2.
Cruising
1980
Dir. William Friedkin
When Al Pacino goes undercover to find a murderer who has been targeting gay men around New York’s S&M scene, he becomes deeply involved with its cast of characters. Director William Friedkin was criticized for creating an uninformed, Hollywood-version of gay life. At the time, gay rights groups protested the movie, fearful that it would spread homophobia and even create a rise in hate crimes (gay=killer, would translate into anti-gay violence). As activist and author Vito Russo explained, "Gays who protested the making of the film maintained that it would show that when Pacino recognized his attraction to the homosexual world, he would become psychotic and begin to kill." When the film was re-released in 2007, it was greeted as a fascinating time capsule (it was released a year before the first AIDS cases were diagnosed) and recently queer filmmaker Travis Mathews collaborated with James Franco on a film, titled Interior. Leather Bar., that pays homage to the now-classic.
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