‘Cruising’ movie part of William Friedkin’s gay film legacy
qvoicenews.comFilm director William Friedkin, who died Monday at age 87, was best known for “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist,” but he also directed two high-profile and controversial gay-themed movies — “The Boys in the Band” and “Cruising.” Both have received some condemnation of how they portrayed gay and bisexual men, but both have also been reevaluated in recent years. ‘The Boys in the Band’ “The Boys in the Band” came out in 1970, two years after the Mart Crowley play it was based on premiered off-Broadway; Crowley also wrote the screenplay.
The film starred all the actors who originated the roles onstage. It depicts a group of New York City gay and bisexual friends meeting for a birthday party for one of their number.
They drink excessively, use recreational drugs, and snipe at each other. Friedkin, who was straight, once claimed to have been cruised by a gay man on Fire Island, which he was visiting as research for doing the film, and “getting out of there as quickly as my legs would take me,” according to a 1980 article by Edward Guthmann in the journal Cinéaste.
Representation criticized The play and the film were criticized at the time — and later — for portraying queer men as dysfunctional and self-loathing.
