Todd Holland, Don Roos, Gay Actors, and The Closet

First, openly gay film director Todd Holland (right) is accused of telling non-100% hetero performers to keep their sexuality hidden in the closet. Several days later, another openly gay film director, Don Roos, was reportedly even more blatant about the idea of keeping actors hanging in the closet. Adding insult to injury, those statements were made at a film festival named Outfest, Los Angeles’ annual gay & lesbian cinema smorgasbord.
Holland was quoted as saying that young gay actors "should stay in the closet." He later wrote a piece stating that his "damning words were: ‘If you are that .002 percent [of actors who may be superstar material] … I can’t tell you to come out."
"I never said stay [...]

by Andre Soares | July 28, 2009   
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TRAINING RULES: Q&A with Dee Mosbacher

Winner of the audience award for best documentary at the 2009 edition of San Francisco’s gay film festival, Frameline, Dee Mosbacher (right) and Fawn Yacker’s Training Rules — screening at Outfest tomorrow, July 11, at 4:30pm at the FAIRFAX 1 (on a double bill with Elizabeth Hesik’s Lady Trojans) — tackles the issue of anti-gay bigotry in women’s sports, particularly at the Pennsylvania State University.
For nearly three decades, Penn State’s Lady Lions basketball coach Rene Portland (above, lower photo), known as "The Mommy Coach," insisted that in her team there would be absolutely no drugs, no booze, and no lesbians — purportedly with the intent of removing the stigma of lesbianism from women’s sports. In 2006, [...]

by Andre Soares | July 10, 2009   
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TRAINING RULES: Dee Mosbacher Interview II

TRAINING RULES: Q&A with Dee Mosbacher: Part I
Have you heard from Rene Portland — or anyone associated with her — after the film was completed?
No. We made a diligent effort to find her, but it was clear she had no interest in talking to us.
I would like to clarify something. Although we’ve been discussing the Penn State case, I want to make sure that you understand that this form of discrimination, based on sexual orientation goes on every day at colleges, universities, high schools and in professional sports. And it happens to both women and men, albeit in very different ways.
 
So, what about men’s sports? Would you say that blatant homophobia is an issue there as well? [...]

by Andre Soares | July 10, 2009   
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John Greyson Boycotts 2009 Tel Aviv LGBT Film Festival

In Haaretz.com, Cnaan Liphshiz discusses the reactions to Toronto-based filmmaker John Greyson’s refusal to attend the 2009 Tel Aviv International LGBT film festival, which runs June 23-27. Below are a couple of brief quotes from Liphshiz’s piece:
"’What Greyson has done is an act of violence both against Israeli gays as well as [gay] Palestinians, for whom this festival is a rare ray of light,’ said Yair Hochner, the festival’s Israeli-born organizer and an internationally-acclaimed director. Greyson told Anglo File this week: ‘With ongoing violations by Israel of Palestinian human rights and given the specific content of my film, screening it in Israel would be hypocrisy.’ The film, Fig Trees, deals with [...]

by Andre Soares | April 17, 2009   
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Sundance 2009: To Boycott or Not to Boycott

 
David Poland at Movie City News:
"Movie City News will spend a lot of money in Park City to cover Sundance this year. I will be happy to pledge, right now, that we will not spend a dime that money in businesses that were financial supporters of California’s Prop 8.
"So… activists… make that list. Make it honestly. Don’t tell me all Mormons are evil or that the entire state is off limits. But if a local gas station company is owned by a Prop 8 funder… we will fill up elsewhere. If a local restaurant or grocery or ski shop or taxi service… anything like that… if the owner sent money to California [...]

by Andre Soares | November 11, 2008   
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Celebrities and Gay Slurs II

Sharon Stone, Isaiah Washington, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, and Gay Slurs: Part I
Grand Thesis:
Some may see Stone’s statement “I call all my gay friends…” as proof positive that one can be ready, willing, and able to perform charitable deeds, and still be appallingly crass, vulgar, and disrespectful to others. But those much too sensitive souls are actually missing the point. What Stone’s remarks and the “fag rag” line in Little Miss Sunshine prove is that “fag” isn’t an issue.
Stone’s Big Fag friends, for instance, apparently enjoy being called that. Perhaps they even refer to themselves as such (or as “Mary”) while watching reruns of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, or while throwing deadly hissy fits because Dreamgirls [...]

by Andre Soares | January 30, 2007   
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Sharon Stone, Isaiah Washington, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, and Gay Slurs

Sharon Stone does a brief zen meditation session on the set of Basic Instinct 2 while trying to uncover the elusive difference between fag and faggot.

See, it’s all about Got.
No, God has absolutely nothing to do with anything. I wrote Got. Just follow me.
Exhibit A:
When Alan Arkin’s heroin-addicted grandpa tells Steve Carell’s wimpy, sexless gay amoeba to go get himself a “fag rag,” the audience at the industry screening where I saw the weather-beaten Little Miss Sunshine pissed in their pants laughing. (You could actually smell the stench.)
Little Miss Sunshine has gone on to win the Producers Guild Award for best picture of 2006; it has won numerous critics’ awards for Michael Arndt’s screenplay, and it has received four [...]

by Andre Soares | January 30, 2007   
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