Why Critics Malign Friedkin's The Boys in the Band and Why They Care Less About Children than Gays
The Pre-Woke Truth About Gays in the Movies 1960-1990
THE BOYS IN THE BAND (1970; William Friedkin)
At the time of it’s original release, gay papers complained bitterly about the stereotypes and the portrayal of gays in TBITB as if those characteristics did not exist in gay men and that their Cinderella story couldn’t be told that way. One reviewer called it “straight world anti-homosexual” and “a mishmash of sordid neurosis”1 . And even today, IMDB still calls it a ‘mostly negative portrayal of a group of gay men’. Their one sentence synopsis deceptively states, “Tempers fray and true selves are revealed when a heterosexual accidentally intrudes on a homosexual party”, blaming all the poor behavior of others on the one straight character!
What critics don’t know and what gays never admit to is that we love stereotypes when we’re not hating on them because when they don’t remind us of our flaws or idiosyncrasies, they are often the same as parody.
I would wager that if the mood were right, every gay man would be willing to act more faggy than he normally is because it’s funny. I know it’s true because I’ve experienced it a million times and not just as a spectator. I have knowingly, and very deliberately pranced, minced and have spoken with extreme fussiness, not as a way of being more myself, but as playful mocking or as a way to identify. I have also been on the receiving end of verbal abuse from people like queen Michael whose presence dominates this film. These behaviors aren’t ‘straight world’ fantasy, but come right from the gay source.
We gays are the ones who can justifiably make fun of ourselves and admit the accuracy of stereotypes, so hooray for them because they reveal the essence of what is true and what can be amplified at will—for fun or not.
The problem with TBITB is that gay critics were resentful that the actual domestic behavior of gays was on display for audiences to see. Up until then, those riotous soirées were private and then suddenly all those soiled underpants were hung on the line for everyone to see. What gay wants that? I doubt that William Friedkin lost sleep over any hurt feelings in the process of revealing something honest because he certainly wasn’t trying to present to the world everything they need to know about gay men, something critics of the film should remember.
When Friedkin made the film over fifty years ago, our general population was prone to bigotry and disgust by the idea of homosexuality and there is no doubt that it was more difficult for gays to live a life free of persecution and shaming. The wear and tear on gay nerves must surely have taken its toll on the average homosexual’s sense of worth. It asks the question, how could a gay man be truly happy while living in a society that openly condemned him? TBITB takes place within this framework, but exists in the protected confines of an oasis that is free from judgment by straight people, but more open to vicious ridicule and shaming from within—that is, without the aid of bigots, or even the one straight man represented in the whole cast. TBITB proves that love, hate, and misery are equal opportunity states of mind.
Being the voyeur to a private gathering of these close gay male friends, is like being a spectator in a farcical surgical theater where ugly details are revealed and spoken of openly, brutally. Forgive the pun, but we become literal fruit flies on the wall, watching, listening and squirming at the verbal warfare, campy put-downs and mean-spirted psychological games that only gays who have no one else but each other can play. Written in an era of lingering oppression that undoubtedly led some to drink and experience unfathomable depths of self-loathing, it makes sense to me that when persecuted gays are amongst friends, camping it up comes easy as does letting off steam, which in the case of Michael (Kenneth Lane), means becoming a truly despicable queen.
The gathering is for the birthday of Harold (Leonard Frey), a self-described “ugly, pock-marked Jew fairy”. Among the other guests is the unexpected Alan (Peter White), an old friend of Michael’s who is straight. His presence represents only a microcosmic perception of an oppressive society, but more interestingly, he is accused by Michael of being a closet case, that old chestnut in which so many gays want to believe that good looking straight men are miserable gays who pretend to be heterosexual. (Does that still exist? It used to.) Maybe Alan is a closet case, but it hardly matches the abuses piled upon him and calls more attention to the damaged character of Michael than a man who might be resistant to coming out to a room full of semi-hysterical homosexuals who would undoubtedly hit him with more abuse if he did.
Mart Crowley is not playing around and doesn’t allow his gays to get away with very much. They are shallow, promiscuous, and mean, but also level-headed, loving and before they get too drunk, hilarious.
Like The Staircase, TBITB portrays its gay characters as imperfectly human, but also extremely bitchy and nasty—that’s what makes these films honest and not pure fantastical drivel like the rainbow-colored tripe that is programmed into the minds of children and woke cultists today. I don’t see anyone complaining about all the young girls and kids being cast as murderous psychos in horror movies. Why doesn’t anyone stand up to that ‘misrepresentation’? There are literally more killer children in movies than there are killer homosexuals. Imagine if all those juicy child psycho roles were rewritten for gays? Would the activist stand for it? What does this say about our society when children can be so thoughtlessly exploited, atomized and made to be disconnected, but the critical world can’t handle a few drunk queens or the fact that gay people can be just as awful as everyone else?
It says a lot about critics who give classic films like this negative reviews or try to discredit them only because they don’t want to accept that unbecoming character traits and flaws exist in gay people. One wonders why the increasing number of entitled gay narcissists of today don’t see more of themselves in these characters and look at this classic with more affection.
Gay, April 13, 1970. “The Bores in the Band” by Peter Ogren