SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

It's time for our regular movie conversation. And as we mark Pride Month, my cohost Ailsa Chang talked to several of our NPR colleagues about the ways queerness is portrayed both subtly and openly in a wide range of films. Ailsa picks it up from here.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Across movie history, there are touchstones of queer cinema that a majority of moviegoers might recognize, like "Philadelphia," one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to address the AIDS crisis...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PHILADELPHIA")

DENZEL WASHINGTON: (As Joe Miller) The fact of the matter is, when they fired Andrew Beckett because he had AIDS, they broke the law.

CHANG: ...Or "Boys Don't Cry," based on the true story of Brandon Teena.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BOYS DON'T CRY")

HILARY SWANK: (As Brandon Teena) I don't know what went wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) You are not a boy. That is what went wrong. You are not a boy.

SWANK: (As Brandon Teena) Tell him that. They say I'm the best boyfriend they ever had (ph).

CHANG: Or what about "Brokeback Mountain," which turns 20 years old this year?

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN")

JAKE GYLLENHAAL: (As Jack Twist) I wish I knew how to quit you.

HEATH LEDGER: (As Ennis Del Mar) Then why don't you?

CHANG: These are only some of the most well-known examples of queerness in movies. At other times, queerness may just be one facet of a film that has much more on its mind. This Pride Month, we wanted to talk about all of this. So we brought in NPR film critic Bob Mondello and ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producers Mallory Yu and Erika Ryan. Hello to all three of you.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa - good to be here.

MALLORY YU, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.

ERIKA RYAN, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.

CHANG: So, you know, in these films that I specifically mentioned, queerness, you know, it's front and center or at least a very important part of the story in those films. But I was curious to hear from you guys about movies where queerness or queer characters aren't necessarily center stage. Like, no one's saying the word gay or trans in the movie, but you can still read queerness out of it - because I feel like there's a rich history there, right, Bob?

MONDELLO: Well, (laughter) yeah.

CHANG: (Laughter).

MONDELLO: I guess we could go all the way back to the very first film that won a best picture Oscar, "Wings," in 1927. No one said the word gay or trans because no one said any words in it. It was a silent film.

CHANG: Right.

MONDELLO: But there were all these touchstones for gay audiences - a lesbian couple featured prominently, like, front and center in a nightclub scene. And the two main characters, who were fighter pilots, share a moment where one of them is dying that includes a lot of lovestruck looks and a kiss on the lips. And this was all pre-Hays Code, the rules that Hollywood adopted later in the 1930s...

CHANG: Right.

MONDELLO: ...That forbade any hint of homosexuality. But things got a little less overt after that, but Marlene Dietrich in a tuxedo and top hat in 1930's "Morocco" was more than just coded. Vito Russo wrote a book in 1981 called "The Celluloid Closet" that elaborated on dozens of films up to that point with characters who were clearly queer, plot lines that were clearly meant to be read as queer. And at about the time the book came out, HIV AIDS altered the equation forever. So suddenly, there was a reason to be talking very openly about queer characters. They were central to a societal horror story...

CHANG: Right.

MONDELLO: ...That was playing out in the real world. And in films, they faced the horror and did something about it, which the rest of society wasn't doing. "Philadelphia" is an excellent example, but there were dozens of others, theater and television too.

CHANG: Absolutely. Well, Mallory, I'm curious. What are a couple of your favorite - how do I put this? - like, gayest non-gay movies?

(LAUGHTER)

YU: OK, so my favorites are a bit more recent than Bob's. I would not be myself if I didn't talk about Disney's "Mulan" because, come on...

CHANG: Yes.

RYAN: Yes.

YU: ...She's singing about her reflection not showing who she really is, while - I might add - she is femmed (ph) up.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "REFLECTION")

LEA SALONGA: (As Mulan, singing) Why is my reflection someone I don't know?

YU: Then she dresses and passes as a man for most of the movie. And her love story with her commanding officer begins while she's passing as a man. So even though they end up in a seemingly heterosexual relationship, I think it's still a queer one.

RYAN: Yeah.

YU: Another one of my favorites is from 2002, "Bend It Like Beckham."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM")

PARMINDER NAGRA: (As Jess) Girls aren't supposed to play soccer.

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY: (As Jules) Mom has never wanted me to play. You just can't take no for an answer.

YU: There's a love triangle with a male coach, but the movie is so gay. One of them...

(LAUGHTER)

YU: There's, like, not just a canonically gay character who likes David Beckham. There is a female character who's mistaken as a boy, and her mom becomes convinced that she's gay, you know, because she wears sports bras and has short hair and plays soccer and isn't girly, right?

RYAN: Right.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) No boy's going to want to go out with a girl who's got bigger muscles than him.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Why don't you just leave her alone?

KNIGHTLEY: (As Jules) I'm not going to give it up.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) All I'm saying is there is a reason why Sporty Spice is the only one of them without a fella.

YU: Very 2002 - but, sure, the movie ends with one of them getting with this male soccer coach. But at the very end, the two women go off to college together, and it is absolutely implied that there is some - something happening there.

