The Year in Queer Movies

300’s director, Zack Snyder, admitted outright that he made Xerxes a predatory pansy specifically to freak out 12-year-old boys. We’re sort of glad he admits to having a reason, because otherwise the idea of making a Fabulashed club kid in sandals the ultimate barbarian villain is one of the stupidest ideas ever.

We won’t even get into the facts the movie missed about Spartans and their rather titillating views on male-male intimacy at various stages of their military careers. I wasn’t expecting the film to be gay-inclusive or gay-positive in any way, but for a gay movie lover out for some good fun, this hissing monstrosity was a slap in the face.

While 300 was the biggest movie of the year to use gay sexuality as an element of evil, it wasn’t the only one. The western remake 3:10 to Yuma also added a heapin’ helpin’ of homophobia to its story by painting villainous outlaw Charlie Prince (played by the ever-creepy Ben Foster) as clearly in love with Ben Wade (Russell Crowe), his boss and the film’s anti-hero. Naturally, he paid a dear price for his forbidden desire when Wade brutally shot him to death.

Sure, it may seem “edgy” to add a psychosexual element to an established archetype like the Western and mix things up a little, but really, homoerotic subtext has been in Westerns for years and at this point is just sooo pre-Brokeback.

Repression and self-loathing were also on the program for the weird and wistful Evening, in which a delirious Vanessa Redgrave remembers on her deathbed that when she was young she looked like Claire Danes, bagged Patrick Wilson at her best friend’s wedding, and was involved in the death of a repressed gay friend. If that’s the kind of clarity and closure that dying naturally brings, I hope I get eaten by a lion. (Well, okay; I’d take the part about bagging Patrick Wilson.)

Buddy (Hugh Dancy), the repressed queer in question, is of course a complete and utter mess, and has let his forbidden sexuality turn him into a lazy drunk whose only real talent is his ability to royally piss off his rich parents. Granted, this was in the 1950s in Cape Cod or somewhere else equally well heeled, so the idea that he was closeted and had easy access to alcohol isn’t that far-fetched.

But the whole “tragic repressed gay youth whose untimely death serves as a lesson to the straight characters at the center of the story” routine feels as old as the period cars used in the film. The fact that gay author Michael Cunningham adapted the screenplay from the source novel only furthered disappointment in what was an oddly detached and dated film.

On a note that would be lighter were it not so bloody, repressed sexuality and the destruction it can undoubtedly wreak were addressed with unexpected sensitivity in David Cronenberg’s brutal Russian mob thriller Eastern Promises.

Given how violent and bleak the film begins, when it starts to become clear that sadistic and self-destructive mob enforcer Kirill might be closeted, it’s troubling to say the least. But Cronenberg’s story of redemption and familial ties is much too clever to take the easy exit, and ultimately paints a very poignant picture of what can happen to a gay child whose father will not accept him for who he is.

Like most of Cronenberg’s work, Promises is not an easy film to read, and not everyone will walk away with the idea that Kirill is gay. But the overt homophobia demonstrated by the villains, the gay-baiting of Kirill and the tenderness of the hero to his situation tell the same story, even if the character ultimately is not himself gay.

If you’re going to make a film about repressed sexuality, exploring the source rather than simply using the unpleasant outcome as a narrative device is the only honorable approach, and of all these films, this is something that only Eastern Promises does well.