the gay-baiting.

The Sunday New York Times entertainment section included a cute article in which film critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis write assorted memos to Hollywood with their various gripes about the state of moviedom. I'm sure it will come as no surprise that this one in particular by Dargis really resonated with me:

To: Straight filmmakers

From: M.D.

Enough with the gay slurs, the gay baiting, imitating, limp-wristing, so-not-funny lisping — in other words, enough with the hating. Yeah, some gay men are hilarious (Oscar Wilde). But people are funny, their identities are not. Try this simple test: Every time you feel the need to mock or denigrate gay men or lesbians, replace that joke with an equally vicious dig about African-Americans or Jews. Doesn’t sound so funny anymore, does it?

Let me say amen to that. I don't know why it's so hard for Hollywood — or audiences — to grasp that movies like Sex Drive and Role Models that toss around gay slurs like Milk Duds aren't clever or funny, but offensive. Kudos to Dargis for adding her voice to ours.

The rest of the memos are pretty spot on as well, but my second favorite was the final one:  

To: Hollywood

From: A.O.S. & M.D.

Yes, green is good. But there is no ecological benefit in recycling intellectual properties or in treating pop-culture treasures like so much scrap material. Let us read our comic books and watch our DVDs of old movies and television shows and try to capture our imaginations with something new. So, enough with the serial killers (unless you’re David Fincher); period dramas; movies in which children die or are endangered; (bad) literary adaptations; superhero epics; tween-pop exploitation vehicles; scenes with bubble-breasted women working the pole in strip clubs; shady ladies with hearts of gold; Google Earth-like zoom-ins of the world; sensitive Nazis; sexy Nazis; Nazis period; dysfunctional families; dysfunctional families with guns; suburban ennui; suburban ennui with guns; wisecracking teenagers; loser dudes scoring with hot women who would never give them the time of day even if they were drunk out of their minds or too young to know any better (hello, Judd Apatow!); feature films that should have been sketch comedy routines; shopping montages; makeover montages; bromances (unless the guys get it on with each other); flopping penises; spray-on tans; Kate Hudson; PG-13 horror remakes; or anything that uses any of the “classic” songs that we are sick of hearing. What’s left? We don’t know. Isn’t that your job?