I QUIT

The cringingly mistitled charticle “The Gay Plot: Out of the Celluloid Closet” appeared on the back page of Out, September 2008. In it, Ilya Marritz exclaims “independent gay films can totally crack $100,000 at the box office” – as though that were some kind of triumph.

In fact, Marritz’s reporting shows that “gay” films barely make any money at all. Including seriously questionable outliers like Blades of Glory and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Buck Larry, the total box-office haul for “gay” moves from 2000–2007 is $970 million. Excluding those outliers, the real number is $732 million. If I am to believe Wikipedia, The Matrix Reloaded earned that much by itself.

Over $10 million

  • Monster ($34M)
  • Rent ($29M)
  • Capote ($28M)
  • The Producers ($19M)
  • Far from Heaven ($15M)
  • Kinsey (≈$10M)

You might disagree about Rent, but weren’t most of these pretty good movies all told?

Over a million

  • The Deep End ($8M)
  • The Night Listener ($7M)
  • Running with Scissors ($7M)
  • Before Night Falls ($4M)
  • Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (a measly $4M)
  • Hedwig (a measly $3M) and Shortbus (just under $2M)
  • Chuck & Buck (≈$1M)

Aren’t these the true independent pictures – good script, good actors, just not a whole lot of money to spend?

Under half a million

  • The Dying Gaul ($343,000 – this despite quasi-explicit homosexualism enacted by Campbell Scott)

Under $200,000

  • Bear Cub (fatties won’t read subtitles? Spanish-speakers don’t want to watch fatties? what?)
  • The Business of Fancydancing (fop till you drop!)
  • Circuit
  • Dahmer (who the fuck wants to watch a movie about Jeffrey Dahmer?)
  • Eating Out
  • Friends and Family
  • The Girl
  • Girls Will Be Girls
  • Hellbent (surprisingly good)
  • 101 Rejkavík
  • The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green
  • Testosterone

Have you even heard of most of the movies in that last list? Of those you did hear of, do you now think you even should have?

The foregoing posting appeared on Joe Clark’s personal Weblog on 2008.09.09 13:31. This presentation was designed for printing and omits components that make sense only onscreen. (If you are seeing this on a screen, then the page stylesheet was not loaded or not loaded properly.) The permanent link is:
https://blog.fawny.org/2008/09/09/the100kclub/

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