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Entertainment Weekly's Nov. 2 issue
Oct. 30th, 2007 12:03 pmSome more observations in the world of American magazines. The November 2 issue of Entertainment Weekly has a couple of articles of interest to slashers, both sobering but with glimmers of hope.
The discussion of the gay-themed scripts that are in development but are stuck in "development hell" will make you ache to think of them languishing. And there's also a sidebar showcasing recent films that should have been all about the gay subtext (300, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Blades of Glory, etc.) but seemed to protest, "We're NOT queer," at every turn.
After all the "this is shocking, this is one step too much" mainstream articles we've seen on Dumbledore's outing, this is so uplifting I could cry. "It's often said that if every gay person in the world were to turn purple overnight, homophobia would disappear: In other words, fewer people would be inclined to vilify other human beings if they woke up one day and discovered that they'd been aiming stones at their college roommate, their aunt, their grocer, or their grandson. Statistics bear this out: People who have a gay family member or friend have more enlightened attitudes about homosexuality than those who don't. What Rowling has done, brilliantly, is to turn Dumbledore purple. She didn't reveal his sexuality in order to unlock a new way of reading the books, or as a provocation. She simply told the world that a main character in the best-loved books of the last 10 years is homosexual, and asked her audience to contend with it -- and with the fact that it shouldn't matter." And what's more, Harris subtly outs himself in this article. Go you, Mr. Harris.
Out of Sight, by Adam Very. Almost two years after ''Brokeback Mountain'' raked in $178 million worldwide, no major studio has greenlit a single gay film. What is keeping movies in the closet -- and what should Hollywood be learning from TV?
The discussion of the gay-themed scripts that are in development but are stuck in "development hell" will make you ache to think of them languishing. And there's also a sidebar showcasing recent films that should have been all about the gay subtext (300, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Blades of Glory, etc.) but seemed to protest, "We're NOT queer," at every turn.
A Lovely Outing, by Mark Harris (one of EW's The Final Cut columnists; Stephen King is another). Why J.K. Rowling's revelation is a rare positive sign at a particularly bad moment to be a gay consumer of pop culture.
After all the "this is shocking, this is one step too much" mainstream articles we've seen on Dumbledore's outing, this is so uplifting I could cry. "It's often said that if every gay person in the world were to turn purple overnight, homophobia would disappear: In other words, fewer people would be inclined to vilify other human beings if they woke up one day and discovered that they'd been aiming stones at their college roommate, their aunt, their grocer, or their grandson. Statistics bear this out: People who have a gay family member or friend have more enlightened attitudes about homosexuality than those who don't. What Rowling has done, brilliantly, is to turn Dumbledore purple. She didn't reveal his sexuality in order to unlock a new way of reading the books, or as a provocation. She simply told the world that a main character in the best-loved books of the last 10 years is homosexual, and asked her audience to contend with it -- and with the fact that it shouldn't matter." And what's more, Harris subtly outs himself in this article. Go you, Mr. Harris.
