How many remember Costa-Gavras’s “Z”, a film released about 1970? The hero is the leftist, idealistic physician and Greek parliamentary politician played by Yves Montand. He is eventually assassinated by a couple of rightest thugs, the more brutal of whom is conspicuously homosexual with a predelection for adolescent boys. The story would not be so written today.

There was the 1971 Bond film “Diamonds Are Forever” where Blofeld’s 2 offbeat assassins, Mr. Wynt and Mr. Kidd I think they were called, were homosexuals. Their homosexuality was made out to be a funny joke though.

There was a cadre of homosexual villains (police officers involved in some kind of secret assassination squad) in the second Dirty Harry movie, Magnum Force, made in the early seventies (a terrible movie by the way).

Why, exactly, would it be a good thing to bring back gay villains? I thought we were past this.

There are all kinds of villains who could be dramatised in film and literature who aren’t. Take Communists. Over the last 50 years, there have been about, oh, 70,000 movies and television programs featuring Nazi villains, and about, by my count, ten movies about Communist villains. By the same token, there are some real homosexual villains in the world—spreaders of lies and hatred, spreaders of disease, killers and rapists of children—yet, generally (though Steve Sailer raises questions about this), the homosexual villain has vanished for reasons of political correctness. Now, given the fact that there is such a thing as human evil (and I assume the poster agrees with me that there is), then why should the distinctly homosexual forms of evil be given a whitewash?

In the Spring of 1968 (age 17), I saw a film about a New York City private eye titled P.J. It starred George Peppard. The movie was entertaining, good for it’s genre. I would classify it with Harper, Bullitt, and others of the period. However, it was heavily cut for network release and is not shown on the numerous movie channels, nor is it on video.

Why is this so? During the movie, P.J. (Peppard) goes into a homosexual bar in NYC. The patrons are very unpleasant people. They try to beat up the hero, who fights back and prevails in a very brutal battle, (cut in network release) though not that bad by today’s standards. One wonders, is this movie no longer in circulation because it has some (it was only a small part of the movie) unpleasant homosexual characters? Does anyone else remember seeing this movie in a theater?

I can think of a number of fine movies that are not shown, or rarely shown, because of this, or similar, ideological taboos. One example, which after not being shown at all for many years, has appeared several times on TCM, but has not received recognition for the classic it is, is the 1959 movie “Odds Against Tomorrow.” A minor subplot involves a homosexual criminal attracted to the character played by Harry Belafonte, who reacts as a normal man would have reacted in 1959… a no-no. Another example is an extremely good mystery, “The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun” made about 1970. The plot involves a woman who has recently suffered a mental breakdown, which, it is disclosed in a flashback, was precipitated by guilt over an abortion. It has not been shown since the 1980s.

On Tuesday at 1:30pm ET, TCM is showing The Woman on Pier 13. This 1949 film noir is about a former Communist party member (played by Robert Ryan) being blackmailed by his former associates. Seeing it now, you are struck by the strong anti-Communist stance of the movie. This is another film not shown for many years that now appears occasionally on TCM.

Several films with gay villains that are frequently shown on television: The Maltese Falcon, The Detective, Freebie and the Bean, The Conformist. There are dozens of others.

Something that might explain the missing scenes from some films: Several TV stations bought their prints in an era where anything socially or sexually provacative (whether it was pro or con anything) was cut. These prints are still in circulation. The films mentioned are pretty minor and are unlikely to be restored or released on video. I doubt that political correctness had anything to do with it since the films were no doubt edited before anyone was concerned about offending gay people.

Recent film Mystic River has a pair of homosexual villains (pedophiles) as does the recent mini-series The Boys of St. Vincent (about pedophile priests). There’s also The Jackel (Bruce Willis is sexually fluid and also a sociopath)and Basic Instinct (bisexual killer). The gay content in these films is never obscured when they are shown on television.

Also, many films marketed to gay people have gay villains in them: Frisk (murderer/mutilator), Swoon (Leopold and Loeb - sex killers), The Velocity of Gary (speading AIDS).

I think the issue here is the assumption -in the past - that homosexual=evil. Since this is obviously not true, this trope fell out of fashion. It’s the same kind of realization - call it political correctness if you must - that discourages filmmakers from portraying black characters as thugs, women as femmes fatales and Jews as greedy. Of course these things are true about some people, but the negative stereotypes do serious damage.

The reason that I bristle at this whole question is the suggestion that it would be, somehow, a good thing that homosexual villains appear more often.

