{"id":74,"date":"2009-11-28T12:31:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-28T19:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ekrap.com\/?p=74"},"modified":"2026-03-02T02:54:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T06:54:32","slug":"boys-in-the-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ekrap.com\/?p=74","title":{"rendered":"Well, THAT’S the pot calling the kettle “beige”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"boys_in_the_band1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I thought “The Boys in the Band” would be a campy ridiculous movie, redeemed only by its groundbreaking status as one of the first mainstream films that dealt with homosexuality.\u00a0 Instead I found it to be thoughtful, serious, well-written, and brilliantly-acted.\u00a0 Its dubious reputation is the result of homophobic film reviewers (the dark side of Pauline Kael) and the fact that, as gay liberation blossomed, the gay community felt a need to distance itself from the subject of self-loathing.<\/p>\n

In terms of camp, many primetime t.v. shows now feature outre gay characters for comic effect.\u00a0 Every “Will & Grace” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” owes an immense debt to Mart Crowley (writer, producer) and William Friedkin (director).\u00a0\u00a0 The point to this campiness in 1970 was to establish that this was not going to be a film about assimilation, about how gay people are just like anyone else except maybe more sad.\u00a0 Instead this film would show a (literal) walled garden where gay men acted as they would were nobody watching.<\/p>\n

The result was pathos, similar in tone to “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966). in which the reigning heterosexual king and queen of the movies, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, exposed a self-loathing just as deep.<\/p>\n

The plot is strikingly similar, an outsider arrives and witnesses the reality that lies beneath surface appearances.\u00a0 In “The Boys in the Band” Peter White, as straight college chum Alan,\u00a0 plays the naif role that belonged to George Segal and Sandy Dennis in “Woolf”.\u00a0 Both movies started as stage plays and feature strong acting ensembles.<\/p>\n

Leonard Frey, as Harold, the “thirty-two year-old, ugly, pockmarked Jew fairy” is particularly compelling.\u00a0 And I just don’t see performances like Kenneth Nelson’ as Michael – breaking down at the end of the movie when the reality of his situation hits him – in movies today.\u00a0 Maybe I am watching the wrong movies.\u00a0 The film ends with a note of hope: after Harold verbally demolishes\u00a0 hypocritical, abusive Michael, he leaves and as he is going says “Call you tomorrow…”\u00a0 underscoring that their friendship will survive even this .\u00a0 I have to admit to envying the depth of their connection, most friendships between heterosexual men, mine included, seem mannered and fearful in comparison.<\/p>\n

“The Boys in the Band” highlights for me the terrible treatment gays have received up until a short time ago.\u00a0 As I’ve mentioned before,\u00a0 the good old days weren’t so good for gays, blacks or anyone different.\u00a0 Which causes me to think about which groups are marginalized today in a way that we won’t acknowledge as a society until decades hence.\u00a0 I think certainly animals: Jonathan Safer Foer’s “Eating Animals” seemed to me to be a necessary call-out to Michal Pollan’s evasive “Omnivore’s Dilemma”. I struggle with this issue practically daily and haven’t been able to convert to vegetarianism.\u00a0\u00a0 Other groups might include the physically ugly –\u00a0 the greatest most-unspoken discrimination ever I think, the aged, and, in terms of sexuality, BDSM practitioners, acceptance of whom is slowly becoming more mainstream, at least if you go by porn as a leading indicator.<\/p>\n

Most of the actor’s in “The Boys in the Band” died in the first part of the AIDS epidemic.\u00a0 To me they were brave, and their work showed us a glimpse into “real” life,\u00a0 often I think art, movies, films, culture are the only true public glimpse into what’s actually going on people’s heads.\u00a0 To dismiss “The Boys in the Band” as campy self-loathing says more about the reviewer than the film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought “The Boys in the Band” would be a campy ridiculous movie, redeemed only by its groundbreaking status as one of the first mainstream films that dealt with homosexuality.\u00a0 Instead I found it to be thoughtful, serious, well-written, and …<\/p>\n

Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,6,7,20,1],"tags":[65,66,67],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-60s","category-6","category-70s","category-nyc","category-uncategorized","tag-ensemble","tag-richard-burton","tag-william-friedkin"],"yoast_head":"\nWell, THAT'S the pot calling the kettle "beige" - eKrap - Roy Zornow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Well, THAT'S the pot calling the kettle "beige" - eKrap - Roy Zornow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I thought "The Boys in the Band" would be a campy ridiculous movie, redeemed only by its groundbreaking status as one of the first mainstream films that\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ekrap.com\/?p=74\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"eKrap - 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