CHANG: Totally - some tension, at the very least. Erika, what about you?

RYAN: One that comes to mind is "Fried Green Tomatoes."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FRIED GREEN TOMATOES")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Oh, Idgie, what's your mother going to say when she sees us both drunk?

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) You got to stop worrying about what people think.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) I know.

RYAN: To me, Idgie and Ruth have a very obviously lesbian relationship in the movie, I would say.

YU: For sure.

RYAN: It's kind of left up to debate in the actual movie. The novel, apparently - I will disclaimer I haven't read it - explicitly calls it a lesbian relationship. The film doesn't do that. One of my actual, like, all-time favorite movies, "Midnight Cowboy" from 1969...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MIDNIGHT COWBOY")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #6: (As character) Cowboy, huh?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #7: (As character) Well, sir, I ain't a for-real cowboy, but I am one hell of a stud.

RYAN: ...The gayness in this is also debated, but it focuses on a cowboy that comes to the city and is working as a sex worker. And he becomes friends with a man named Rizzo (ph). They develop a really close relationship, which, to me - it could have sort of be qualified as a buddy movie, but I think it's a little bit more deep than that.

MONDELLO: No, I thought - I remember watching it and thinking, no, this is a love story.

RYAN: Yeah.

MONDELLO: You're right. It wasn't labeled that at the time, but - yeah.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MIDNIGHT COWBOY")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #8: (As character) I don't think I can walk anymore. I mean, I've been falling down a lot. I'm scared.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #7: (As character) What are you scared of?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #8: (As character) You know, what they do to you when they know you can't - when they find out that you can't...

RYAN: I'm not going to tell you this is an uplifting film 'cause it broke my heart in to a million pieces, but it's still one of my favorites.

CHANG: Well, what about movies where, like, the characters might be queer, but that is not the driving part of the story?

MONDELLO: Well, would you count "Dog Day Afternoon"...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DOG DAY AFTERNOON")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #9: (As character) Robbing the bank's a federal offense. They got me on kidnapping, armed robbery. They're going to bury me, man.

MONDELLO: ...Or maybe the Daniel Craig detective in the "Glass Onion" movie?

CHANG: Oh, yeah.

RYAN: For sure.

MONDELLO: Right? I mean, it's not significant to the plot, particularly, but it's there.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GLASS ONION")

DANIEL CRAIG: (As Benoit Blanc) Well, get that, would you?

HUGH GRANT: (As Phillip) You're not in the bath again, are you?

CRAIG: (As Benoit Blanc) No.

MONDELLO: I remember there was a movie, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," in 2005, a police procedural, in which Val Kilmer played a gay cop and was very upsetting to Robert Downey Jr.'s - I've forgotten what he was. He was a thief or something like that. But it was very upsetting to him that he was having to deal with this gay guy.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "KISS KISS BANG BANG")

VAL KILMER: (As Gay Perry) Jesus. Look up idiot in the dictionary. You know what you'll find?

ROBERT DOWNEY JR: (As Harry Lockhart) A picture of me?

MONDELLO: It wasn't a romance or anything. It was just there in the movie, right? And it was interesting to see Kilmer playing...

YU: (Inaudible) friction.

MONDELLO: Yeah.

RYAN: Well, for me, the first thing comes to mind - which this is, you know, a big part of the plot - but "Bound," 1996, by the Wachowski sisters - two women fall in love or start a relationship.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BOUND")

JENNIFER TILLY: (As Violet) My name's Violet. We sort of met on the elevator.

GINA GERSHON: (As Corky) I'm Corky.

TILLY: (As Violet) Corky.

RYAN: Jennifer Tilly is dating a mobster, and next door, the other character is doing handyman work on the apartment. They fall in love. Turns out, her boyfriend, the violent mobster, has tons and tons of money. They come up with this plot to steal it. It is so sexy. It's like an erotic lesbian film.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BOUND")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #10: (As character) What did she do to you?

TILLY: (As Violet) Everything you couldn't.

RYAN: But it also just turns into, like, a violent mob thriller. And also, because it's the Wachowski sisters, there's, like, so much leather and slow motion. Like, I just - I love it. It's just very "Matrix" (ph).

(LAUGHTER)

YU: Like, aesthetically, what's not to like?

RYAN: Yeah, exactly.

CHANG: Yeah.

YU: For me, I really love "The Watermelon Woman" from 1996, written and directed by a Black lesbian filmmaker named Cheryl Dunye. She also stars in the movie.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE WATERMELON WOMAN")

CHERYL DUNYE: (As Cheryl) Hi. I'm Cheryl, and I'm a filmmaker. I'm not really a filmmaker, but I have a videotaping business with my friend Tamara, and I work at a video store, so I'm working on being a filmmaker.

