On This Date In ISBL History:CBS Films Straight-Washes 'Pride'

As Carlos and I are in sunny Miami for business and pleasure, I thought I’d do something I’ll call “On This Date In ISBL History” and repost some things from back when the blog was new, and newish … this was originally published January 6, 2015:

CBS Films Straight-Washes 'Pride'

It was hard for a gay when I was a kid. I mean, I didn’t see myself on TV — there was no Will & Grace and Ellen or Cam and Mitchell, no Queer As Folk or Looking. The only remotely gay-ish characters were generally played by Terry-Thomas onscreen or Paul Lynde on television, so I thought being gay meant I had to wear paisley and ascots and velvet smoking jackets and talk with a lisp and call myself a “confirmed bachelor.”

That wasn’t me, but those are the only images I saw because The Gays were often scrubbed from movies since it was assumed that Mr. and Mrs. America didn’t want to see that kinda stuff when they went to the picture shows.

So it was common for gay characters and gay stories to be scrubbed clean of The Gay; gay characters were changed to straight, or the fact that they were gay in the books on which the films were based, was simply left out of the film adaptation altogether.

Like Corporal Fife in Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line. In the book by James Jones, you find Fife bunking in a shelter tent next to Private Bead, and the two decide to, ahem, “help each other out” one rainy night. Not so much in the film.

And what about Justin McLeod in The Man Without A Face? In Isabelle Holland’s book, the disfigured lead character was definitely gay, but when it came to selling the book to Hollywood, and noted homophobe Mel Gibson, who would direct the film and play McLeod, the character was suddenly heterosexual.

And we cannot forget the character of Ruth Jamison in Fried Green Tomatoes. In Fannie Flagg's 1987 novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe there is a very clear intimate lesbian relationship between Ruth and her girlfriend Idgie but suddenly in the film Ruth is hung up on a boy.

Even Ben-Hur was supposed to be gay! When it came to writing the script for the chariot epic starring Charlton Heston, Gore Vidal made note of a romantic connection in Lew Wallace's 1880 manuscript between Ben and his friend Messala. But, according to a letter Vidal received from Heston, he and director William Wyler wanted the gay erased from the script. Heston would not be playing gay.

Paul Newman’s Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was alleged to be gay, grieving the suicide of his ‘friend’ Skipper’ but the film remains ambiguous; Newman’s Brick is just a drunk.

And what about Celie in The Color Purple? In the film, Celie and Shug steal a kiss, though Whoopi Goldberg, who played Celie, says the kiss was simply about “love and tenderness ... It has nothing to do with lesbianism. It has to do with, her eyes are opened, now she understands." Funny then, that Alice Walker's novel takes the relationship a lot further than a kiss.

See what I mean, though? The Gays have been straight-washed from films for years; made straight, or maybe just made lonely and desperate for affection so they might share a kiss or a hand job to stave off the isolation. But times have changed, right? There are all kinds of gay characters in films; hell, there are entire films made about The Gays, and it’s a good thing.

But then, please to explain this: an LGBT film, with real LGBT characters, based on real-life LGBT people, has been closeted for its DVD release in America.

The film is a British import, Pride, based on the true story of a group of English gay and lesbian activists who stood in solidarity with coal miners during a 1984 strike. But the artwork, and the synopsis, for the film have been straight-washed for the American public for some reason.

The original synopsis for release in the UK, says:

“PRIDE is inspired by an extraordinary true story. It’s the summer of 1984, Margaret Thatcher is in power and the National Union of Mineworkers is on strike, prompting a London-based group of gay and lesbian activists to raise money to support the strikers’ families. Initially rebuffed by the Union, the group identifies a tiny mining village in Wales and sets off to make their donation in person…”

But the synopsis on the US DVD box says: 

“PRIDE is inspired by an extraordinary true story. It’s the summer of 1984 and much of blue-collar Great Britain is on strike. For one tiny Welsh village, the strike brings unexpected visitors – a group of London-based activists who decide to raise money to support strikers’ families and want to make their donations in person.”

And what about the artwork? The UK version — at the top — clearly has a sign about LGBT support of the miners, but the US version — at the bottom — has the sign removed; erased. No gays.

A rep for CBS Films, which acquired US rights, said the company is looking into the situation — which reads as ‘Oops, we got caught and now we’ll back-pedal” — and makes note that their website for the film keeps the LGBT in it.

How is it that we’re in 2014, and a major film-distribution company wants to straight-wash the gay references from a film that is based on a true story about gay people? And don't think the irony of straight-washing a film called 'Pride' is lost on anyone.

