From: OUT
These movies depicted 'queer' experiences—but pissed off a whole lot of people in the process
Pictured: 'Blue Is The Warmest Color'
When Blue Is The Warmest Color, a French film directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, made its debut at Cannes last month, ultimately winning the top prize, viewers and critics were all a flutter over the long, graphic sex scenes between two young women. At the festival, it was celebrated for its daring portrayal of lesbian love, receiving multiple awards and praise. But for a film with such potential, many have since expressed reservations, feeling the heterosexual male director fell short of providing the audience with realistic depictions of lesbian sex.
Julie Maroh, the creator of the graphic novel Blue Angel, on which the film was based, was disappointed in the uninformed and pornographic elements of the sex scenes. On her blog, she wrote (in French): “This is what was missing on the set: lesbians.”
Some directors have taken the measure of hiring experts as Maroh suggests. On the set of Bound, for example, The Wachowskis hired sex educator Susie Bright to choreograph the lesbian sex scenes. They were praised for relying on realism instead of the male gaze in their portrayal of queer copulation. Blue wasn't the first time a straight director has let down the LGBTQ public and received a backlash of criticism. Here, we take a look back at some overzealous straight dude directors who pissed off moviegoers.
1.
Dressed to Kill
1980
Dir. Brian De Palma
When a culture has interest in reserving rights to the dominant group, a common tactic is depicting the “other” as mentally unstable, morally wrong, or dangerous. One manifestation of this is the cinemic trope of The Gay Villain—or even more specifically, The Creepy Cross-dresser. Exhibit A: Bobbi in Brian De Palma’s Hitchcock homage, Dressed To Kill. Just after a patient of his is murdered, therapist Robert Elliot (Michael Caine) receives angry messages from another patient, named Bobbi, a transgender woman with an unstable mind and a bad temper (who is played by Caine in drag).
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