The poster with the ridiculous pen name is assuming that I began this thread with the notion that homosexuality simply equals evil and ought to be portrayed as such. Not true. Here is the comment that I linked in the original entry:

“Back in the ‘50s, before homosexual liberation, when liberals disapproved of homosexuality, when the ex-Communist Howard Fast wrote the novel Spartacus in which the oppressive Roman ruling class is rife with homosexuality, and in which Spartacus’s nemesis Marcus Crassus (played in the movie by Laurence Olivier), was fictionalized into a modern “fascist”-style ruler who is homosexual, Norman Mailer wrote an essay on the literary figure of “the homosexual villain.” Of course, homosexual villains have completely disappeared from literature and movies in the last 30 years or so. Maybe it’s time to bring them back?”

There are three ideas at work in this comment. First, I was saying that there are wicked homosexuals, driven by hatred and resentment, who seek to implant a spirit of ugliness in our culture. The screenwriters of the Reagan movie are an example; I’d say a number of the reporters on the New York Times are another. Second, I was noticing that in the ’50s, liberals themselves often had quite negative views of homosexuality, but that, apparently due to the whole shift of our culture, such portrayals have become a no-no. And third, I was saying, in a humorous tone but with core of seriousness, that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to bring such portrayals back, just as it would be nice to see some portrayals of evil leftists, instead of the constant diet of evil white conservatives, evil white authority figures, evil white husbands, evil white fathers, and so on.

Now the poster with the ridiculous pen name, “Six Foot Pole,” mentioned a number of movies which he says disproves the idea that portrayals of evil homosexuals no longer exist or are censored. I’m not familiar with most of them. But in the one movie that I do know, The Maltese Falcon, the Peter Lorre character is hardly a villain but an engaging exotic rogue, charming in a seamy, Central European sort of way. So it’s possible my assumption (that homosexual villains are censored today) is wrong, but I’m not yet convinced of it.

In any case, I think this discussion has been worthwhile.

Not to belabor this, but I agree with Mr. Auster about “Maltese Falcon”: I don’t see clearly homosexual characters in it. Mr. Auster thought “Six Foot Pole” meant Peter Lorre; I was thinking he meant Sidney Greenstreet. Neither was identifiable as a homosexual, as nearly as I can recall (I’ll pay more attention next time I see the film on TV).

On another subject, Mr. Auster wrote,

“There are three ideas at work in this comment. First, I was saying that there are wicked homosexuals, driven by hatred and resentment, who seek to implant a spirit of ugliness in our culture.”

“Six Foot Pole,” I wonder what your motivation was in using that homosexually-oriented pen name to post comments on a serious, non-homosexual (non-sexual at all, of course) web-site such as this one, rather than reserving it solely for sites appropriate to it, switching to a pen name more respectful of non-sexual sites when posting on non-sexual blogs? Is it possible your motivation had partly to do with a tendency to be “driven by hatred and resentment,” and a wish “to implant a spirit of ugliness in our culture”?

They are in the movies for teenagers. Pulp Fiction and Ace Ventura had them. So did at least two Gibson movies: Braveheart and the Road Warrior.

Yeah, there was that torture scene in Pulp Fiction (which I didn’t see—I walked out of the movie before that point and heard about it later), and the Prince Edward’s supercilious boyfriend in Braveheart, who gets thrown out of a window by the outraged King, probably the biggest anti-homosexual moment in modern cinema.

There seem to be enough exceptions piling up to put my initial premise in doubt. But when we remember the far stronger trend on the other side—the repeated presentation of gay characters as not just virtuous, but as the symbols of virtue and emotional maturity in an otherwise depraved neurotic society—I’m not sure how significant the exceptions are.

There is a surprising amount of homosexual villainy and satire around although I am drawing mostly a blank. Recall the evil, effete Tim Roth character in Rob Roy or the evil, fat Baron in Dune or the homosexual Turkish captor of Lawrence of Arabia or Kevin Costner’s mean prison co-escapee in A Perfect World. On Seinfeld the characters were surprised by discovering someone was homosexual and said, “Not that there is anything wrong with that.” Thank goodness many eyes are still rolled on TV and in film. But there is no doubt a government backed effort to legitimize homosexuality, which has no true goodness.

Speaking of British Royalty, if the latest tell-tale stuff about Prince Charles has any validity, maybe this would mark a return to the homosexual villain?

http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7821930%255E13780,00.html

I don’t know what this Prince Charles flap is all about (apparently an allegation of a homosexual act?), but I do know this: the readiness of royal retainers and employees to publish private secrets, scandals, and outright lies about the royal family represents a major breakdown of society. If you can’t trust anyone, if your own servants are likely to publish a book about your embarrassing or scandalous private activities, how can the royal family, how can any institution function?

