Yeah, I've accidentally seen some Phicen stuff on eBay that, while really not surprising, shocked me.
I've been wondering this myself. I was 5 and Catholic when Forever... came out... (sorry) so I was oblivious to all of this. I asked my somewhat conservative parents about it recently and me mentioning it was the first they had heard about it. They said something that was somehow surprisingly progressive and a little regressive at the same time, "Just because someone is Gay and a director doesn't mean they're pushing some agenda". I sarcastically replied, "idk have you seen the movie?" and no I don't think Forever or B&R have an agenda but there is that inherent campiness to them.
I think its difficult to accurately assess just how much more plugged into things we are now. I think your average adult in the 90s didn't think too much about who directed movies and you had to go a little bit more out of your way to find out info about them. Unless it was on the TV news or in the paper most people wouldn't even hear about it. IDK if this is right, but it seems you could be "out" in Hollywood for a long time before middle America would find out unless you wanted them to.
I hate to say it but I feel like even now there could be backlash if a well known gay actor got cast as Batman, which is ironic since Conroy was gay and voiced the character for 3 decades. I'm really glad that that becoming more known hasn't affected his legacy amongst Batman fans for the most part. Sometimes Batman fans let me down, especially seeing the ones so excited to watch Batfleck murder people or the ones who seem to think of Batman as some sort of authoritarian power fantasy. To me Batman is a character who wants to create change and would give up his mantle as soon as it wasn't needed, not a power hungry maniac that's determined to fight crime until his death.
Edit: You know what, maybe I'm just pessimistic, Ian McKellen was prominent in two major franchises at the same time in LOTR and X-Men and it didn't seem to bother anyone.
I'm confident a gay actor playing Batman would cause little concern these days apart from the usual trolls who hate on any and everything.
Good point about Conroy too. Man that loss has hurt a lot this year.
Hmm its one of those tricky issues to judge - as much as I would like to think it would be fine, the truth is that globally human rights are in a bit of a reverse trajectory at the moment and there is certainly more media and political power being used more openly to campaign against LGBTQ+ people.
Its like there are less homophobic people in general - but those that are still homophobic are more rabidly homophobic then ever and politicians are catering to this (Extremely loud) minority.
Plus markets like China, the Middle East etc are swinging their ***** around more to force Hollywood to cater to their edicts.
Ian Mckellen is an iconic actor well established for a long time - also the role of Gandalf isn't a "leading man" role, he isn't the type of character that people are supposed to insert themselves into as a power fantasy or is meant to have sex appeal in a "women want him and men want to be him" type of way like Batman.
An openly gay actor playing Alfred, Joker or the Riddler or something I think would get little to no attention - but Batman, Superman? I suspect that Hollywood execs and a large part of media etc would quietly campaign against it.
In fact, unless I am mistakenly remembering, this has cost actors like Matt Bomer a shot at the roles of Batman, Superman and Christian Grey in the past.
Its okay to be gay, but not if you are the leading male role intended as a hetero power fantasy.
I would love to be wrong about that though.
As for Joel's sexuality - I have known he was gay for as long as I remember and cared to know about the subject - but to be fair I would have more reason to be clued in on that sort of thing. (plus I am fairly young so it wouldn't have been back in the 90's)
