Villain (1971; Michael Tuchner)
The forced introduction of most gay characters in movies and television these days has done more to stereotype gays than all of the pasts most objectionable examples of gay stereotyping combined. Too many gay characters today are buffoons, narcissists, and extremist crybabies who no longer have to act like nelly faggots for the audience to understand. Now they just say, “I’m a nelly faggot”.
While acting like a flamejob has become more fashionable, it no longer has the power to communicate to an audience that a character is even gay when straight men are being portrayed as broken, despicable, unreliable, wastes of space who act like homos.
Think about that for a second. The self-righteous heroes of the world who worked so hard to pull homos out of the gutter, only replaced them with straight men who are now treated as if they are homosexuals of the 1950s.
Villain is an excellent example of how to introduce an audience to a gay character without it feeling like quota-filling or activist scriptwriting. Vic Dakin (Richard Burton) is a ruthless crime boss who also happens to be gay. We know he’s gay because he punches Wolfe (Ian McShane) hard in the stomach, bends him over and slams the bedroom door on the viewer. For a thug like Dakin, violent gay-macho foreplay is totally in character and adds a much needed dimension to the fairly routine story. This is a case where knowing a character’s sexuality makes it a better picture. Dakin expresses his sexuality on a strictly need to know basis, which is what makes this a film of interest to every imaginable gender. When we finally learn that Dakin’s gay, we can also start to understand his cold cruelty and visualize a past where he might have had to protect himself, harden himself to survive—and cleave to his mother who he now dotes on in her old age.
Dakin’s mother is the only person he allows himself to be human with. His tough exterior may be the perfect foil for his homosexuality, but in his line of work, that emotional detachment is also good for business. When his mother dies, it’s Wolfe he calls, saying, ‘I need you’. This is his weakness, his gayness and his humanity, desperate to survive even if it has to be in a gut-punching, besmirched kind of way. He aims at having it both ways, even the decor in his private boudoir of lush purple velvet and gold ornamentation is not complete without framed photos of men boxing. I do love the man’s consistency.
The doting gay son is not a new character for Richard Burton. He played one in Staircase (1969), that time harmless, fussy and devoid of street smarts, but just as doting on his poor, sick Mum. The mama’s boy may be the only shred of a stereotype to hang on Villain.
A moment when Dakin assesses himself in a bathroom mirror becomes a subtle way to express his sexuality through vanity. I like the uncomplicated expressions of this gay character. Villain states the obvious which is that gays come in all types. I love the clarity and simplistic brutality of Villain’s statement, but fifty + years later, attempts to represent all types have turned an understandable spectrum into the dog and pony show that it is today, making it impossible to adequately represent every mental and physical permutation of what is now classified as gay or queer.
The horrible irony is that the ideology that destroyed the old spectrum of diversity with their choose-your-own-adventure take on sexuality, really only funneled cult-minded identitarians into one solitary clearing house of crazy.