Yet watching the movie today, it's a bit hard to understand what everyone was so upset about.

Er...you said it yourself: The film's premise, emphasized in the closing scenes that to be homosexual is to be a psychotic killer. As Vito Russo wrote in The Celluloid Closet, "The monster in Friedkin's horror film is homosexuality itself.''

That homosexuality was a dangerous pathology and gay men monsters, was pretty much what this gay man was taught while sitting in my 9th grade sex ed class back in 1969. The class was taught, I kid you not, by our gym teachers, who said when the subject of homosexuality came up, that homosexuals usually kill the people they have sex with. One of them told us that most unsolved murders were committed by homosexuals. I've wished since that I had the presence of mind to ask him then, how they knew they'd been committed by homosexuals if they were unsolved.

But that was the thinking about homosexuals back then, and what I and other gay men of of my generation grew up under the taint of. I guess you have to appreciate how relentlessly homosexuality was portrayed as pathology, and gay men as either dangerous psychopaths or contemptible faggots by Hollywood, to appreciate how sick of it a lot of us were by the time Cruising came out, and how angry. It's not just that it reinforced the prejudices that kept us outcasts from our families, our communities, our country. Friedkin's film justified the contempt and loathing that got many gay people killed then, and which still does to this day.

The reason Cruising isn't inciting as much protest now as it did then, is because the scope of gay life is more visible now, and so the film's poisonous message is less likely to be taken as gospel regarding "the gay lifestyle". But that does not make the film, or its makers, any less contemptable. The fear and loathing and contempt Friedkin pandered to back then, is still killing us.

I disagree that the film has a poisonous message. I don't believe it has a message at all. It's a noir murder mystery about distinct, individual characters that transpires in an exotic location (the SMBD world of urban gay life in 1980). Are you saying that Friedkin intentionally created a propaganda piece that intended to get real gay men killed? Or, that he unintentionally pandered to American homophobia because he was unhip enough not to know what he was doing?

I'm a big fat homo writer, and I saw this film in 1980 when I was 22. I found it intensely moving and interesting. I did not glean a message from it that was at all negative toward gays. I think that art is in the eye of the beholder, and so is the message. I'm going to defend the artists here--not politically correct sensibilities. A far, far more damaging film to me as a young gay virgin would have been Ode to Billy Joe, which, if you're looking for a message is this: gay sex is a sin against man and god, and if you partake you should kill yourself.

But that's not what that film was about, and when I saw it was captivated by its drama and tragedy. Needless to say, losing my virginity did not result in self-slaughter. Not all movies are propaganda.

I'm a big fat homo writer...

Well another homo writer, Vito Russo, in his history of gay representation in Hollywood films, The Celluloid Closet, observed that...

...Friedkin realized that his film said what gay activists claimed it said and he added a disclaimer to all prints of the film.

This film is not intended as an indictment of the homosexual world. It is set in one small segment of that world, which is not meant to be representative of the whole.

The disclaimer is an admission of guilt. What director would make such a statement if he truly believed that his film would not be taken to be representative of the whole?

I think he's got a point there. Friedkin's film is based on a book by New York Times editor Gerald Walker. The novel, as Russo says, "...is homophobic in spirit and in fact; it sees all its gay characters as having been "recruited", condemned to the sad gay life like modern vampires who must create new victims in order to survive. The gay characters in the novel are all filled with self hatred and a hatred for the people who "turned" them gay. Walker's killer intimates that the homosexual lifestyle is an inherently violent one - not that the cruising scene is violent, but that to be homosexual is to be violent."

That was Friedkin's source materal, and it certainly has its echoes in his film The Boys In the Band, and in particular in Michael's pitiful line, "If we could just not hate ourselves quite so very much..." It's pretty hard, all taken together, not to figure that Friedkin knew exactly what he wanted when he reached for Gerald Walker's novel to make a film from. Only this time, the community rose up in anger. Russo is absolutely right: that disclamer is an admission of guilt.

And Russo documented one other thing about the climate surrounding Cruising, that I'm not seeing now among all the scholarly "re-evaluating" going on...

Protest leaflets against Cruising said, "People will die because of this film. In November 1980, outside the Ramrod Bar, the site of the filming of Cruising, a minister's son emerged from a car with an Israeli submachine gun and killed two gay men.

