For the final days of Pride Month, select Regal Cinemas locations will be celebrating the LGBTQ community with one-night-only showings of nine different movies. Some of the titles in the lineup are obvious choices: To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! is about a trio of drag queens; Call Me By Your Name is about a summer romance between two young men; But I’m a Cheerleader is about a high school girl sent to a gay conversion camp when her parents suspect she’s a lesbian; Hedwig and the Angry Inch is about a gay man who begins identifying as a woman after a botched and unwanted sex reassignment surgery; and Moonlight is an Oscar-winning coming-of-age movie about a black gay man. Some of the other options, however, are a bit… questionable.
The series begins tonight (June 22nd) with Australian psychological horror The Babadook. This movie’s connection to the LGBTQ community has nothing to do with the content of the move itself, but rather a meme. In 2017, The Babadook was allegedly mistakenly listed under the LGBT Movies category on Netflix. The internet took this and ran with it, turning the titular character into a gay icon (I actually used to own a t-shirt with the Babadook wearing a feather boa and rainbow hat). Supposedly there is some argument to be made that the character can actually be interpreted as homosexual, but I haven’t seen the movie in about a decade so I don’t remember if there’s any truth to this or if this claim is just an extension of the meme.
The following evening features Mommie Dearest: the poorly received biopic about American actress Joan Crawford adapted from the memoir by her adopted daughter Christina Crawford. Although actress Faye Dunaway is known to feel ashamed of her portrayal of Crawford, the melodrama and “camp” of her performance turned the film into a cult classic in the queer community. Joan Crawford herself is often hailed as a “gay icon” due to her public friendships with queer artists as well as her glamorous persona. She (and especially her portrayal by Dunaway) has inspired countless drag queen performances; in fact, the “rusical” challenge for season 8 of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars was titled “Joan: The Unauthorized Rusical” and told the actress’s story. Nevertheless, celebrating Pride Month using a movie about an abusive mother leaves a bad taste in my mouth, personally.
The selection for June 25th is another queer cult classic without any LGBT themes: Death Becomes Her. The dark comedy stars Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, both of whom are vocally staunch allies to the LGBTQIA community. This one feels like a much more harmless choice than Mommie Dearest, but it still feels like this lineup is catering to the queer community rather than representing them (though I suppose this isn’t inherently a bad thing).
By far the most controversial selection for this series is A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge. I admit I’ve only ever seen the first Nightmare On Elm Street movie, so I personally can’t weigh in on this, but opinions are VERY divided. A quick scroll through the reviews on Letterboxd reveals plenty of fans lauding the film’s use of homosexual subtext and homoeroticism, some even praising it as progressive for its time (1985). It has even been called “the gayest horror film ever made.” Others, however, find the story to be straight-up homophobic and feel that it portrays homosexuality as evil. The director himself even said he never intended the movie to be a gay allegory and that he initially “thought it was funny” that fans were viewing it that way. Perhaps the most damning argument against A Nightmare On Elm Street 2 being pro-gay is that the writer, David Chaskin, said that what some fans were interpreting as homoerotic “was intended to play homophobic” but that Mark Patton, who played the protagonist, portrayed his character in a way that came off far more homosexual than Chaskin had intended. To make matters worse, Patton was a closeted gay man at the time, and shortly after A Nightmare On Elm Street 2‘s release he chose to leave the acting industry rather than continue with a career that forced him to stay in the closet. Nevertheless, one could argue that the queer community’s claiming of this movie despite the creators’ intentions makes it a success story.
While most limited time events like this are usually available at most Regal locations, surprisingly few Regal theatres are participating in the Pride series (for perspective, of the six Regals I have been to in New Jersey, only three of them are participating). The good news is tickets are only $7.99 each, and unlike Fathom Events such as the Studio Ghibli Fest, Regal Unlimited subscribers are able to see these movies for free as part of their membership.
