Pajiba

No William Hurt for Kiss of the Spider Woman?

I still haven't seen Boys Don't Cry, but I'd have thought Hillary Swank would be on such a list.

It's been a long time since I've seen it, but I'm pretty sure any gay character in Mrs. Doubtfire falls into the "scene stealer" variety, as the title character was a straight man dressed in drag to be close to his kids due to a divorce. Perhaps you are thinking of The Birdcage?

Pookie, I like your soft, sentimental side.

Dustin, you have to be thinking about The Birdcage, which I irrationally adore.

Wow. Nice list you've compiled there...can't actually argue with any of them. Too bad, NONE of those roles went to gay actors.

Of course, you left off a few, in my estimation.

1. Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Flawless, if only for the one perfect line, "I'd rather suck Hitler's dead dick."

2. Patrick Swayze in Too Wong Foo. Campy, yes, but his portrayal of a drag queen on both a comical and an emotional journey is probably his best role, to date.

3. Nathan Lane in Birdcage. I PIERCED THE TOAST! Classic.

4. Rupert Everett in My Best Friend's Wedding. Though relegated to the role of best friend, his character was the most of likable of a large ensemble of big names. Sometimes we do sing and dance in public, damnit, and when I do, I always hope to pull it off like Rupert.

5. Eric Schweig in Big Eden. This is the quintessential fairytale movie for gays, with Schweig playing against stereotype as an oversized Native American introvert pining away for the love of Arye Gross. Never once is AIDS, self-loathing, shopping, or fabulosity discussed in this gem. THANK GOD.

And thank you, Dustin, for an early gift for your gay readership. Awwwww.

In TVland I'd vote for Felicia "Snoop" Pearson from The Wire. I love how everyone would bust on Omar for being gay, but apparently butch lesbians, at least lesbians with guns, were okay.

Though I've actually never seen the movie, Philip Seymour Hoffman did win an Oscar for Best Actor in Capote.

Good to see two of my favorite actors in In and Out, Tom Selleck and Wilford Brimley. Notice that Selleck is bare-lipped as mustaches on both men would have been far too much mustache for one film. The same phenomena almost killed the cast of Tombstone.

For me one of the best things about the performance/character of Captain Shakespeare was the crew, specificaly Dexter Fletcher, who not only knew about their captain but didnt care....and infact HELP HIM maintain his fearsome appearance

In fact, in the horsepile that was Stardust(it could have been so cast with just two different leading actors!!!) was the bit when Dexter and Bobby D's crew give an honourable bow to the enemy soldiers before Dexter gives that little...grin and RAAAAAAAAARG the pirates attack

Mostly the whole film is worth it just for Dexter Fletcher.

Wait!! Yeah!!

Where the hell is Gay Perry!!!!

that was amongst Kilmer's best and given how awesome he is thats saying something!!!

Pooks, you have a way of communicating that really touches the heart.

No love for Greg Kinnear in As Good As It Gets?!

I thought that was a terrific gay-guy role, and he was great in it.

Having never seen In and Out, my sole impression is derived from my mom's passive aggressive, dinner-table comment about how she didn't understand why Hollywood felt the need to make movies about gay characters: "It's not like real life."

::sigh:: I love returning to my religious conservative roots...

I tried to watch Brokeback Mountain and it bored me to tears. I even fast forwarded through a bunch and I was still bored.

Captain Shakespeare is great, but unfortunately, he is the stereotypical queen, side-kick, scene stealer in Stardust.

Pooks, your world is mesmerizing.

BWeaves: Captain Shakespeare is great, but unfortunately, he is the stereotypical queen, side-kick, scene stealer in Stardust.

I agree, though I didn't think it was great because it was such a blatant stereotype (most transvestites are hetero BTW) A more humanized gay character should've been in his place, given the criteria

Downey Jr. in Less Than Zero. Although he was more omnisexual, yes?

I don't know if Dustin meant The Birdcage, (I loved that movie) but there were gay characters in Mrs. Doubtfire; Robin William's brother was gay and his companion helped create the whole Mrs. Doubtfire getup.

Unless everyone already knew that, and if so, um, ignore this.

Ah, but if you could read my thoughts you could explore my existence on a metaphysical level.

Think about that, Pooks.

The actor(ress?) that played the transsexual in Pedro Almodovar's All About My Mother was EXCELLENT as well. We may need a top 5 transsexuals random list soon too...so many...!

DeNiro? Really Dustin? Really?
Where gay is interchangeable with cross-dresser?
Really?
Ouch.

Agreed with BarbadoSlim on Tom Cruise though...

no love for Joshua Jackson (r.i.p.) in Cruel Intentions?

Come on!

My favourite gay character of all time will remain Martin Donovan in "The Opposite of Sex".

That character and the performance, just completely shatters the stereotype and plays not for laughs, cheap thrills or tacky sentiment. It's brilliant.

Bane I think you're making the same mistake I almost made and putting up a really excellent performance in an indie movie. I was going to say... well really all three guys in The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet had a gay couple in the lead played by gay actors. One was marrying to stay in the closet and for his parent's sake. A nice little comedy and IMHO far superior to his later sheepherder melodrama.

I know this is Studio releases but...i hafta point out Lee Pace in Soldier's Girl.

Like i say, i know htis is studio but the man was....i mean fucking HELL he was incredible, playing the transgender lover of a soldier murdered for that very reason

Out standing, truly outstanding

Eep, you beat me to it. I was also going to suggest Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Sure, the characters were camp, but they were real people, with complexities and emotions under all that glitter. (By the way, does it count as an indie movie just because it's Australian? It was a major release here in its home country.)

