Gay activist critics of Cruising claimed that its hard-edged portrayal of the gay leather scene confirmed that film makers were ignorant and hateful of gays, and, worse, that the movie's content would inflame public gay hate and misunderstanding. However nothing in Cruising struck me as being unusual, biased or unfairly critical. Some guys do get leathered up on a Saturday night, take heaps of drugs and get fisted in slings while others watch. Isn't part of the thrill of hardcore sex the fact that you’re going right to the edge of your physical and mental limits, a volatile place where injury lurks? Speaking for myself, I’d shit myself if I found myself in a bar like this, and I’m gay. What’s so strange about depicting the gay/leather club scene as a hard-edged, threatening place, when, for many people, me included, that’s exactly what it is? The tone of Cruising isn’t evidence of rivers of dark hatred and ignorance, it's actually closer to documentary.


Gay extras wait for "Action!" on the set of Cruising.

And as for self-loathing, whether they admit it or not, or even know it, a lot of gay guys have father issues – they do, just as a lot of straight people do. People have mother issues as well, this kind of thing isn’t rare or psychopathic, it’s normal. The killer in Cruising hates being gay because he feels guilty for potentially embarrassing and disappointing his father. Okay -what’s wrong with that? What’s so threatening about that idea? (I’m talking about the guilt, not the killing, by the way.) There's nothing shocking and unexpected about it – I would have thought a great many gay guys felt the same, at some point in their lives, if not all the time, always. Cruising uses this basic psychological template as a basis for it’s killer’s twisted psyche. That’s simplistic, lazy screenwriting, but it isn’t "homophobia".

Unfortunately, and again, like Basic Instinct and Silence of the Lambs, the fuss made over the film only fulfills its own prophecy, and brings the negativity to life. In Cruising, there is no direct connection between the killer and his homosexuality, not directly. Nothing in the film suggests that any of the hundreds of patrons inside the leather bars could potentially grab a knife and start carving each other up, in fact, several scenes show a community that is highly organised and full of aware, intelligent and stable adults. Bear in mind that that the bar scenes were filmed on location with real leather queens playing themselves, and one scene involves a suspicious looking Pacino booted out by diligent bouncers who sense he’s not one of the crowd.

How symbolic that gay activists disrupted the filming of Cruising by blowing whistles to spoil the sound checks and shining mirrors onto the set to ruin the lighting. God forbid a movie about gays shouldn't be in the model of It's A Wonderful Life.

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