MD Poll: Philadelphia Freedom

Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia, the Academy Award winning drama (starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington) that was the first studio release to deal with the subject of AIDS, has been selected by Movie Dearest readers as the GLBT-themed film most worthy of induction into the National Film Preservation Board's National Film Registry (see the comments section below for the complete statistics of the poll).

So, here is where you have to do a little work to make this all worthwhile. Below you will find a short sample letter requesting that Philadelphia be considered for inclusion in the NFR. Simply copy it and go to the NFR's nomination page to email it to them. Feel free to add your own personal thoughts about the film as well (and share them in the comments section below if you wish).

Dear National Film Registry:

Please consider the 1993 motion picture "Philadelphia" for induction into the National Film Registry this year. As a supporter of film history and preservation, I feel that this film fulfills the criteria for inclusion due to its historical significance as the first major studio release to address the subject of AIDS.

As a member of/ally to the GLBT community, I also feel that its inclusion will increase the diversity represented within the National Film Registry.

As it states on the NFR website, nominations by the general public are very important in the board's selection process, so be sure to submit your vote to help increase the presence of GLBT-themed films in the NFR (for more information on the NFR, see my original post). I will also be submitting an email elaborating on this whole project and how the film was selected, but please take a few minutes to send your own email as well.

The announcement of the 25 films selected for this year's induction will take place the last week of December.

Click here to vote in the latest MD Poll.

MD Poll: Preserve This

Since it was founded in 1988, the National Film Preservation Board and the Librarian of Congress have chosen 25 classic American films each year to be inducted into the National Film Registry. Prints of each movie, selected for their cultural and historical significance, are "preserved for all time"; including last year's inductees, the registry now houses 475 films.

A quick scan of the complete list of these films reveals that, for the most part, the movies represented are, well, pretty straight. Sure, there's the two men dancing in the Dickson experimental sound film of 1894, as well as such "celluloid closet" classics as Wings, Rebel Without a Cause and Ben-Hur. Also represented are the works of such revered gay directors as F.W. Murnau, James Whale and George Cukor, plus such all-time gay faves as The Wizard of Oz, All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard. However, the closest we get to actual "gay movies" on the list are Some Like It Hot, Midnight Cowboy, Cabaret and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Not exactly representative of "queer cinema", right?

But there is a way to rectify this situation: the NFR is open to nominations from the general public. Therefore, starting this year, we here at Movie Dearest will spearhead an annual campaign (in "Gay Pride Month", June, naturally) to get more GLBT-themed movies placed on the National Film Registry. Each year, one film will be chosen, and we will submit it for consideration along with testimonials (ours and yours) on why it should receive such an honor. And here's where you come in: you get to pick the movie!

This year's ten nominees range from studio forays into the genre (The Boys in the Band, Making Love, Personal Best, Philadelphia) to indie hits (Desert Hearts, Parting Glances, Tongues Untied, Go Fish) and award winning documentaries (The Times of Harvey Milk, The Celluloid Closet). (If you're wondering where, say, Brokeback or Hedwig are, the films have to be at least ten years old -- and American -- to be eligible.)

So head on over to the sidebar at right to cast your vote in the latest MD Poll, and check back in two weeks to see what movie has been selected by you to be the official Movie Dearest choice for the National Film Registry 2008.

UPDATE: This poll is now closed; click here for the results. Click here to vote in the latest MD Poll.

Boys Will Be Boys: When Men Dance With Men on Film

This post is part of the Invitation to the Dance Movie Blogathon, now underway at FerdyOnFilms.com.

A man approaches a couple on a tightly-packed dance floor and asks to cut in; the lady agrees, but when she steps aside, the man joins her partner instead for a little man-on-man waltz action. Observing the situation, bandleader Al Jolson quips, "Boys will be boys!"

The scene is from the 1934 musical melodrama Wonder Bar (most likely you remember it from the seminal documentary on gay representation in film, The Celluloid Closet). But that was far from the first time two men danced together on the silver screen; in the famous Dickson experimental sound film from 1894 (which some scholars credit as the first ever motion picture with sound), two men unironically hold each other close as a violinist plays in the background.

And thus the image of -- and approach to -- men dancing together on film was (unintentionally) established with these two early examples, one comic, the other (pardon the pun) straightforward. And the boys have been doing it one way or the other ever since.

When one first thinks of men dancing with men in the movies, most likely the first thoughts are of such widescreen production numbers as those seen in West Side Story and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, wherein macho gang members and farm hands prove their manliness by way of elaborately choreographed ballets. On the flip side is the homoerotically charged "Y.M.C.A" dance routine in the camptastic Can't Stop the Music; the jocks on display here display their manhood in quite different ways than their predecessors, but the gist is still the same: "our testosterone levels are about to burst, so there is only one thing left to do ... gotta dance!"

Another instance of men dancing together is when they just want to entertain ... call them the "lets put on a show!" moments. Rooted in burlesque, it is no wonder that most of these tend toward the bawdy side, from drag queens (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) to strippers (The Full Monty), but if you want seriousness, then there is always the cat-walkers of Paris is Burning. They take their voguing very seriously.

Then of course, there is the instances of men not so much dancing with men as men dancing with men. Beginning in the 70's, out and out "gay films" became more common, and naturally, they often showed the guys getting their groove on (this being the 70's and all), whether in joyous group dances (The Boys in the Band) or popper-fueled bacchanals (Cruising). And even though disco died, the need to cut loose didn't, with similar scenes appearing in more recent gay-themed films, such as Edge of Seventeen and Trick.

But not all man on man dancing has to be on a crowded disco floor; more intimate, one-on-on pas de deux range from the sublimely comedic (Joe E. Brown and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot) to the bittersweet (Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas in Philadelphia) to the achingly romantic (Glen Berry and Scott Neal in Beautiful Thing).

In closing, there is perhaps no better ode to the "men dancing with men" sub-sub-genre than Ray's Male Heterosexual Dance Hall, the Oscar-winning short film whose title says it all; a delightfully droll comedy of manners ... and you can dance to it.

For more of the Invitation to Dance Movie Blogathon, visit FerdyOnFilms.com.