2006 - The Year of the Gay Movie?

2006 will long be remembered as the year of the gay movie. Straight director Ang Lee's already critically acclaimed 'gay cowboy movie' Brokeback Mountain is making huge waves and has been tipped for countless accolades on the awards circuit this year. But another less conspicuously gay film is due for release this summer, and is sure to be one of this year’s biggest box office heavyweights.

It may (or may not) surprise you that the film I am referring to is Superman Returns. Although not overtly a gay movie, Superman Returns is a clear attempt by openly gay director Bryan Singer to subvert the macho manly-man all American image attached to Superman and make him more gay friendly.

This may seem like a bold and unsupported statement, but if looked for, all the signs are there. Some people have argued that Singer is extremely professional and would never let his personal views influence his work. This is untrue. Evidence of the influence of Singer's sexuality can be found across his entire body of work, but I'll just use a couple of his more famous films as examples. Firstly, The Usual Suspects, the movie which put his name on the map, was in my opinion a masterpiece, and unfortunately unequalled by Singer since in his career. Nonetheless, the movie is positively rippling with homoerotic tension between all the lead males, but specifically exemplified in the relationship between Verbal Kent and Dean Keaton. Perhaps a better known example is the famous coming-out scene in X2. Iceman, along with Pyro, Rogue and Wolverine, is hiding out at his parents’ house, when they return and he breaks the news to them that he is a mutant. In response, his mother says “have you tried...not being a mutant???”

So, if looked for, signs of the influence of Singer’s sexuality can be found in his work, but are they present in Superman Returns? I would argue that they are. For a start, the whole look of the new Superman is wrong, as discussed in a previous post. But not only is it wrong, in my opinion it makes for a more gay-friendly looking Superman. For a start, the broad-shouldered, barrel-chested physique we are all familiar with has been dropped in favour of a sleeker, more slender, and ultimately more feminine body. Granted, in recent years the ‘men-like-women’ look, popular in the music scene for decades, has come into its own, and I’m sure if I were to survey a group of women I would find the majority find this type of man more attractive, but that doesn’t make it right for Superman. Add to this the extremely feminine low waist line, Brandon Routh’s pretty boy looks, and Bryan Singer’s plot revolving around Superman trying to find his place in the world and feeling like he doesn’t fit in, and you have what is in my opinion another film absolutely bursting at the seams with homosexual undertones.

Just my opinion? Perhaps. But I guess I’ll have to wait and see how it all turns out. The worst part for me, though, is that as horrible as I find this new big screen incarnation of Superman, whether it succeeds or fails both critically and financially, I don’t know what the likelihood is that I’ll be able to see a different cinematic interpretation within my lifetime. And that’s what worries me the most.

Ok, well that is my third and final rant about the movie…I promise! For now, I’ll just wait until I see the film. I hope to god that I’m wrong about all my reservations, and I’ll be there on opening night with my fingers crossed, so until then when I can come up with a full review, that’s my last word.

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