News, Reviews & Commentary on Gay and Bisexual Men in Entertainment and the Media

3:10 to Yuma

Two Gay Guys New and Improved: The Gay Villain Edition

You'll notice that this week's Two Gay Guys vlog contains some fancy shmancy upgrades! Freed from the tyranny of being tied to our desktop computer, we actually shoot on location and use all kinds of lame fancy camera work! Alas, our acting skills are, well, you'll see.

Inspired by the coded gay subtext in the new western 3:10 to Yuma, Brent and I discuss Hollywood's long, ignoble history of using gay stereotypes and cliches to make villains that much more dastardly. And perhaps we reenact some clips from Brokeback Mountain along on the way. We're practically dead ringers for Heath and Jake after all. If you squint. And have vision that is 800/800. And glaucoma. Oh, shut up!


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Gay boys dig sports, Torchwood debuts, Jodie Foster disappoints, and more!
Creepy gay subtext rides again in this remake of the 1957 western.

The next gay-subtext train leaves at 3:10


As though we haven't had enough gay-seeming characters or gay-subtext buddy relationships in movies lately, there's another on its way to theatres in James Mangold's remake of the 1957 Western 3:10 to Yuma. And in this case, he gets to be creepy, gay-ish, AND murderous!

That's right, in Russell Crowe's new movie, Ben Foster (Six Feet Under, X-Men: The Last Stand) plays Charlie Prince, Crowe's loyal henchman. In his review of the movie, Variety's Todd McCarthy says this about Foster's character:

"With his albino coloring, pinched mouth, reedy voice and remorseless wall-eyes, Foster's lightning-draw killer brandishes a dementia amplified by an intense loyalty to Ben that gently borders on homoeroticism; he'll do anything for his boss, for some reasons that are clear and for some that must be intuited."

How fresh does that sound? Word is he even gets mocked as "Princess" by some of the other characters. Like the rest of America, you're no doubt sick of all the gay cowboys populating the old west, heroically pushing back the frontier. How fresh to instead have a character who isn't actually gay, but has homoerotic undertones to heighten his creepy villainy! Talk about breakthrough! Maybe the movie will be really daring and having him be brutally killed in the exciting climax!


Foster has kind of become a go-to for off-kilter characters of all stripes, but his gayish ones certainly get him the most attention (remember him on Six Feet Under as Clair's bisexual boyfriend?). And sure, this character may not be gay at all, but if audiences are walking away from the movie thinking he's gay, then there's something there that merits discussion. What's up, Hollywood? Is gay-seeming the new gay? Er ... again?


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