This 46-year-old, (now 47-year-old) lifelong gay native of Fort Worth saw this movie when I was 21 years old. I liked it and I didn't like it even then. Gay what? What is 'gay'? Anyway, I enjoyed many things about this movie just as much as I could complain about just as many more that I didn't like. I think that John Hurt and Ryan O'Neil deserved to be shown better than they were shown in "Partners."
WARNING: What follows is a big rambling digression from my "Partners" comments. (Updated by original poster on Dec. 30, 2008)
______
I had seen the movie "Ode To Billie Joe" with my gay parent and my straight sister when it first came out in 1976. We all had known gay people for many years. In those days, the idea of being 'gay' was still kept private and only spoken of in close circles. Times were evolving then, just as they are still evolving now.
In my experience back in those days, one's own "gayness" was not talked about openly unless they had a desire to tell their story on Television. In the early to mid 1970s a lot of different kinds of people wanted to be on TV or something like that. I do admire those early open pioneers.
Back in the day I remember that 'gayness' (whatever that means) was respected by those who matter. Nobody ever had to make an issue of it, just as I have never done.
Neither my gay parent nor I or anybody else cared to talk about our personal business, and it was good in a way and it still is.
I had always loved the Bobbie Gentry song that inspired the movie since it was released in 1968. I had to see this movie, of course.
I rather understood the idea of Billy Joe's situation and that of the other characters because the story was told from a 1950's rural Mississippi perspective. Later in my life, it was suggested that the end was the particularly offensive part because of a line that was spoken by one of the main characters, and I still agree with that observation. (Though, if the viewer takes into account the locale and time period of the story, the line is actually respectful of the person considering the place and time)
Over My 46 years I've seen a lot of movies with gay characters and the only one I ever respected for that effort is "Victor/Victoria" (1982).
I didn't care too much for "The Birdcage" (1996) in spite of the talented people that participated in the making of the movie. I despised Nathan Lane's character (though Lane later redeemed himself as a gay/?/ man in the cable series "Sex And The City"). To me, the only good thing about "The Birdcage" was Gene Hackman's stellar performance as the conservative U.S. Senator.
In 1973 a wise women said: "Everybody thinks and feels differently as the years go by, don't they"
John Martin, 46, Fort Worth, Texas
