Of jellyfish and gay closet cases: unraveling Lee Daniels’ ‘The Paperboy’
Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend dive into queer and queer-adjacent titles of the past that deserve a watch or a re-watch.Lee Daniels rocketed to the top of the Hollywood A-list with the release of his masterpiece Precious back in 2009.
When he released his follow-up The Paperboy in 2012, the movie had audiences scratching their heads and occasionally rushing to the bathrooms.Based on Pete Dexter’s novel, The Paperboy falls into the genre of trashy southern gothic, a dubious distinction shared by such titles as Black Snake Moan and Baby Doll.
Much like those movies, opinions of this film will vary depending on a viewer’s stomach for horny, sweaty characters engaged in a story bordering on high camp.The plot follows Ward Jansen (Matthew McConaughey), a reporter investigating the murder of a Florida sheriff in the 1960s.
While courts have convicted a suspect, Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack), Jansen and his fellow reporter Yardley Acheman (David Oyelowo) come to believe Van Wetter is innocent and set about finding the real killer.
