Sunday, November 6, 2011

Gay Movies or Lack Thereof

So tonight I got sucked into looking around on youtube by a friend of mine. She posted me a link to a video and I just kind of started browsing around. I found alot of fan videos posted for gay films. I love to read male/male romance books, but I find the volume or quality of the gay films available (not foreign films) is sadly lacking. There are very few quality gay films actually produced in the U.S.

While browsing the fanvids, I found a ton of videos based on foreign gay films which are extremely hard to get or are in a language I can't understand with no English subtitles.

There is only one gay themed movie I have really seen that wasn't either A)a tragedy where one of the main characters dies or B)isn't really awful acting and film quality. I would love to find gay themed films that had quality acting and proper filming done and were not actually trying for an 'artistic viewpoint'! Do gay films always have to be about the trials of coming out? What about just straight up gay romances like the books I write or read from companies like Dreamspinner Press or Silver Publishing?

Is there something written down somewhere that states it has to be flippin' depressing to watch a gay themed movie?? Or it has to be about the trials and tribulations of coming out of the closet? Don't get me wrong, those films are great, but I would kill to see a true quality gay themed flat out ROMANCE film. One where boy meets boy or man meets man and you see them falling in love!

And the same with TV shows! Queer as Folk was one of the few truly gay themed shows out there and it ended a while back after five seasons. The gay characters in any current TV shows usually end up being side characters instead of the main focus point. And I guess this all goes back to the HOMOPHOBIA this country seems to carry like a proud banner waving in the breeze. Countries overseas produce soap operas, tv series, movies, books, anime, etc. proudly and without trying to put an artistic twist on it. Why can't we do the same?

Am I wrong? Brokeback Mountain was really the first truly main stream film produced and yet they still felt the need to put that twist on it. To make it artistic, hiding who you are, and ending it with a bittersweet ending instead of a happy one. It drives me crazy how the only mainstream romance movies out there are hetero.

**This is my own personal opinion. I don't expect everyone to agree with me.***