Lawrence Auster:
Your response to my post proved my point. Well done!

How is a Six Foot Pole homosexual? ??!!

What was “SixFootPole’s” point, and how have I proved it?

Some of the comments on this subject have mentioned a surprising number of cases of homosexuals being portrayed as villains in recent movies; nevertheless, Mr. Auster’s point that this is rather contrary to the general ideological trend seems to me to be valid. Some of the remarks, however, seem to show a lack of familiarity with the traditional censorship pattern. Up to the late 1950s, the mere mention of homosexuality was verboten—, though in a few cases imaginative movie makers may have gotten round the ban. A film of the vintage of “The Maltese Falcon” could not directly present any characters as homosexual, but I gather that many people think that Greenstreet and Lorre’s characters were intended to be perceived as that. As far as I can remember, once the subject could be mentioned homosexuality was always presented as bad or at least unfortunate up to about 1970.

“Six Foot Pole” meant me, of course, not Mr. Auster. In any event, I’m not going to play his game here. I stand by my previous post.

Re Mr. Levine’s point, I don’t think a movie character in the old days had to be literally designated as a homosexual in order to be implicitly understood as being a certain type that shared stereotypical homosexual traits, and thus was, to a certain degree, symbolically homosexual. Perhaps the Clifton Webb character in Laura would be an example. Even though he is portrayed as being in love with Laura, and attempts to kill her because (as I remember) of jealousy, he is finicky, over-refined, cold, superior, and not part of the flow of things, and thus implicitly of a homosexual type, contrasted with the “brute, “primitive” police detective played by Dana Andrews who wins Laura’s heart.

Again, I’m not saying that the Webb character has to be seen as literally a homosexual or as a stand-in for a homosexual (any more than Scar in The Lion King has to be thought of as literally homosexual). That’s completely unnecessary for the understanding and enjoyment of the picture. But such a character nevertheless fits Norman Mailer’s idea of the “homosexual villain.”

Mr. Levine wrote,

“A film of the vintage of ‘The Maltese Falcon’ could not directly present any characters as homosexual, but I gather that many people think that Greenstreet and Lorre’s characters were intended to be perceived as that.”

I’m sure we’ll all watch that film partly with this in mind next time, to see if it holds water (I for one doubt I’ll agree that it does). What I want to say here is that homosexuals aren’t exactly innocent of the criticism often leveled at them, that too often “they see homosexuals wherever they look.” I’d say there’s no doubt but that homosexuals will perceive more homosexual characters in any given bunch of films than were intended or than reasonable heterosexual men will perceive. And it’s not only in films that homosexuals see homosexuality where no one else does. What great Greek or Roman personage of antiquity, what great artist or sculptor of the Italian Renaissance, what great English Elizabethan or Victorian literary figure, etc., etc., etc. wasn’t a homosexual in the eyes of some of them?

I also wanted to say I agreed completely with Mr. Auster’s point about these tell-all books that betray confidences directly involving the royal family and in-laws. I haven’t read any of them — can’t imagine anything more boring — but find the headlines about them that keep popping up a very unpleasant thing. No one since since the age of Voltaire and the French Encyclopedists ever said these folk who are born into royalty aren’t people just like everyone else. We know they have the same foibles we all have. But it’s the institutions that are deserving of respect.

Who can deny the comforting, strength-giving sense of security and reassurance that flows from the idea of the strong, intact, thousand-year-old British Crown, the same that Queen Elizabeth I wore and that never saw the setting of the sun from Victoria’s brow? (I put “strength-giving” because what diminshes chaos strengthens us in the pursuit of all our endeavors no matter what they may be.)

Only fools and knaves are Cheered by the sight of the British crown being sullied by the degenerateness of the modern world.

In response to Mr. Auster: You may have a point about the use of some character types in old movies as “symbolically homosexual.” (Clinton Webb himself, by the way, was homosexual.)
In response to Unadorned: I myself have never been able to decide if the characters in “The Maltese Falcon ” were actually intended to be seen that way. I agree fully that homosexuals, or people sympathizing with them “see” homosexuals everywhere, and often where they do not exist.
I can think of an interesting case of this in the movies. There was an excellent Western made in the late 1950s, “Warlock” (another case of a fine movie that is rarely seen.) Many “critics” viewing this movie have claimed that the relationship between two of the leading characters, played by Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn, was symbollically or latently or secretly homosexual. As far as I can make out, this was nonsense, with no basis in anything I saw on the screen, or, for that matter, the novel on which the film was based. I suspect, however, that this is why the film has not been shown very often.