I don't think it takes being "politically correct" to be absolutely appalled at Friedkin's reliable contempt for gay people, let alone his utter indifference to the climate of violence against us. I'm not saying that what Friedkin did was to intentionally create a piece of anti-gay propaganda, nor am I accusing him of being "unhip". I'm making a more serious accusation here: that he didn't give a damn what the film did to the gay community because there was money to be had.

I understand and sympathize with your point here, and I didn't know that about the source material. But if the disclaimer is an admission of guilt, guilt over what, exactly? I think that gay stories almost always deal with homophobia on some level. Perhaps I'm selfishly worried that at some future point, the cultural gatekeepers of the gay community may come after me if I decide I want to write about homophobia ironically.

I guess I have to go back to my reaction to the film itself. I found it to be interesting and provocative. Certainly there have been serial killers who have targeted gay men--there can be no arguing that. And when I remember Boys in the Band I remember Harold's line, that the sad part about Michael is that he is gay and he doesn't want to be. Harold confronts Michael's perverse internalized homophobia. "You will be [gay] until the day you die..." I think that film is about acceptance of oneself. Just as I think Cruising is about the liebestod that may be the crux of sadomasochism.

Perhaps Friedkin was truly innocent of what he had a hand in--and that's why he issued the disclaimer. That he didn't want to cause harm to fellow human beings, and that he tried his best to ameliorate the situation.

However, I don't fault anyone for trashing something they believe to be vile.

I just read Gerald Walker's 1970 book, "Cruising." The basic setup is the same as the movie, but the book is told from the point of views of the killer, the cop and the detective (alternating chapters). These men are homophobic and their thoughts clearly state so (unlike the film, where we don't get inside their heads). They're also anti-Semitic and anti-Hispanic immigrant. It's a florid, noir read (with a gritty, Beat-nick type pose style). Certainly offensive to some readers.

At one point in the book, a gay friend of the killer flat-out tells the killer to get over it and come out of the closet, a realization that sends him over the edge and on a murderous spree (in a bathhouse no less!).

However... just because these characters are homophobic, does that mean Gerald Walker is? It's possible he was making a statement that these guys are screwed up. Just because the killer in the film and perhaps Al Pacino's character have issues, is Friedkin saying ALL GAY MEN have issues and will turn to murder? Of course not. And who's to say the hundreds of gay men in the bars, and even Pacino's neighbor, aren't happy and well-adjusted?

This film is a murder/mystery among S/M types. It's not about happy, content gay couples. It's a fallacy to therefore conclude the director is saying there are no happy, healthy homos.

Having said that, I must say that I can understand why folks would be upset and protest back in 1980. The earlier post (in a separate thread) by the man who said he grew up being told in school that homosexuals were killers ... that puts it all in a different context. I wasn't around then, but I have to respect those guys and their interpretations.

PS: Ronald Crumley, the guy who went into the Ramrod in 1980 and opened fire, killing two, was clearly insane. Even a jury ruled that he was "as nuts as they come." He stated that demons in the guise of homosexuals were stalking him, so he had to protect himself by killing them.

I hardly think any art should be judge (or not be allowed to exist) because of the reaction it could evoke from an insane person. If he thought demons inhabited Italians, would we ban The Godfather?

The basic setup is the same as the movie, but the book is told from the point of views of the killer, the cop and the detective (alternating chapters). These men are homophobic and their thoughts clearly state so (unlike the film, where we don't get inside their heads). They're also anti-Semitic and anti-Hispanic immigrant. It's a florid, noir read (with a gritty, Beat-nick type pose style). Certainly offensive to some readers.

Thanks for recapping the book. As I stated in another thread, novels and screenplays tell stories differently because novels can have a point of view. This is precisely what James Ellroy does--shows the homophobia in all its dreary glory. By casting a spotlight on it, he uses ironic hyperbole to "rub our noses in it." Yes, certainly offensive to some readers, and enjoyable entertainment for others who take it at face value. But the joke is ultimately on them, because by showing the cops to be just as demented and sick as the killers, he imputes that the society of which these depraved individuals are guardians is just as sick as they are. It's subversive fiction.