A Very Queer Notion About LGBT Literature

Entertainment Weekly's Pride Double Issue for June 2020 published a Q & A article by David Canfield called "The Library Is Open." These interviews involved four up and coming queer (I hate that term) authors and was conducted via Zoom.  (It should be noted that the authors--Nicole Dennis-Benn, Naoise Dolan, Akwaeke Emezi, and Garth Greenwell--are all under the age of 45.)

Sandwiched between the article title and Canfield's byline is a headnote briefly introducing the
four authors. The headnote immediately makes this startling statement--"There's never been a more exciting time for queer literature." I don't know who to blame for such a false pronouncement, Canfield or one of the magazine's editors. Whoever wrote that statement is clearly unaware of the enormous amount of gay and lesbian literature that came out of the 1980s and 1990s. During those decades, I was writing for the New York Native and the Lambda Book Report and was reviewing some of those books.

In the 1980s and '90s,  there was an explosion of novels, short stories, plays, and poetry coming from black gay writers, for example. Melvin Dixon, Randall Kenan, Thomas Glave, Assotto Saint, and Essex Hemphill are a few black gay names that come to mind. Plus there were several black gay literary journals that were being published back then. Among them were Blackheart, Pyramid Periodical, and Other Countries.

Other gay and lesbian writers included David Leavitt, Christopher Bram, Audre Lorde, Rita Mae Brown, Alice Walker, Felice Picano and his fellow Violet Quill writers.

Anyone who had ever set foot in a gay bookstore like the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore in Greenwich Village and its nearby competitor A Different Light and marveled at the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of LGBT books and periodicals on their shelves would scoff at the idea that today is "a more exciting time for queer literature."

Remembering Forgotten Actors And Other Entertainment People

A website I stumbled upon recently is called forgottenactors.blogspot.com. I discovered it when I was looking up info on an actor named Sam Buffington, who I had seen on television in an episode each of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Highway Patrol. Both episodes were filmed in the 1950s. I learned that Buffington, a promising talent, died in 1960 at the age of 28, a victim of suicide. Buffington was a gay man at a time when being gay was not considered a cool thing.

I began thinking that Entertainment Weekly, a publication to which I subscribe, should do a column each issue devoted to forgotten members of all branches of the entertainment industry like Buffington, actor James Edwards (the up-and-coming black actor before Sidney Poitier), et al.

There should also be a "Where Are They Now?" feature in the magazine that brings readers up to date on the whereabouts and doings of people no longer prominent in the entertainment industry.


Note: Today is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

Scotty Bowers, Pimp To The Stars

I first learned of Scotty Bowers and his memoir, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars (Grove Press, 2012) while browsing the Summer Movie Preview double issue of Entertainment Weekly (April 27/May 4, 2018) and found out that a documentary based on the book will be released in late July. The film is called Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood.

I immediately obtained a copy of this fascinating tell-all book and I hope to see the documentary version when it is screened in theatres this summer.

Bowers, now 94 years old, was in the Marine Corps during World War II and later became a matchmaker and trick to many famous names in Hollywood in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

Sarah Jessica Parker, An Actress And A Public Library Fan

Actress Sarah Jessica Parker is a fan of public libraries. (She has also started a book imprint, SJP for Hogarth.) In an interview in the March 30, 2018 issue of Entertainment Weekly, she had this to say about visiting public libraries: "[In] libraries, people have their heads down. Nobody is interested in me. It's such a wonderful place for people to disappear. There's almost no place I can think of, with the exception of a church or a temple or a mosque, that demands that kind of quiet and respect for others." I would like to know where these public library branches she has visited are located. My experience has been the opposite. I have often gotten into arguments with fellow patrons who are conversing with other patrons while I'm reading or writing on one of the library computers.

