"The Eyes of Tammy Faye": A gay-positive light in the homophobic 1980s, with nude photos, not of the televangelists

 

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) takes us back to the golden age of televangelism, when the big names were world-famous celebrities with huge political and social influence.  They had dinner at the White House.  They were parodied on Saturday Night Live.  

1. Jerry Falwell (Vincent D'Onofrio) turned his Moral Majority into a seething- ground for anti-gay hatred.  He blamed them for everything.  An airplane crash in Peru -- must have been some gays on board.  Rise in teen pregnancy -- gay rights make our kids think they can do anything they want.  Your basement is flooded -- God is punishing you for not hating gays enough.  "A homosexual will kill you as soon as look at you."

2. Pat Robertson (Gabriel Olds) proclaimed that God was punishing all of the gays by giving them AIDS, but they wanted to infect as many straight people as possible, with the goal of destroying society before becoming extinct.   They had special rings that, when you shook their hand, would prick you with a little of their blood, so you would catch AIDS and die.  They would spit on your food or cough on you on purpose

3. Jimmy Swaggart (Jay Huguley) said that he would kill any gay man who looked at him romantically.  He saw his huge tv ministry decimated after two prostitution scandals, in spite of his famous "I have sinned" speech. 

4. Oral Roberts managed to build a whole homophobic university with sleazy fundraising techniques, like claiming that if viewers didn't send in $8,000,000, God would kill him.

More after the break

Pasolini's Canterbury Tales: More gay characters and cocks than Chaucer imagined

 

The Canterbury Tales (I Racconti di Canterbury, 1972) is my favorite of Piers Paulo Pasolini's Trilogy of Life (others include The Decameron and The Arabian Nights), maybe because the set-up and many of the stories are familiar from my college claasses, so I don't get lost in the abrupt sedgeways.

And because I saw it last of the three, so some of the cast was familiar: Pasolini's lover Ninetto Davoli, left, as a comic-relief buffoon, Franco Citti as someone morose and frightening,  Although I'm still annoyed by the closeups of random people with bad teeth grinning at the camera for no apparent reason, and the groups of people sitting around singing for no reason.

There is less full-frontal nudity than in the others, but for some reason the penises on display are much more impressive. 

The biggest of the lot -- probably the biggest portrayed in any mainstream film -- belongs to John McLaren.

Pasolini includes adaptions of 8 stories:

More after the break

Seann WIlliam Scott: From homophobic to gay-positive roles, with three butts, two bulges, a dick, Kyle Gallner, Gavin Munn

Seann William Scott first became famous as Stifler in the American Pie franchise (1999-2012).  I 've never seen any of them (although I know what they do to the pie), but I found a list of his "most disgusting antics"on the fan wiki. 

• Accidentally drinks a guy's cum
• Gets urinated on by a guy
• Forced to kiss a guy
• Has sex with a guy and two dogs
• Digs a ring out of dog poop
• Accidentally has sex with an old lady.  

As you can see, same-sex acts top the list of disgust.

Seann took a serious -- well, at least not comedic -- dramatic turn in Final Destination, 2000, about teens who survive a plane crash, except fate didn't want them to survive.  Former teen idol Devon Sawa also starred.

Then it was back to raunchy comedy in Road Trip, 2000, about four college buds on a road trip to see boobs and retrieve an incriminating tape.

Dude, Where's My Car (2000), about...um...a stolen car, required Seann to kiss Ashton Kucher.  Both actors were interviewed about how the managed to do something so disgusting.  Plus there's homophobic jokes, gay panic jokes, and lesbian jokes, covering all the bases. 

The tv series Dukes of Hazzard was infamous for sculpted bods and enormous bulges of Bo and Luke Duke, John Schneider and Tom Wopat.  The 2005 film version, starring Seann as Bo and Johnny Knoxville as Luke, emphasized Daisy Duke's short-short.

In Role Models (2008), Scott plays an energy-drink salesman assigned to be a role model to a foul-mouthed young boy.  Homophobic jokes and gay slurs abound, but at least we get a shot of his butt.

More Stiffler after the break