Hollywood De-Gays Another Movie

Hollywood has a dismal history of de-gaying both historical and fictional characters in the movies. The Agony and The Ecstasy gave us Charlton Heston as a straight Michelangelo with a mistress and Night and Day where Cary Grant played Cole Porter as a straight war hero are two of the more ludicrous examples. A few years ago the Trojan spectacular, Troy with Brad Pitt, turned Achilles and Patroclus into cousins!!

And they still won’t quit. Coming soon to a theater near you is the film adaptation of openly gay science fiction writer David Gerrold’s The Martian Child. Gerrold’s book was based on his own experience as a single gay parent who adopted a problem child who was convinced that he was from the planet Mars. The father’s sexuality was a major part of the book but the makers of the new film version, starring John Cuzack, seem to have deemed this theme irrelevant and has jettisoned the whole queer angle and made the father straight.

Well, I suppose we can’t risk getting the evangelicals of this country upset by making a movie that presents gay parenting in a positive way, can we? As always, Hollywood panders to the lowest common denominator. What could have been a groundbreaking film has now been irreparably lessened and that is sad.

~ by klemmre9 on October 21, 2007.