The LGBTQ community (which I’m proud to be a part of) has made great strides especially in pop culture for decades, whether Hollywood wants to admit it or not. We have stories that deserve to be told too, again whether Hollywood wants to admit it or not.
Buy Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in FilmThere have been many books about LGBTQ people in entertainment of note, including Vito Russo’s seminal The Celluloid Closet (1981) and Out at the Movies (2008) by Steven Paul Davies, and more. I think acclaimed film critic, author, and podcaster Alonso Duralde can now add his new book Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film to the list of great reads that showcase our lives, our films, our struggles (inner and outer), and our cinematic history.
Just in time for Pride month (which is June), Duralde’s book spans decades of icons (gay and ally) from the birth of cinema (with actors and filmmakers such as Ramon Novarro, William Haines, and F.W. Murnau), to the New Queer Cinema of the ’90s (with Todd Haynes, Gus vant Sant and Gregg Araki) to today’s groundbreakers (James Ivory, Matt Bomer, Dee Rees, and Jenni Olson, etc.).
So many films like Pandora’s Box (1929), Morocco (1930), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Tea and Sympathy (1956), Victim (1961), Advise and Consent (1962, which offers cinema’s first glimpse of a gay bar), Funeral Parade of Roses (1969), Cabaret (1972), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), Cruising (1980), Parting Glances (1986), Poison (1991), Bound (1996), Mysterious Skin (2004), and Tangerine (2015), among others (good and bad), are all given equal analysis detailing their queer/gay content and/or subtext, whether explicit or not.
Filled with over 175 black-and-white and full-color glorious images, Hollywood Pride is another prime example of the importance of inclusion and diversity, especially during today’s troubling times of uncertainty and the continuous/unfortunate anti-LGBTQ idiocy and disturbing discrimination. Happy Pride!