As for In and Out - every single thing in that movie is a walking cliche. It has the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Is it supposed to be satirical or ironic or something? "Oh, I like Barbara Streisand, I must be gay." When it was released, I remember thinking what a big step backwards it was for the gay movement. That's what you get for letting Fozzie Bear direct. Gah.

Kevin Kline still has the awesome, though.

C'mon Dustin, what about Gina Gershon in Bound? Awesome film and she was fantastic in it!

Thanks Shay, for pointing that out. There were also a lot of complaints at the time about Philadelphia portraying gay men as sexless martyrs, which is a valid complaint.

A good performance, but not a great 'gay' role, IMO.

The inclusion of Robert DeNiro to this list is an embarrasment. That whole role was embarrasing to watch. To put in him in the top 5 -- even on a seriously random list -- is ludicrous.

Kristen Scott Thomas in "I've Loved You So Long".

Chiwetel Eijifor in Kinky Boots, please.

Kima on "The Wire". A nice, non-fetishized lesbian.

Re: the ongoing digression,

Am I wrong in thinking that "gay" generally, though not always, implies male?

I mean, that's why it's the GLBT community, right? Otherwise wouldn't it just be GBT?

your observation is a very sad truth for all LGBT characters. i'm pretty sure the lesbian/bi/trans lists would look something like; killed, finds a man, murderer, killed, murderer. True,
Chasing Amy just sprang to mind.
Broken Hearts Club was great. Though actually I can only remember the hairdresser. They would all get their hair cut and talk endlessly about themselves while the hairdresser silently cut their hair (and we saw the new kid was officially gay when he started going to the same hairdresser). Finally someone told her that she always gave such great advice and she said 'it's just a gift' (it was funnier in the film).

The hairdresser was Jennifer Coolidge before she was Jennifer Coolidge. The young gay guy as Andrew Keenan, back when he was still working.

Honestly, I think it's one of the best gay flicks out there. It's summed up in the scene where the nerdy one is complaining about gay movies and how they're all about noble suffering aids victims or love lorn confidants of singles socialites, and then wants to see a gay flick about a guy who hasn't gotten laid in a few months and is behind on his student loans.

I couldn't get into The Broken Hearts Club for the same reason I never really got into Queer As Folk - I just can't relate to gay guys (or gals - I'm pretty sure "gay" is still non-gender-specific) who only have gay friends and only go to parties with gay people and define their entire identities by their sexualities. The characters in TBHC didn't stand out to me (John Mahoney aside) because they were all very minor variations on the same "Gay with a capital G, also with pothead boyfriend/gym addiction/committment issues" theme. I'd still agree it's one of the better LGBT-themed movies out there though.

Re: the list in and of itself, I think it's a fair depiction of major studio films. Most people suggesting alternatives are suggesting much smaller, more niche pictures than the ones in Dustin's list - for my money, I'd add "Beautiful Thing", "Presque Rien", "Goldfish Memory", "Shelter" and "Bedrooms and Hallways" to the list of "best LGBT-themed films EVAR!", but for best 'major motion picture' types? Yeah, this is (sadly) probably it. (Well, maybe this and Gay Perry)

Right, I understand the fundamental goodness of playing a gay character as just another person, but if your only criterion for deciding how well an actor played a gay character is how much they played it just like any other character... then your list would basically be a list of people who made the choice to play it straight, as it were. I'm not saying there should be some special "gay" element to the performance, I'm saying that if there isn't then what is the meaning of lists like this?

Eep...hmm. I guess it depends on what the end goal of having major gay characters in films is (because let's face it, everyone has an end goal) and whether you're even happy with the idea that lists like this exist (as in, if Dustin were making "Best African-American Roles" lists and we were questioning how black a character had to be to be eligible, there'd be something worrying going on). If it's for the success of the film itself, then stuff like Brokeback Mountain will always win out, as tragedy and drama are a lot easier to market than 'normal and well-adjusted'. In that case, lists like this should focus on the character who most effectively made you curl up into a ball of depression and weep (so that'd be 1, 2 and 4 on this list). If it's as an amusing diversion or comic foil, then it's Gay Best Friends all the way, or occasionally borderline-offensive stereotyped lead characters (though I'll admit a fondness for In & Out), and whichever of them you thought were funniest/most 3-D, so 3 & 5 on this list. Or there's option C, that the ideal behind having major gay characters in films is complete normalisation within broader segments of the population, to the point that having gay characters really isn't a big deal any more, in which case lists are kinda irrelevant (I like to call this one "The Agenda", just for fun :-D). So it's down to whichever of those goals you think is most list-worthy

also, i can't be the only lesbian lurker on pajiba who is fed-up with the idea that gay almost always excludes women and that when queer women are represented in film and television we're relegated to the guest-star who has a gf for sweeps and then either disappears or finds a man. i mean, there are literally three queer women left on network television and they are all bisexual women who have been incapable of maintaining same-sex relationships beyond a three episode arc. and i defy any of you to name an example of a decent quality major studio film in the last few years that has a woman-loving-woman as a main character. we have become even more obscure than gay men and only seem to exist within entertainment if we're funny gay ladies who don't mention our sexual relations (ellen degenerous, wanda sykes, etc) or sexy ladies who make straight men salivate at the voyeuristic idea of our sexual relations.

/rant.