I read The Maltese Falcon by Communist Party member Dashiell Hammett a few years ago, still a good read. In the novel, Kaspar Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) has a daughter. Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) seems to be a homosexual, though it doesn’t get in the way of the story.

In adapting the novel, John Huston pretty much transferred Hammett’s work directly to the screen, which works very well. Many directors change the book, usually to the film’s detriment. However, Gutman’s daughter isn’t in the film. It doesn’t hurt as this character isn’t necessary to the basic plot. Also, Huston didn’t have the Greenstreet character killed because Huston sort of liked him.

I never have thought that Greenstreet and Lorre’s characters were supposed to be in a homosexual relationship. I’ll have to see the movie and read the book again with this in mind.

I don’t think anyone here has inferred that Gutman and Cairo are in a homosexual relationship. The closest relationship among the crew is between Gutman and the “gunsel,” toward whom Gutman says he feels as if he were his son, but whom Guttman consents to turn over to the cops.

Mr. Levine wrote,

“I agree fully that homosexuals, or people sympathizing with them, ‘see’ homosexuals everywhere, and often where they do not exist.”

One not uncommonly proposed and pretty outrageous literary interpretation along these lines is that the relationship between the runaway slave Jim and Huckleberry Finn is either an active or a latent (depending on the particular liberal who is doing the interpreting) homosexual relationship. Talk about way out, that theory’s gotta be all the way out there on one of the more remote moons of the planet Neptune. (And, of course, it’s just as wrong as wrong could be, which is the most important thing to be said about it.)

And as everyone knows, there are scads of other examples of this phenomenon which we could all cite.

There is good reason to think, as a number of critics (not all homosexual and most writing before homosexualism became rampant in American culture) have, that Hammett alludes fairly clearly to a homosexual entanglement in The Maltese Falcon. I refer to the 1929 novel, not to any of the later movies. Joel Cairo, as I recall, does not figure in it at all, although he is at least as effete in the novel as Lorre played him in 1940. The liaison hinted at is between Gutman and his gunsel (boy toy?), Wilmer Cook. Moviegoers will remember Cook as the hapless kid whom Bogart’s Spade continually humiliates. Hammett drops some hints that his attitude owes at least something to far worse humiliations at Gutman’s hands.

Hammett, Commie that he was, was far more progressive than decent society of the 1920s. In Falcon, he makes it absolutely clear that Spade and Brigid O’Shaughnessy are having it off without benefit of clergy, which is one reason I believe he would not have shied away from hinting at homosexual misdeeds. For those who are interested, Hammett is at his best, and his best is very good indeed (Commie though he was), in his Continental Op stories, starring a short, fat, nameless sleuth in San Francisco in the 1920s (very authentic, as all were written in SF in the ’20s). They can be found in three collections, still in print: The Continental Op, The Big Knockover, and Nightmare Town. The Op also stars in a novel: The Dain Curse. I think Hammett is better writing the Op than Spade, even though both are loosely autobiographical characters. HRS

Interesting observations from Mr. Sutherland about the differences between the book and the movie of The Maltese Falcon.

“I agree fully that homosexuals, or people sympathizing with them, ‘see’ homosexuals everywhere, and often where they do not exist.”

I think this is both true in itself, and that it is typical of the general leftist tendency to mainstream the marginal so that the mainsteam ceases to exist as the mainstream. Consider the palpable schadenfreude among liberals whenever some horrible crime occurs or some major social disfunction spreads in a suburban or rural community, and the New York Times notes that the problems that these white suburbanites thought only existed among ghetto blacks are spreading to white suburbs as well—as though this were something to be happy about. (For leftists, whose aim is the destruction of society, it IS something to be happy about.) Similarly, there is the liberal observation that all morality is really hypocritical. The underlying, cultural-leftist effort is to deny the existence of a normative world. Finding homosexuality where it doesn’t exist is a part of that.

By the way, there actually is an essay called “The Homosexual Villain” in Mailer’s 1959 collection, Advertisements for Myself.

The one I’ve always wondered about is Father Tom in The Exorcist. He speaks somewhat effeminately, he plays the piano and sings like some showtune-loving fag, and there’s a scene in which he grabs the arm of a prostrate, emotionally-troubled Father Karras and holds on a little too long. Their eyes meet, something silent is said between them, and then Father Karras rolls over away from Father Tom and Tom leaves.

