Peter Masterson: Last News

Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, we revisit the 1982 musical The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, which really is a gay old time!This week we just might be doing a deep dive into what is simultaneously the straightest and the queerest movie thus far. On the surface, 1982’s The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas is an often-silly and well-intentioned musical starring America’s most beloved big-breasted songstress, about a brothel trying to stay afloat after conservative backlash tries to bring it down.However, if one scratches that surfaces a bit harder, they’ll find that the movie is actually a pretty scathing satire about the ways sexual freedom can (and has) been needlessly turned into a crime by puritanical figures—an idea that highly resonated with the queer community of when the movie was made, and also still unfortunately today.The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is based on a 1978 stage musical of the same name, with a book by Larry L.