Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) Queer Film Focus (F)

Theresa (Diane Keaton) meets Gary (Tom Berenger) in a bar and brings him back to her apartment. When Gary, an unhappy gay man, who we have previously seen in a gay bar with his older male lover, is unable to perform sexually, Theresa responds with patience but ultimately asks him to leave. Instead of departing, Gary erupts in rage and fatally stabs her.

• THE MOST VIRULENTLY HOMOPHOBIC MOVIE OF THE 1970s
• REACTIONARY NARRATIVE
• BAIT AND SWITCH
• REINFORCEMENT OF DESTRUCTIVE STEREOTYPES
• CONFLATION OF QUEER IDENTITY WITH PATHOLOGY AND VIOLENCE

Among the films in The Queer Hall of Shame – see 108 Queer Films from the New Hollywood, below – Looking for Mr. Goodbar may be the most insidious. It cloaks itself in the prestige of serious art, presenting itself as a profound meditation on the sexual freedoms of the Disco era. After two hours of heterosexual escapades—casual hookups, fleeting romances, and Theresa’s own search for identity—the story, in a nasty example of Bait and Switch, reserves its harshest judgment, not for the straight milieu it has been dissecting, but for queer desire.

DIRECTOR RICHARD BROOKS

Director Richard Brooks wrote the novel The Brick Foxhole in 1945. One of the first American novels to deal with homosexuality, it was adapted to the screen under the title Crossfire in 1947 by writer John Paxton and director Edward Dmytryk, with the book’s homophobia being replaced by antisemitism. Brooks also wrote the screenplay for the Jules Dassin film noir prison breakout movie Brute Force (1947), and in 1958, he directed the queer film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Richard Brooks, who was married to actress Jean Simmons from 1960 to 1980 and directed her in Elmer Gantry (1960) and The Happy Ending (1969), passed away in 1992 at the age of 79.

https://thebrownees.net/88-queer-films-made-under-the-hays-code-1934-1968/

https://thebrownees.net/110-queer-films-from-the-new-hollywood-1968-1980/

https://thebrownees.net/manhattan-1979-queer-film/

Brute Force (1947) Queer Film B+ – TheBrownees

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) Queer Film B+ – TheBrownees

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