We think we’ve come so far but we’re still being marginalized by some folks who wish, maybe, we didn’t exist; at least when it comes to making them some money.

We saw this film on Showtime recently and the film is very gay, and by that I mean, it is the story of a group of LGBT activist who stood up for, and with, the miners.

But you’d never have known that by the CBS Films description.

Random Musings

I was at my dentist’s office this morning and while getting a cleaning, I lay back in the chair and they have covered their overhead lights with pictures.

Waterfalls and forests to make me forget that this girl I have never met is millimeters from my face with her hands in my mouth.

Peaceful, eh?

Last weekend we saw ‘Pride,’ a British film based on a true story about how LGBT advocates in England worked to help out miners during their lengthy strike of the National Union of Mineworkers in the summer of 1984.

It was a good film, but what I loved was a simple message early on about how, when you are a group of people being discriminated against, then it is your duty to help any other group suffering discrimination because if it isn’t ‘us’ feeling the pain, it’s someone else, and if it’s someone else, then you can guarantee that one day it’ll be ‘us’.

And it didn’t hurt that the film starred one Andrew Scott, left, and Ben Schnetzer, right.

Eye candy.

So, remember when the FBI was gonna sue Apple to unlock the terrorist’s phone, and Apple said they didn’t know how and I called BS?

Well, it might still be BS, but the FBI found a way to unlock the phone and now Apple says they want that technology.

I still call BS.

While we were watching the Bigots Of North Carolina, AKA the GOP, roll back anti-LGBT discrimination ordinances because, well, how dare anyone say The Gays and our Trans Brothers and Sisters need protection from discrimination, this happened in Delaware:

The state has quietly become the 15th in the nation to prohibit insurance companies from limiting health care coverage for transgender individuals; as a result, private insurers will no longer be allowed to deny, cancel, terminate or refuse to issue healthcare plans based on a person’s gender identity.

In addition, insurance companies will not be allowed to impose different premiums or rates based on a person’s identity and the policy in-hand applies to any person, even one undergoing gender reassignment surgery.

Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart issued a bulletin stating that a denial or cancellation will now be considered a violation under Delaware’s Unfair Trade Practices Act.

So, just a little reminder that not every state is North Carolina.

The march goes on …

The people that brought you Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder have unleashed a new slick sexy private eye caper to your TV sets, and it’s called The Catch.

I’d like to “catch” Alimi Ballard, top, Jacky Ido, bottom left, and Jay Hayden, bottom right, if you know what I mean.

Sam Nunberg was an aide to Donald [t]Rump and his campaign but he was fired for referring to Al Sharpton’s daughter using the N-word and referring to Obama as a “Kenyan Muslim” and “Socialist Marxist Islamo Fascist Nazi Appeaser.”

Nunberg has resurfaced to endorse Texas Senator Ted Cruz because, he now says, [t]Rump refused to distance himself from racists. So, um, Sam, why the endorsement?

“The last straws were the KKK Tapper interview.”

That was the CNN interview in which Trump did not disavow the support of former KKK leader David Duke but, seriously, someone like Sam Nunberg, who blatantly spews racist remarks expects anyone to believe he left [t]Rump for Cruz because of racism?

Bitch.Please.

From our Get The &%$@ Off Social Media comes the story of Brit Ben Innes pausing to take a selfie with suspected terrorist-hijacker-jilted-ex-husband, Seif Eldin Mustafa.

Yes, he did. He stood right beside Mustafa, who hijacked an EgyptAir plane, while Mustafa was wearing what, at the time, was believed to be a suicide belt.

Seriously? Reminds me of the time I stopped by Sharon Tate’s house and asked the Manson Family to take a snapshot with me while they were in the middle of murdering a group of people.

Seriously. It’s enough you Social media whores.

Great news in the area of trans visibility … Ben Melzer, second from right, has become the first trans person to ever cover a men’s fitness magazine by appearing on the cover of the April issue of Men’s Health Europe.

Bravo, sir, bravo!

Meanwhile, on the Hate Side of trans, “Stand with McCrory” — as in North Carolina Bigot Governor Pat McCrory — a new disgusting fundraising site paid for by the North Carolina Republican Senatorial Committee, features an image of the Bigot Governor and a man—one of those nonexistent trans predators they’re trying to scare everyone about—entering a women’s bathroom.

Fear.Mongers. The site then says:

“Stand with Gov. McCrory and PROTECT OUR CHILDREN: The ACLU and other radical, left-wing special-interest groups are suing North Carolina to create an extreme national mandate forcing women and young girls to share locker rooms and bathrooms with grown men. Thank NC Governor Pat McCrory and Legislative Leaders for fighting to keep our children safe and passing a common-sense law to stop grown men from sharing locker rooms and bathrooms with young girls.”

