A gay sugar baby & his beard’s “lavender marriage” takes a controversial twist in this ’78 comedy
Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, we’re revisiting 1978’s A Different Story, a romantic comedy with some interesting ideas about love and sexuality.
Happy belated Valentine’s Day! This past Wednesday was the yearly celebration that—buried among greeting cards, flower bouquets, expensive dinners and lingerie—aims to celebrate love in all of its forms.
So it was only appropriate that we’d do the same for our column.This week, instead of focusing on a traditionally romantic queer film (of which there are fortunately no slim pickings, particularly in recent years), we’ll be talking about one that highlights a, well… different type of relationship, as the title suggests.Subscribe to our daily newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.A Different Story, a romantic comedy from 1978 directed by Paul Aaron, follows the friendship of a gay man and a lesbian woman who end up becoming housemates, marrying each other for immigration reasons and, in an unlikely and highly controversial turn of events, end up falling for each other.
It’s not your typical queer romance, with a thorny treatment of sexual identity that nevertheless makes for a fascinating rewatch almost fifty years after its release.The film follows Albert (Perry King), a gay Belgian immigrant living in Los Angeles who’s been getting by as a kept boy for various rich men, and Stella (Meg Foster) an emotionally unstable lesbian realtor with a rotating series of girlfriends and lovers.
