Friday, August 12, 2011

Know Your LGBT History - Bachelor Party

Very few actors who are considered legendary entered the industry in a prestige picture (okay, Meryl Streep did but it was one speaking line in the Oscar winning movie Julia) and Tom Hanks is no different.

Before he became known as the two-time Academy Award winning and Emmy-award winning 21st century version of Gary Cooper, Hanks did his time in lowbrow comedies, such as Bachelor Party (1984).

Bachelor Party had a simple plot. Hanks is a common bus driver engaged to heiress Tawny Kitaen whose family despises him. His even more low brow friends plan a bachelor party for him with hookers, drugs, a live band - the whole nine yards.

Meanwhile, there are forces, i.e. Kitaen's former boyfriend and her father, who are conspiring to break up the soon-to-be married couple.

Like I said, this comedy is lowbrow, very lowbrow with coarse humor and nudity all over.

That's not to say that I don't care for lowbrow. Some of it can be hilarious.

But a lot of it can be offensive.

That's not to say that Bachelor Party didn't have its moments. The late actress Wendie Jo Sperber stole the movie in certain places - especially at the end when she discovered that her husband cheated on her with a hooker.

And the movie also included a performance by one of my favorite new wave band of the 80s, the Waitresses.

Now for the lowbrow stuff.. I will omit the hot dog scene in the male strip club and scene where the donkey dies of a drug overdose during a strip act. But for the purpose of this site, I want to feature two very different scenes. One is totally offensive and I am conflicted by the other.

First let's look at the offensive scene. One of Hanks's buddies just finished having intercourse with a female he met at the bachelor party. However, after it's over, he discovers something about her. You know where this is going:





All I can about this monstrosity of a scene is that is demonstrates just how far the lgbtq community has come. When this movie came out, no one made any noise about the scene. Do you think we would be silent if some mess like this came out today?

And another thing. There have been many fights about pro-gay non-discrimination ordinances mostly because the religious right refers to them as "bathroom bills." The above image is what they want to convey to folks in order to scare them.

Now the second scene has me conflicted because I think it's funny. Here is the scenario - the villain of the piece, Kitaen's ex-boyfriend, sends some "entertainment" that was supposed to go to Hanks's bachelor party to Kitaen's bridal shower. The entertainment is two women "putting on a show." Why do I think this is funny? Simply because of how the actresses portraying the women shocked at what they are seeing behaved. We don't see anything graphic but their reactions are priceless. I hope I am not offending my lesbian sisters by saying this. Well judge for yourselves:


Past Know Your LGBT Posts: 

Anti-gay state rep caught wanting some gay 'nookie' and other Friday midday news briefs

All The Anti-Gay Rhetoric From The GOP Presidential Debate…In Under 2 Minutes - From ThinkProgress comes a new way to get nauseous:




Anti-Gay Marriage State Rep. Accused Of Offering Young Male Money 'For A Really Good Time' - Why oh why doesn't something like this ever happen to Rick Santorum or Peter Sprigg or Brian Brown or Tony Perkins?

How Do You Handle A Huffy Town Clerk That Doesn’t Wanna Sign Gay Marriage Licenses? - You fire the person for not doing her job. End of story.

Barber: Gays Are Targeting Your Kids In Order To Plant "Poison In Their Impressionable Little Minds" - Personally I don't give a crap about the Bert and Ernie thing but I wonder what Matt Barber's opinions are on The Smurfs? Come on now - a village with over 100 male smurfs and one female smurfs. I mean was Smurfettte the world's biggest "fag hag" or what? Well we know that at least one of the smurfs wasn't gay.  Don't you think that it's odd that Smurfette showed up in season one and then all of the sudden Baby Smurf showed up in season three?



Bookmark and Share

Lead with Love - a documentary which should be required viewing

As much as I would absolutely love to skewer the religious right today, I want to focus on something a bit more positive. From Think Progress:

A new documentary called Lead With Love looks at four families responding to learning that their child is gay. The 35-minute film can be watched online. Here’s the trailer:




A documentary as wonderful as this needs as much attention and support as we can give it.



Bookmark and Share