Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters: Know your LGBT History

Friday, January 22, 2010

Know your LGBT History - Soul Plane

I hope that Monique gets the Oscar for Precious.

But if you ask me, she should have gotten some award for being the only funny spot in the movie Soul Plane (2004).

The fact that GLAAD missed raising hell about this movie will irk me until my dying day.

Soul Plane was an urban movie about a black man who sues the an airline (after his dog is killed in an accident while he was stuck on the toilet mid-flight) and proceeds to start his own airline with the proceeds.

This movie was so bad that it ruined black movie watching for me for a long time.

And the worst was the gay character, Flame, played by Gary Anthony Williams. To this day, I still ruminate over the various things about Williams' portrayal which continues to piss me off:

1. The character goes beyond being a stereotype. He crosses new dimensions of offensiveness.

2. Almost every time he is featured, he is talking about sex or having sex. It was also annoying how the other male characters would give him backwards glances as if to say "what is THAT doing here"

3. Then there is that very offensive scene where he and other various unnamed gay characters (and Catholic priests - this movie just offended everyone) mistake a request from the cockpit for one of oral sex and proceed to knock the other passengers down trying to get there.

4. But the worst is the scene at the end where he hits on another character played by bad black movie mainstay John Witherspoon. Witherspoon's character is a blind man who earlier manually copulated with a baked potato (you read that right). What gay man in his right mind would hit on him?

If I had time to analyze Flame's character, I would definitely make the cause that he is representative of how the black community as a whole sometimes view lgbts of color.

But it's Friday and I don't have that time. So I will just show you this clip (probably the tamest clip featuring Flame. It features him and the other "stewardesses" in a music video) which more than proves my point. It starts at 39 seconds. And by the way, the Osama Bin Laden joke was crass also:

1 comment:

Jon said...: I totally agree with you on all points about "Soul Plane" (and Monique). Awful, awful movie...; 10:37 AM