"Cruising" Comes to the Castro

by Tommi Avicolli-Mecca via Beyond Chron

Mon, Sep 17, 2007 7:54AM

Monday, September 17, 2007 : When I first heard that William Friedkin’s 1980 anti-gay classic “Cruising” was coming to the Castro Theater, I felt a rumble in the pit of my stomach. How could a film that was not only protested vehemently by the queer community, but also trashed by every reputable critic, be playing at the Castro Theater in the heart of San Francisco’s queer neighborhood? Just as raids on gay bars are things of the (not-so-distant) past that no one thinks about when they enter a club in San Francisco these days, the old battles against Hollywood’s mistreatment of queers don’t come to mind much anymore when folks go to the movies.

What a battle it was. Even as Friedkin was filming in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1979, protesters arrived on the scene to make their feelings known about the story of a straight cop (Al Pacino) who goes undercover into the leather bars and sex dens to find a serial killer who is victimizing gay men. The depiction of the so-called seamier side of queer life was not positive.

Friedkin didn’t exactly have a good reputation in the queer community. He had previously made “Boys in the Band,” a film that portrayed every negative gay male stereotype known to humanity and then some.

Friedkin wasn’t alone in how he depicted queers. In 1980 there were only negative portrayals of gay men and lesbians in Hollywood’s movies. Transgenders were completely invisible. No actor dared to come out of the closet for fear of his or her career being instantly toast.

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