On Sept. 23, the Bs in LGBT will be partying and reflecting. "Celebrate Bisexuality Day" was launched in 1999. According to the Bi Visibility Day website, it was conceived "to highlight biphobia and to help people find the bisexual community."
In honor of the day, Windy City Times takes a look back at three films that dared to say, yes, bisexuals do exist. All three titles are available on DVD.
Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)
Schlesinger followed his Oscar winner with the more genteel but equally daring (for its time) Sunday Bloody Sunday. In some ways, Sunday was even more groundbreaking than Midnight Cowboy—the homosexuality/bisexuality of the second film's characters was blatantly placed at the film's core. It may also have been the first major film to show two men kissing full on the lips, both in and out of bed.
Dame Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch star as Alex and Daniel, two upper-class Londoners. They're both in love with Bob (Murray Head), a handsome young artist. Bob loves them both, and moves between them with ease. Although Alex and Daniel would prefer to have an exclusive, monogamous relationship with Bob, they accept the situation as is.
What makes the film so satisfying is its depictions of Bob and Daniel. For the first time (that we know of), a major feature film showed a gay and a bisexual character who were perfectly comfortable with who they were. Bob and Daniel were successfully upscale, happy, and had no desire to live a traditionally heterosexual life. Ironically, it was Alex, the straight female character, who comes across as frustrated and unsure of herself. For LGBT viewers, Bob and Daniel were a long time coming.
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Midnight Cowboy made history when, at the 1970 Oscar telecast, it won Best Picture. To date, it's the only X-rated film to receive the coveted statue. Considered shocking in its day, the intense, relentlessly grim drama has since been re-rated R.
Midnight Cowboy was a courageous film that dared to shine a light on many taboo subjects: male prostitution, homosexuality, homelessness and the blighted decay that was then plaguing New York City. It's a film that pulls no punches.
Over the years, some critics have derided Midnight Cowboy for it's unflattering portrayal of it's gay and bisexual characters. Director John Schlesinger, himself openly gay throughout his life, stated that he was "against political correctness and the self-censorship it encourages."
Director John Schlesinger (1926-2003) featured gay and bisexual characters in a number of his films.
Jon Voight (father of Angelina Jolie) heads the cast as Joe Buck, a handsome but not too bright young man from a small, dusty town in Texas. He takes a bus up to New York city, convinced that he'll make his fortune by selling his body to wealthy women. In an unforgettable sequence, he attempts to hustle a hard-boiled, past-her-prime call girl (Sylvia Miles). She turns the tables and hustles him.
In one particularly daring scene, a desperate Joe allows a young man (Bob Balaban) to perform oral sex on him in a movie theater. The high schooler turns out to be broke.
Soon broke himself and homeless, Joe enters into an unlikely friendship with Ratzo (Dustin Hoffman), a partially crippled, third-rate con man who lives in an abandoned building. The two men have no one but each other. Together they pickpocket, steal food and try to obtain clients for Joe.
As Joe and Ratso desperately struggle to pull themselves out of poverty and despair, Midnight Cowboy becomes an unexpected love story. Some viewers might take offense to dialogue in which Joe and Ratso assure each other that they're "not fags." But there's no question that these two lonely, down-on-their-luck losers have fallen deeply in love with each other. It remains platonic and unspoken, but it's as real a love as any other. Voight and Hoffman play this love entirely with their eyes—it's screen acting at it's finest.
In 1994, Midnight Cowboy was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Score (1972)
Throughout the 1960s and '70s, Radley Metzger achieved fame and fortune for his X-rated, soft-focus, soft-core erotic dramas. Often shot on location in Europe, Metzger productions like The Lickerish Quartet (1970) and Therese and Isabelle (1968) titillated adult moviegoers with their tales of free spirits who shed their costumes with abandon. Although somewhat graphic, his films shied away from actual hardcore footage—until Score.
Originally released in both hard and softcore versions, Score is a delightfully silly drawing-room comedy about Elvira and Jack (Claire Wilbur, Gerald Grant) a swinging bisexual couple determined to "score" with Betsy and Eddie (Lynn Lowry, Cal Culver), a pair of naive newlyweds. Eddie is obviously a closet case waiting to burst out of his shell.
Shot in a small, picturesque village in the former country of Yugoslavia, the dialogue heavy film is not your typical X-rated fare. Originally an off-Broadway play co-starring a then-unknown Sylvester Stallone (Wilbur is the only member of the stage cast to appear in the film), Score sports some clever dialogue about spouse-swapping and sexuality. Although no one in the film gives a great performance, the cast is sparkly and sexy. Wilbur and Lowry were mainstream actors, while Grant and Culver were best known for their work in gay porn. Both men were casualties of the AIDS crisis.
Happy Bisexuality Day!
