"The Boys in the Band" (1970): The Ugly Truth
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — LGBT Film
Rvsy20 — 10 years ago(September 14, 2015 05:10 PM)
These boys are self-loathing, indeed. May I add angry, bitter, bitchy, nasty, and mean. I will also be so brazen as to declare that these vices are precisely what warrant the film its virtue. Although we may not entirely like the manner these guests behave and treat each other, the emotional turmoil they find themselves in speaks the truth of what I myself have experienced as a gay man for the past 25 years.
For the full essay:
http://www.rafsy.com/films-1960s-1990s/the-boys-in-the-band-the-ugly-truth/
Please visit my blog:
www.rafsy.com
My postings are less film reviews than they are meditations on the effect films have had on me.
Thank you,
RS -
ohmemercylard-58-17610 — 10 years ago(March 19, 2016 04:54 PM)
The film itself is not particularly homophobic. In fact, there are some progressive moments for its time.
I lived there during this pre-Stonewall era. BOYS was a perfectly accurate representation of those characters in that place and time. A play written by a gay man who knew whereof he spoke. Rarely seen, the actors in the play were used in the film, and I can't see any indication that Friedkin added anything homophobic to this mix.
Hard to believe, maybe, but that's just what it was like then. I spent my young years terrified of the hateful zingers that were inevitably hurled at every instance of weakness. -
rascal67 — 9 years ago(November 05, 2016 10:33 PM)
In spite of the main criticism Boys receives for it's self-loathing characters, as a gay guy who saw this for the first time in the mid 80's on tv as a teenager, I don't find anything homophobic about this excellent piece of gay cinema and would also say it was quite accurate too. There would still be many self-loathing gay males out there today. It is not an era thing and homophobia and disdain for it is still as rampant now, as it was back then. It can just be more veiled, or people are being more careful with what they say, rather than just saying what they think.
Don't eat the whole ones! Those are for the guests. -
grazatt — 9 years ago(June 01, 2016 05:46 AM)
Hard to believe, maybe, but that's just what it was like then. I spent my young years terrified of the hateful zingers that were inevitably hurled at every instance of weakness.
Wow, that is horrible
Did you ever fight back
btw I have never seen the film, it sounds too depressing -
rascal67 — 9 years ago(November 05, 2016 10:34 PM)
btw I have never seen the film, it sounds too depressing
It's not, but it can be melancholic in parts. This equates to sadness for me; but I never come away feeling depressed and I have seen the film many times. I rate it very highly as a "gay" themed film.
Don't eat the whole ones! Those are for the guests. -
PrometheusTree64 — 9 years ago(February 03, 2017 07:21 AM)
I first saw it many years ago on TV. And on instinct felt the limp-wristed bitchery displayed in every corner of the film countered any message the movie was trying to convey. It validated every pathetic stereotype.
One can analyze it today and rationalize what the movie "was trying to say," but the wall-to-wall repulsiveness of the characters overrode everything else. In a less-enlightened era like the '60s and '70s when almost no one was "out," BITB did
not
help.
Even CRUISING sent a more-constructive message.