Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall Review

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Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall ReviewFor those interested in cinematic homosexuality, this book is simply a must-have! Composed with a liberal touch of arch lingua franca, the volume is toned and textured with as many gossipy asides, innuendos, and double entendres as the films discussed. The subject is dealt a much lighter hand than Vito Russo allotted its predecessor, The Celluloid Closet. Richard Barrios is utterly tickled pink at his discoveries, where Russo often seems to chafe. Even those familiar with the torturous course of outre theater will detect tidbits previously unperceived, and those not in-the-know will probably be astonished at pre-Production Code permissiveness regarding the depiction of fey/butch images. More remarkable is the under-the-radar, Code-busting bomblettes that went unsensed by the censors--and were subsequently reviled (or reveled in) by trade reviewers. A tad too much quill is sharpened criticizing fluffy, Day-class sixties comedies, when such goose down is found in every film era. (At least the author can be commended for not reading too much into Calamity Jane--or any other feature, for that matter. After all, a lesbian cult movie does not a lesbian movie make!) Barrios could also have refrained from the occasional canard regarding sexual orientation origins and Biblical history. Overall, though, this substantial book sticks solidly to the subject, examining numerous films (including shorts and cartoons) and their interrelationship with the political establishment and popular culture. Included are over 50 crisp photos and several vignette-bios. The prose has a fabulous flow that makes for a thoroughly enjoyable read and should hold the attention of anyone interested in the screen/society circle.Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall OverviewRapacious dykes, self-loathing closet cases, hustlers, ambiguous sophisticates, and sadomasochistic rich kids: most of what America thought it knew about gay people it learned at the movies. A fresh and revelatory look at sexuality in the Great Age of movie making, Screened Out shows how much gay and lesbian lives have shaped the Big Screen. Spanning popular American cinema from the 1900s until today, distinguished film historian Richard Barrios presents a rich, compulsively readable analysis of how Hollywood has used and depicted gays and the mixed signals it has given us: Marlene in a top hat, Cary Grant in a negligee, a pansy cowboy in The Dude Wrangler. Such iconoclastic images, Barrios argues, send powerful messages about tragedy and obsession, but also about freedom and compassion, even empowerment.Mining studio records, scripts, drafts (including cut scenes), censor notes, reviews, and recollections of viewers, Barrios paints our fullest picture yet of how gays and lesbians were portrayed by the dream factory, warning that we shouldn't congratulate ourselves quite so much on the progress movies - and the real world -- have made since Stonewall.Captivating, myth-breaking, and funny, Screened Out is for all film aficionados and for anyone who has sat in a dark movie theater and drawn strength and a sense of identity from what they saw on screen, no matter how fleeting or coded.

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