Can I make a confession? I didn't want to watch or review Making the Boys, the new documentary about the landmark 1968 play and 1970 film The Boys in the Band that opens in limited release in March.
Yes, yes, I know how important the movie is in gay entertainment history (which is why I put it as number one on my list of the most important gay movies of all time, even as I also put it on another list of my least favorite gay movies).
But it's also probably the most discussed gay movie of all time. As Making the Boys points out, it was hailed upon its first staging, then condemned by gays in the post-Stonewall era, then "rediscovered" in the 1990s. At every point in modern gay history, it's been there in the background, cited as an example of post-Stonewall "truth," or as hoary gay stereotypes in their purest form.
In short, is there really anything interesting left to be said about The Boys in the Band?
It turns out there is, in a new documentary that doesn't really discuss the play or the movie themselves (or even their impact on the stage or the cinema), so much as the two projects' role in gay history, and (even more interesting) their impact on all the people involved with their creation.
Who knew? As much as I and others have written and read and talked about The Boys in the Band, it turns out there is plenty didn't I know.
First, there's the role of The Boys in the Band in history, and how it acted as sort of a "counterweight" to the GLBT rights movement — a potent symbol of an earlier, much darker era before GLBT liberation. The play debuted in 1968, and by 1970, the world could see the film version.
What happened in between? The Stonewall Inn Riots, of course — the "birth" of the modern GLBT rights movement. But that symbolic moment didn't just set off a movement; it helped fundamentally change the way gay people thought of themselves, replacing self-hatred and the need to hide and be subservient with a forthright demand for dignity, openness, and pride.
In other words, at the height of its stage success and even before the release of the movie, The Boys in the Band was already an anachronism, a throw-back to an earlier era. Remember the famous phrase "Gay is good"? It turns out the man who coined it was doing it in direct response to two things: the famous African American expression "Black is beautiful," and the portrayal of self-(and other-)destructive gay people in The Boys in the Band.
It's inaccurate to say that The Boys in the Band helped sparked the Stonewall Inn Riots, but I think it's spot-on to say that whatever was in the air that sparked those riots is also deeply embedded in the DNA of the play: the incredible self-loathing and the dawning realization that that self-hatred was unfairly imposed by the greater culture.
Even more interesting than the project's role in history, however, is its impact on the men involved in its creation.
How did playwright Mart Crowley get the idea to write the play in the first place? From a snotty article in the New York Times that accused prominent gay playwrights like Edward Albee of writing "coded" plays about gays in the guise of heterosexuals. Why not just write about gay people, the article asked?
And for the first time, a playwright did — a fact that Crowley deserves enormous credit for. (Interestingly, Albee, who is interviewed in Making the Boys, was one of the early readers of the play, and he hated it for its portrayal of gay men, which he thought would set back a gay rights movement that he saw on the rise even in 1967. Albee still dislikes the play today — although he humorously kicks himself for not investing in it when he had the opportunity.)
So you'd think the principals involved would've made out okay, right?
Not so much. The actors all played the same roles on stage and in the movie, and two of the surviving cast members, Peter White (who played Alan) and Laurence Luckinbill (who played Hank), explain the incredible prejudice they faced in Hollywood as a result of appearing in the film. They also recount the profound bitterness on the part of some of the other cast members, who also faced what almost everyone agreed was a strong backlash.
Robert La Tourneaux (who played The Cowboy, a hustler) got involved in drugs and was even eventually reduced to turning tricks himself as "the Cowboy from The Boys in the Band." And Reuben Greene (who played Bernard) has long since disavowed his involvement in the projects and refuses all contact on the matter.
Four cast members, including La Tourneuax, and other production personnel eventually succumbed to AIDS.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: we all benefit from the courage of early pioneers, but very rarely do the pioneers themselves get rewarded. On the contrary, often they get totally screwed, at least in the GLBT movement.
As for Crowley, his next play in the wake of The Boys in the Band bombed badly, sending him into a decade-long alcohol bender, only to see his career eventually be revived when his very good friend Natalie Wood (who was instrumental in getting The Boys in the Band produced) convinced him to work on her husband Robert Wagner's hit 1970s television show Hart to Hart.
If you find none of this interesting, there is one more thing about this documentary that makes it "must see": its use of fascinating archival footage (including home movies of Roddy McDowell's Malibu beach parties with Julie Andrews, Rock Hudson, Judy Garland, Sal Mineo, and just about anyone else who was a star of that era), footage of early GLBT rights leaders, old interviews with cast members, and much, much more.
The documentary also includes new interviews with Crowley, director William Friedkin, Michael Cunningham, Larry Kramer, Tony Kushner, Terrence McNally, Dan Savage, Robert Wagner, and many others.
I didn't want to watch Making the Boys, but I was wrong in that. For anyone with an interest in gay history or gay entertainment, I can't recommend it highly enough.
source
No comments:
Post a Comment