I think McCrory needs to sit down, and hopefully, come November, the good people of North Carolina will send him packing and put a Democrat in his place.

CBS Films Straight-Washes 'Pride'

It was hard for a gay when I was a kid. I mean, I didn’t see myself on TV — there was no Will & Grace and Ellen or Cam and Mitchell, no Queer As Folk or Looking. The only remotely gay-ish characters were generally played by Terry-Thomas onscreen or Paul Lynde on television, so I thought being gay meant I had to wear paisley and ascots and velvet smoking jackets and talk with a lisp and call myself a “confirmed bachelor.”

That wasn’t me, but those are the only images I saw because The Gays were often scrubbed from movies since it was assumed that Mr. and Mrs. America didn’t want to see that kinda stuff when they went to the picture shows.

So it was common for gay characters and gay stories to be scrubbed clean of The Gay; gay characters were changed to straight, or the fact that they were gay in the books on which the films were based, was simply left out of the film adaptation altogether.

Like Corporal Fife in Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line. In the book by James Jones, you find Fife bunking in a shelter tent next to Private Bead, and the two decide to, ahem, “help each other out” one rainy night. Not so much in the film.

And what about Justin McLeod in The Man Without A Face? In Isabelle Holland’s book, the disfigured lead character was definitely gay, but when it came to selling the book to Hollywood, and noted homophobe Mel Gibson, who would direct the film and play McLeod, the character was suddenly heterosexual.

And we cannot forget the character of Ruth Jamison in Fried Green Tomatoes. In Fannie Flagg's 1987 novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe there is a very clear intimate lesbian relationship between Ruth and her girlfriend Idgie but suddenly in the film Ruth is hung up on a boy.

Even Ben-Hur was supposed to be gay! When it came to writing the script for the chariot epic starring Charlton Heston, Gore Vidal made note of a romantic connection in Lew Wallace's 1880 manuscript between Ben and his friend Messala. But, according to a letter Vidal received from Heston, he and director William Wyler wanted the gay erased from the script. Heston would not be playing gay.

Paul Newman’s Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was alleged to be gay, grieving the suicide of his ‘friend’ Skipper’ but the film remains ambiguous; Newman’s Brick is just a drunk.

And what about Celie in The Color Purple? In the film, Celie and Shug steal a kiss, though Whoopi Goldberg, who played Celie, says the kiss was simply about “love and tenderness ... It has nothing to do with lesbianism. It has to do with, her eyes are opened, now she understands." Funny then, that Alice Walker's novel takes the relationship a lot further than a kiss.

See what I mean, though? The Gays have been straight-washed from films for years; made straight, or maybe just made lonely and desperate for affection so they might share a kiss or a hand job to stave off the isolation. But times have changed, right? There are all kinds of gay characters in films; hell, there are entire films made about The Gays, and it’s a good thing.

But then, please to explain this: an LGBT film, with real LGBT characters, based on real-life LGBT people, has been closeted for its DVD release in America.

The film is a British import, Pride, based on the true story of a group of English gay and lesbian activists who stood in solidarity with coal miners during a 1984 strike. But the artwork, and the synopsis, for the film have been straight-washed for the American public for some reason.

The original synopsis for release in the UK, says:

“PRIDE is inspired by an extraordinary true story. It’s the summer of 1984, Margaret Thatcher is in power and the National Union of Mineworkers is on strike, prompting a London-based group of gay and lesbian activists to raise money to support the strikers’ families. Initially rebuffed by the Union, the group identifies a tiny mining village in Wales and sets off to make their donation in person…”

But the synopsis on the US DVD box says: 

“PRIDE is inspired by an extraordinary true story. It’s the summer of 1984 and much of blue-collar Great Britain is on strike. For one tiny Welsh village, the strike brings unexpected visitors – a group of London-based activists who decide to raise money to support strikers’ families and want to make their donations in person.”

And what about the artwork? The UK version — at the top — clearly has a sign about LGBT support of the miners, but the US version — at the bottom — has the sign removed; erased. No gays.

A rep for CBS Films, which acquired US rights, said the company is looking into the situation — which reads as ‘Oops, we got caught and now we’ll back-pedal” — and makes note that their website for the film keeps the LGBT in it.

How is it that we’re in 2014, and a major film-distribution company wants to straight-wash the gay references from a film that is based on a true story about gay people? And don't think the irony of straight-washing a film called 'Pride' is lost on anyone.

We think we’ve come so far but we’re still being marginalized by some folks who wish, maybe, we didn’t exist; at least when it comes to making them some money.

via THR and Mental Floss