Gay Athletes Hit the Big Screen

"The gay thing was obviously very different. That was a separator. That meant I didn't do stuff with other players. That meant that I would be [hit on] by women when I went out. And so I just avoided those environments and stayed in my house a lot, which did create some separation."

-- John Amaechi in a recent interview with OutSports.com

"D.J. lived alone in a condo in Thousand Oaks and kept to himself on the road. He never went to Omar's in Cleveland or out drinking. Mostly he went to the movies or just stayed in the room and watched TV. Sometimes he shot a round of golf, but that was about it."

-- From The Dreyfus Affair by Peter Lefcourt

To anyone who has read Peter Lefcourt's novel The Dreyfus Affair, the comments of John Amaechi, former NBA player and recently out gay man, may sound familiar. Lefcourt's 1992 novel is the story of Randy Dreyfus, a tall, blond, all-American baseball shortstop with a wife and two daughters, who finds himself having unexpected feelings for his closeted, black second baseman, D.J. Pickett. As the relationship between the two men develops, the book becomes a romance, a comedy, a satire of celebrity and the media, and an exploration of homophobia in sports and in America more generally.

The book was a national bestseller when it was published, and Lefcourt has since described it as "of all my books … the one that lives on." Interest in a movie version has been perennial, with Ben Affleck at one point considering the role of Randy. But one criticism that has been made of the story in the past is that while the character of Randy is fleshed out, D.J. remains a shadowy, vague figure.

The story is mostly told from the point of view of Randy, who in many ways makes an easy figure for straight readers to identify with. Prior to the events of the novel, Randy has lived a straight life, thought of himself as straight, and even been somewhat homophobic. On the other hand, D.J. knew he was gay since age 13 and has never been with a woman.

John Amaechi's comments to OutSports.com are interesting for Dreyfus fans partly because they indicate how spot-on Lefcourt (who is straight) was in imagining the isolation that might result from being a closeted gay player. But also because they help to flesh out and give concrete details to the experience of someone such as D.J.

If The Dreyfus Affair has tended in the past to feel a bit like a breezy fantasy, it is partly because the idea of one athlete coming out (let alone two, on the same team, coming out as lovers) has seemed so very unlikely. But with Amaechi's coming-out, his comment that he knows more than 10 other people associated with the NBA who are queer, Charles Barkley's insistence that he has played with people who are gay, and Tim Hardaway's extreme aversion to the idea of an openly gay teammate, the time seems ripe for a movie that takes a look at gay men and homophobia in sports.

And in fact, several such projects are currently in the works. But it is probably not a coincidence that the only one yet to have reached the filming stage is an independent Canadian production, not an American studio feature. Nor that it deals with an athlete who is retired rather than one who is an active player.

Based on Michael Downing's 1999 novel of the same name, Breakfast With Scot is the story of a gay couple — a sports lawyer and a former hockey player-turned-sportscaster — who takes on the task of raising an effeminate, 11-year-old boy. Although the movie does not yet have a U.S. distributor or release date, it is due to be released in Canada this fall.

Interestingly, the sports angle is something that has been invented for the film. In the original novel, the two men are a New Age chiropractor and an editor for a pretentious Italian art magazine — occupations that come much closer to being stereotypically gay. (The book's characters live in Cambridge, Mass., not in Canada).

Since the film's official website describes the men as "a very straight gay couple" and the IMDb.com plot summary describes the boy, Scot, as "more out of the closet than they are even though he does not know it yet," it seems likely that the sports angle has been introduced partly to create a comic contrast between the ultra-masculine gay couple and the effeminate boy they are raising.

The film is still in production, so it is difficult to know exactly how central the sports theme will be to the plot, but because the original novel involves Scot causing embarrassment with the couple's conservative neighbors, it seems likely that in the film version Scot will force the couple to come out further than they have before in the sporting world, thus raising the issue of homophobia in sports. In addition, the film's website states, "This thoughtful comedy takes a look at homosexuality in professional sports and society's resistance to accepting gay heroes."