YU: And what I really liked about this movie is that, yes, Cheryl is a lesbian, and that suffuses all of the ways that she interacts with her friends and lovers and even the actresses that she's researching. But the movie is also a really lovely and also kind of sad reflection on the ways in which Black women and all the nuances of their identities and sexualities and love lives have been sidelined throughout Hollywood's history.

CHANG: You know, I'm kind of listening to you talk about movies where gay characters were not the driving part of the story, and it seems like there's a difference between rich characters in a movie that also happened to be queer and then characters that are gay in a way that perpetuates stereotypes about being gay, like maybe in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," right? Like, there's a difference with how Hollywood has portrayed gayness, queerness in these movies when the gay story is not the driving part of the story.

MONDELLO: Right. It's all such an improvement over the period of the '50s and '60s, where the closet was the central metaphor, right? The whole thing about the way that gay characters were treated for the longest time in Hollywood was that the presumption was this was a terrible fault of character and of morality and that therefore should be pushed off to the side. And if you were going to be sympathetic - I mean, do you remember there was a long time when you couldn't have a story about a gay character that was affirmative where the gay character didn't die at the end...

YU: Yes.

RYAN: Yeah.

MONDELLO: ...Right? I mean, it just for the longest time, it was like a...

RYAN: Or couldn't end happily.

MONDELLO: Right.

CHANG: Yeah.

YU: I'd also say that there are - more and more queer filmmakers and writers get opportunities to make the movies that they are writing...

MONDELLO: Sure.

YU: ...From their own perspectives. We're kind of getting more and more nuanced stories where the stories don't have to be about being gay, but it can just be a fact of the characters or...

CHANG: Yeah, right.

MONDELLO: Right.

RYAN: Yeah.

CHANG: Yeah. We're intersections of all kinds of identities (ph).

RYAN: Yeah, my wife and I are constantly on a search for movies that are gay and not depressing. And we've found quite a few, but there are so...

CHANG: Good.

RYAN: ...Many that are just, like, rip-my-heart-out-and-stomp-on-it sad.

CHANG: OK, so what are just, like, say, a couple of queer movies that are in all of your personal canons, so to speak?

MONDELLO: Can I start?

CHANG: Yeah.

MONDELLO: This is silly, but when I was a - not a teenager, I was in my 20s - a movie came out called "La Cage Aux Folles." And I remember seeing it with a mixed audience, meaning there were some gay people in there, but it was mostly a straight audience. And I was not out of the closet at this point. And I was so grateful. It was a French film, and there were subtitles. And had there not been subtitles, we would have missed whole scenes because people were laughing so hard. It was so reassuring to me to see a show that was clearly a crossover thing where the people around me were laughing for the same reason I was. It was a hilarious farce. It was just magic. That was crossover. That was what I had been hoping all my life was going to happen, and there it was. And it was just magic.

CHANG: Yeah. Mallory?

YU: One of my favorites - this isn't a fictional movie. It's a documentary, but it's "Paris Is Burning" directed by Jennie Livingston.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "PARIS IS BURNING")

WILLI NINJA: I'm Willi Ninja, the mother of the House of Ninja.

Give him what he wants.

(CHEERING)

NINJA: I'm the mother of the House of Ninja because they say I'm the best voguer out.

YU: I revisit this documentary about New York City ball culture in all of its bombast and joy, and I just find so much comfort, especially recently, in the fierce and joyful self-expression that its subjects manage in the face of violence and marginalization, homophobia, classism, racism. I mean, it's lovely and grim and joyful. And I love it.

MONDELLO: (Laughter).

CHANG: An era (ph).

RYAN: So in the spirit of trying to find happier ones, one that I watched recently that I absolutely love is "Saving Face" from 2004.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SAVING FACE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #11: (As character) How come we never met before now?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #12: (As character) We did meet. I was 8. You were 9. The Wong boys were taunting me. You beat the heck out of them.

RYAN: It's about, like, two Chinese American women that fall in love, and it talks about sort of, like, homophobia and being afraid to come out. But then her mother gets pregnant, and so they both have this secret that they're hiding. And it's just like - it's a really, like, lovely...

CHANG: I need to see that.

RYAN: Yeah, it's a really lovely sort of romcom. And then, honestly, also recent, one of the ones that I just, like, absolutely love and is hilarious and super gay is "Bottoms" that came out in 2023.

CHANG: Oh, yeah.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BOTTOMS")

RACHEL SENNOTT: (As PJ) Hey, Brittany.

KAIA GERBER: (As Brittany) PJ.

SENNOTT: (As PJ) I am loving all the holes in your pants.

GERBER: (As Brittany) Thanks. You look like a little Dutch boy.

SENNOTT: (As PJ) Thank you. So...

RYAN: That movie was so funny, and, like, that's the kind of stuff that I like to see is just, like, queer filmmakers just, like, doing whatever they want and, like, having fun with it and just making stuff for us to enjoy.

CHANG: That was NPR's Erika Ryan, Mallory Yu and Bob Mondello. Thank you to all three of you. This was great.

MONDELLO: Great time.

RYAN: Thank you, Ailsa.

YU: Thanks, Ailsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.