Am I naive in not pegging this as an overt homosexual scene, in which Father Tom is feeling out Father Karras for some sign of assent, or am I perceptive in picking up on this? *Or* am I simply reading way too much into the innocent, charitable love of Father Tom?

One Qualification. I have only read the book once, but have seen the film of The Maltese Falcon many times. I’m going to read the book again, soon. Yes, Gutman’s closest relationship is with the Gunsel. Also, Hammett’s Sam Spade is a more amoral character than Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. That’s how they have seemed to me.

Speaking of finding homosexuality where there is none, here is The Telegraph’s account of the bizarre non-story being spread about Prince Charles, and creating a huge to-do in Britain. So what’s new? Every week there’s another leftist “storm,” a huge lie about something or other, and then it’s exposed as a lie and two days later the left creates another “storm,” until it is discredited in its turn. (Think, e.g., the Iraqi museum looting; think the Joseph Wilson “revelation” of Bush’s “lie” about uranium.) Yet no matter how many such “storms” have occurred, each new storm is treated as having complete credibility. This is a key to the way left-liberal society is managed, and to the way it keeps breaking down whatever is left of the old order.

The devil is a liar, and the father of it. And leftism is the political form of evil.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$I50P1M3RPMMFLQFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2003/11/11/nchar11.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/11/11/ixhome.html

This tactic of trying to tar enemies of the left with homosexuality is decades old. It was tossed at Sen. McCarthy for instance.

Of course, as Mr. Auster has pointed out, back in Tailgunner Joe’s day liberals didn’t generally approve of homosexuality. But it’s a bizarre tactic to employ today. The left smears its opponents with charges of behavior they themselves enthusiastically endorse — and then label their victim the hypocrite.

I think there’s a logic to the tactic. The left is saying: “You conservatives profess moral standards, but you yourselves violate those same standards that you would impose on the rest of us. You are hypocrites and your moral standards are a fraud. In fact, all moral standards are a fraud, because no one can live up to them. So all of us should be free to do what we want.”

This view of the left’s intentions is supported by the fact that the left only cares about exposing moral failures in those who, according to the leftist “script,” represent authority or the old order.

So there’s no contradiction. Whether the left is attacking moral judgments, or making moral judgments, its purpose is to break down whatever remains of traditional authority and replace it with its own. The liberationism of the left, and the totalitarianism of the left, are part of one movement.

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/001529.html

About fifteen years ago, there was a piece in New York Magazine on John F. Kennedy by Pete Hamill. At one point Hamill wrote something like, “Because of America’s continuing sexual hypocrisy, Kennedy is today described as a womanizer.”

Hamill was saying that people who criticized JFK’s sexual shenanigans were hypocrites and phonies. This thinking came out in full force when American left-liberals went all-out in defense of Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky Affair.

Mr. Auster’s point is correct. I just think there’s a cold irony to the liberal potshots. Considered generally, they are at an advantage in their absense of traditional moral principles; you can’t flout principles you don’t have. Those who hold to Biblical morality are cognizant of our human failings in not being able to live flawlessly by those standards, yet we recognize that those ARE the correct standards.

The left calls this hypocrisy. But they don’t recognize the inherent sinfulness of man’s nature ; they don’t even recognize sin as such. So they can’t allow that it is the very shortcomings they point to (in those who acknowledge God’s Laws) that require those Laws to begin with — for everyone. The Ten Commandments weren’t given for the guidance of angels.

Correct. For the left, man’s shortcomings require that all Laws be abandoned. But in the meantime they will use those laws opportunistically to tear down any remaining traditional order.

Haven’t you noticed how eagerly liberals leap on any conservative principle and then try to apply it against conservatives? Half of their political arguments amount to finding contradictions or “hypocrisy” on the conservative side.

And now President Bush shows his conservatism by openly praising a gay church — this after his endorsement of “Marriage Protection Week.”

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35539

Talk about hypocrisy on the ‘conservative’ side! President Bush is a liberal.

I mean to say “a homosexual church.” Vigilance LeFevre, vigilance …

I expect the denizens of the homo-“church” were probably quite happy and gay about the propaganda value of Curious George’s bizarre missive, so Mr. LeFevre wasn’t wrong (for that instant) to speak of them as gay.

Seriously, where is our president? In matters foreign and domestic, he has a very strange order of priorities. I think his instinctive liberal incoherence is breaking through the “conservative” veneer he cultivated in order to get elected.

A disturbing turn of phrase in the WND article to which Mr. LeFevre links: Homosexualist agitator Elizabeth Birch speaks of “gay families.” How can a family, as opposed to a disoriented individual, be homosexual? Another concept we must all adapt to, no doubt. HRS