The Year in Gay Movies

Posted by

on December 16, 2008

"... and a protest in a pear tree-ee-ee-eeeee...."

Another year, another twelve months of movies gay, gay-inclusive, gay-seeming, gay-adjacent, post-gay ... and just plain queer. Each year we take pause at the holiday season to reflect on the cinematic gifts that the months have brought us, and this year I've decided to bring these gifts to you in the form of a beloved Christmas song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas".

So enjoy AfterElton.com's first gay entertainment yuletide carol, and our take on the year's best and worst gay-interest movies.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

Twelve Teens a-Twirling (High School Musical 3, Were the World Mine)

This year singing and dancing teens were all the rage, both in mainstream fare and in the hallways of jazz-hand-friendly gay film. First, box office and teen magazine hog High School Musical 3 brought the series' gay-coded character, Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) to the cineplex with his pinkwashing intact. Sure, the character wasn't officially gay (again), but come on, when they put the pansy in pink they're not exactly being subtle with their indicators.

Meanwhile, on the gay indie circuit one of the most inventive and ambitious films of the year was a high-school-set gay musical fantasy called Were the World Mine. The film garnered praise for its spirit and defiance of gay genre cliches, and most were willing to forgive its scrappiness in light of what it was able to accomplish with such limited means (and all the cute shirtless guys singing and making out didn't hurt).

The lesson here? Both the gay kids and the straight kids like to ball-step-change their way through the halls between classes ... just not in the same movie.

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

Eleven Cults Occulting (Cthulhu)

Gay genre films are about as common as gay Mormons or gay Republican Senators. Actually, less. So imagine our delight when a gay supernatural horror movie came along and it didn't suck like the undead posterboys of Twilight.