What's Wrong With Valentine's Day?

The fiancé picked on me the last week because he's gotten to the point when he knows exactly what will spark a blog entry from me. While I resisted that particular entry (but still have the itch to write it), I can't resist this entry simply because it bothered me so much. I got really agitated by the whole incident and it made me feel like despite any advances we've made as a gay community, there's still a loooooong way to go. So what bothered me so much?

We went to see Valentine's Day.

OK, the movie itself wasn't the problem. I didn't like the movie, he liked it, but frankly anytime Eric Dane walks around half naked it can't be all bad. No, the movie itself did not bother me, aside from its mostly predictable plot. What bothered me was the crowd's reaction to the movie.

Spoilers Ahead

I'll give you a fair warning now, if you haven't seen it and actually care to, STOP READING at this point. I will have some spoilers below… of course, that assumes a movie that is this much of a carbon copy of every other romantic dramedy has anything that can be spoiled.

One of the big spoilers of the flick is that near the end of the movie, it is suddenly revealed to the audience that Eric Dane's character (an "old" NFL quarterback that just came out of the closet… ooops, another spoiler) is actually dating Bradley Cooper's character (who, until that point, had absolutely no reason to be in the movie). This is revealed in a bit of an awkward scene in which Cooper walks into Dane's house to find Dane sleeping shirtless in a chair, walks up to him, brushes a few roses against Dane's cheek to wake him up then bends over and plays with Dane's hair. That's it. No kiss, no "I love you," not even a hug. Just a hand playing in some hair and some doey eyed looks, and since you find out earlier that Dane's character is gay and this is a romance, the audience is left to assume they are a couple.

Before I start in, I do have to give a small amount of credit to the studio and the actors. I honestly thought the scene was sweet and the actors looked like two boys in love. Two very hot boys in love. And this was a story that could easily have been cut from the movie, but the studio plugged ahead and left it in. /golfclap

What's Wrong With The Movie

With that out of the way, I'm beyond baffled as to why the studio decided to minimize this relationship with respect to all the other relationships in this film. All of the other relationships featured expressions of love beyond a cranial massage. Lovers kissed, danced, made love, chased each other down in airports (oh yes… yes, they did)… yet this relationship was merely a 2 minute (if that) clip that only went so far as a few gentle smiles. Is this all the studio can handle showing the public? Is that what they think of gay people? Are we now allowed to love, but not allowed to show it? In this post-Brokeback Mountain era where two A-list males were passionate with each other on screen, are we really so scared of gay romance that we have to reduce it to 1940's style innuendos?

What's Wrong With The Audience

But that wasn't even my biggest gripe with the move. Actually, yes that was. My biggest gripe is not even about the movie itself, it was with the audience. When the "big reveal" happened the audience erupted in snickers and giggles. And yes, even though there were only 30 other people in our showing, erupted is the correct term to use. I'm not the only one that experienced this either, some reviewers warned of this in their screenings as well. Again, in this post-Brokeback World, is this really still an issue to chuckle at? Is it really still funny to some people to see two gay men showing emotion to each other? And if so, can you pretty fucking please explain to me why it is so damned funny?

Taking a step back, I do admit the story was poorly told and that scene, while decently handled by the actors, was very poorly delivered by the director. Maybe it was the overall hokiness of the film getting to the audience? Maybe it was that by this time in the movie, they were just looking for something to laugh at? Or maybe they, like me, thought the movie was just not that great and needed some comic relief?

Or maybe the audience has just gotten used to Hollywood treating gay men as punch lines so they just assume this was a punch line too.

It's All Wrong In The End

Whatever the reasoning, it was very, very aggravating. If I had not already disliked this flick, that would have ruined it for me by itself. Nothing about that scene commanded the audiences respect, and the audience responded in the way they thought was most appropriate: Gays are funny. They should be laughed at and mocked. That is truly a sad state of affairs, on both parts of the equation.

To summarize: A) Don’t waste your time with Valentine's Day, B) Hollywood needs to start treating gay relationships with some fucking respect, and C) Immature straight people need to grow the fuck up and get the hell over their own issues. I had to bust down closet doors and continue to face daily struggles to be who I am, the last thing I need is some "frat-boy" dumbass chuckling it up at my expense in a subversive attempt at attacking my sexuality.