A Book On The Making of "Thelma & Louise"

I enjoy reading books that take the reader behind the scenes of classic Hollywood movies, especially movies I have seen and thoroughly enjoyed. So far I have read books on the making of Network, Rebel Without a Cause, Psycho, and Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Now, according to Entertainment Weekly magazine (July 7, 2017), a book about the making of the 1991 classic Thelma & Louise has been published. The book, by Becky Aikman, is called Off the Cliff. Anyone who has seen the movie knows the significance of the title. Unfortunately, the title and the front cover photograph are spoilers.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading it.

Is There A Trump Sitcom In Our Future?

Entertainment Weekly's April 7/14, 2017 Double Issue is devoted to "Hollywood's Greatest Untold Stories," from the 1970s to the early 2000s. (A great idea!)

One of the stories is about the 1990 British sitcom Heil Honey, I'm Home! that was canceled after one episode. It became "the most controversial TV show ever" because it depicted Adolf Hitler and his wife living next door to a Jewish couple named the Goldensteins.

Geoff Atkinson, its creator, told EW that "I've never felt embarrassed by it, because I know the motives were good. If we were trying to make fun of the Holocaust, we'd deserve [the hate].I never felt we were trying to belittle that at all. But to not get it right, that was frustrating. It was fun, but it came at a price, and I wish I could do it again."

Atkinson also told the magazine this: "As we speak, somebody's probably writing a Trump sitcom. I would love to write a Trump sitcom." And I would love to see a Trump sitcom on TV. Maybe with Alec Baldwin as Trump. It would help us all get through the next four years. No doubt Trump would tweet up a storm complaining about it.

The "Hidden Figures" Book Proposal

Entertainment Weekly (December 30, 2016/January 6, 2017 Double Issue) reports that Margot Lee Shetterly, the author of the New York Times Bestseller Hidden Figures, a non-fiction book about four black female NASA mathematicians, wrote a "55-page book proposal for Figures [that] eventually made the rounds in Hollywood and caught the attention of [film director Theodore] Melfi."

I'm sure there are budding writers and a few long-time pros who would love to see Ms. Shetterly's book proposal in print so they can study it and learn how to write a winning proposal that lures literary agents, book editors, and possibly Hollywood directors.

A Film Producer's Change Of Mind

Letters
Entertainment Weekly
1675 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
August 10, 1994

Dear Editor:

Could the real reason Forrest Gump producer Steve Starkey took out the scene involving Gump and Martin Luther King ("News & Notes, EW #233, July 29) be that he feared a negative reaction from the African-American community over the computer-manipulated image of King in a Hollywood film?

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

The above letter was sent but not published.

The Near Invisibility of Black Gays On The Big Screen

The following is an unpublished letter I sent to Entertainment Weekly magazine. I wrote it on September 20, 1995.

Dear Editor:

Hollywood's portrayal of gays and lesbians is not as "positive and inclusive" as Robert Howland of GLAAD thinks (Issue #291, 9/8/95). Unfortunately, there has never been a spate of major motion pictures that depict the black gay experience. I can name numerous films about black drug dealers and gang members, but I'd be hard put to name one that deals with the intricacies of black gay life. Until that day arrives, Hollywood shouldn't be praised. The reason many in the black community see homosexuality as a white man's disease is because there hasn't been a serious discussion of the issue on TV or in feature films as it pertains to blacks.

Hooray For Hollywood and Its Screenwriters

In Hollywood, movies are considered a director's medium and so screenwriters are given second-class treatment. Newspapers and magazines, taking their cue from the suits at movie studios, have followed their example, ignoring the contributions of the writer and lionizing the director. It is refreshing to see that Entertainment Weekly in its Fall Movie Preview Special Double Issue (August 21-28, 2009) gives credit that's long overdue by including the names of those who have written the scripts for movies slated to be released in September, October, November, and December (including movies written and directed by the same person). Unfortunately, the movie reviews by Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum in the same issue neglect to give the writing credits of the movies under discussion.
While going over the fall movies, one story came to mind: a screenwriter, tired of being treated like the low man on a totem pole and knowing that without a script there is no movie, throws a handful of blank pages at a director, telling him: "Now let's see you try to direct that."