Actor Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon) has just won an Academy Award. In his acceptance speech he thanks his high school teacher Howard Brackett (Kevin Kline)...and tells everybody he's gay. This is quite a surprise to everybody...including Howard and his bride-to-be (Joan Cusack). The small town he lives in deals with the fact that Howard is supposedly gay and TV newscaster Peter Malloy (Tom Selleck) urges him to come out.
I loved this when I saw it in 1997 (for the record I'm a gay man)...but this was before "Will & Grace" and "Queer As Folk" presented gay characters and gay sex on TV. FOR ITS TIME it was revolutionary. Now--13 years later--it comes off a stupid, trite, VERY innocuous and exceptionally condescending. First off--the basic plot. Brackett has NO idea that he's gay...but a former student DOES???? He's in his 30s--don't you think he would have figured it out by then? The reactions by his students are extremely condescending. NO student would react the way these kids do. The language is carefully kept at a PG-13 level so as not to offend anyone--but these kids come across as total idiots with no idea how the human body works. Also EVERYBODY in the town accepts it completely! AND the stereotypes! According to this all gay men are limp-wisted (that's so offensive I was shocked), LOVE Barbra Streisand and are clean and prissy. Hard to believe a gay man wrote this. To make matters worse most of the jokes simply aren't funny or are dated. Glenn Closes's announcement of Best Actor nominees is funny only if you know who Steven Segal is and remember that she was in "Fatal Attraction" with Michael Douglas. Everybody remembered it in 1997 but maybe not now. Also the ending rips off "Spartacus" and was so unbelievable and condescending that I got angry at the film!
This gets a 4 (and I'm being nice) for a few reasons. The initial reactions of Kline and the town to his being outed IS funny; Joan Cusack is hilarious when she loses it at the end; Tom Selleck is clearly enjoying himself; it's kind of fun to hear Debbie Reynolds declare she's a lesbian; there's a hot and long kiss between Kline and Selleck and the message is that it's OK to be gay. Still this is stereotyped, innocuous and condescending to a ridiculous degree.
I loved this when I saw it in 1997 (for the record I'm a gay man)...but this was before "Will & Grace" and "Queer As Folk" presented gay characters and gay sex on TV. FOR ITS TIME it was revolutionary. Now--13 years later--it comes off a stupid, trite, VERY innocuous and exceptionally condescending. First off--the basic plot. Brackett has NO idea that he's gay...but a former student DOES???? He's in his 30s--don't you think he would have figured it out by then? The reactions by his students are extremely condescending. NO student would react the way these kids do. The language is carefully kept at a PG-13 level so as not to offend anyone--but these kids come across as total idiots with no idea how the human body works. Also EVERYBODY in the town accepts it completely! AND the stereotypes! According to this all gay men are limp-wisted (that's so offensive I was shocked), LOVE Barbra Streisand and are clean and prissy. Hard to believe a gay man wrote this. To make matters worse most of the jokes simply aren't funny or are dated. Glenn Closes's announcement of Best Actor nominees is funny only if you know who Steven Segal is and remember that she was in "Fatal Attraction" with Michael Douglas. Everybody remembered it in 1997 but maybe not now. Also the ending rips off "Spartacus" and was so unbelievable and condescending that I got angry at the film!
This gets a 4 (and I'm being nice) for a few reasons. The initial reactions of Kline and the town to his being outed IS funny; Joan Cusack is hilarious when she loses it at the end; Tom Selleck is clearly enjoying himself; it's kind of fun to hear Debbie Reynolds declare she's a lesbian; there's a hot and long kiss between Kline and Selleck and the message is that it's OK to be gay. Still this is stereotyped, innocuous and condescending to a ridiculous degree.