In honor of Windy City Times’ first movie/music-themed issue, I’m reflecting back on the first column I wrote for the newspapaer three years ago. It was called ‘Reinventing the Movies,’ and it focused on the lack of representation of gay characters in mainstream cinema. In the absence of that, LGBT audiences have done what many other underrepresented groups (ethnic and cultural) have when faced with the standard Hollywood movie: they’ve projected what they wanted to see onto the screen. I’ve done it so often since the movie habit became ingrained in me that it’s something I take for granted. If I want to imagine myself in someone’s place on the screen, I do so at will and if I have a sense that a certain character’s sexuality wanders in my direction, my imagination brings him all the way home. Every gay person I’ve ever talked to about this has acknowledged doing the same thing but it wasn’t until I saw the documentary The Celluloid Closet, which focuses on gays and lesbians in the first 100 years of movies and is based on the excellent book by the late Vito Russo, that I heard it so clearly articulated.

‘We’re here, we’re queer and we’re in the movies,’ I wrote in that first column. However, although there’s a seemingly vast array of

direct-to-DVD queer titles, our representation in the mainstream market ebbs and flows. We’ve gone from 2004’s sensitive, multifaceted, queer-themed features like A Home at the End of the World, Tarnation and Kinsey to the current wave of comedies that play off gay stereotypes for laughs—Talladega Nights, Borat, Blades of Glory and the forthcoming I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. A lot of these mainstream comedies, surprisingly, have mocked the rigid stereotypes; however, these are but tantalizing crumbs. And they pale in comparison to In & Out—the big fat mainstream hit with Kevin Kline as a queer school teacher—which is now 10 years old.

The multifaceted 2004 gay movies paved the way for 2005, the Year of the Gay Movie and the Gay Oscars, thanks to Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Transamerica. But in 2006, prestigious, high-profiled indies like these virtually disappeared. The relatively few that were made—Imagine Me & You, Kinky Boots, The Night Listener, Infamous, The Quiet and Running with Scissors, among them—didn’t connect with audiences like their higher-profile forebears did.

The one film that broke into new territory cinematically last year—the sexually adventurous Shortbus—was so far against the grain that its chances of picking up awards and the status that it deserved were about nil. I know, I know: I went all ‘sticky moon candy’ over Shortbus, making it my top film choice for 2006. But after going through two national elections that hinged on the relentless scaring of unenlightened folks (the voting kind) about the evils of gay people like myself, I was thrilled to watch a movie that once again celebrated the ‘don’t dream it, be it’ sexual liberation of The Rocky Horror Picture Show from 30 years before.

The phenomenon that greeted Brokeback Mountain almost two years ago can now be seen as an anomaly. Where are the queer movies to take its place? And where’s the one where the lovers get to live happily ever after? More to the point: Where are the queer movie actors to play queer characters on the screen? The only A-list film actor to come out has been Rupert Everett. And we all know where that got him—relegated to supporting parts as the ‘gay best friend’ and starring in indie films (where he has played heterosexual romantic leads quite convincingly) when he should be right up there with the other box-office princes. Ironically, Everett is now back in a major blockbuster as the villainous Prince Charming in Shrek the Third—well, his voice is, anyway.

So yeah, I’m cranky that we still don’t have a (n out) gay leading man in Hollywood, and that Shortbus wasn’t embraced the way it should have been; like political humorist Bill Maher said, I’m ‘pissed off that no one’s pissed off.’ I’m also irritated that the quotient of LGBT-themed movies this year has fallen below 2006 levels.

That’s nothing new with regard to summer blockbusters and—let’s face it—we’re not exactly the target audience in this area, although there have been signs that Hollywood is at least acknowledging our presence. How else to explain last year’s gay-as-a-goose X Men: The Last Stand; Oliver Stone’s satisfying recut of Alexander ; and Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, as the first James Bond who not only doesn’t seem concerned about being gay eye candy but actually might invite it? And let’s not forget the recent homoerotic sword-and-sandal epic 300. Take away the blue screen and those Spartans could easily have been mistaken for IML contestants. So, yes, three years after starting to write about movies from my queer perspective, I still have to reinvent in order to satisfy my longing for representation. But, I am happy to report, I don’t have to reinvent quite so often.

See www.knightatthemovies.com for ordering information on my new book, Knight at the Movies 2004-2006.