LGBTQ Films, Actor, & Talent

As a film lover and openly gay woman, I am intrigued by the film industry and how they portray gay characters and the stories that surround them. I have seen and done a lot of research on LGBTQ films, but I would most like to hear your thoughts on the subject. So here are a few of my questions for all you awesome LGBTQ members out there.

Who are your favorite lesbian, bi-sexual, or straight actresses in LGBTQ films/tv series?

What actress/characters are your favorite girl on girl romance in film/tv series?

What two actresses would you like to see together in a girl on girl romance?

What kind of story lines or subject matter do you want to see in LGBTQ film?

Name some of your favorite LGBTQ Filmmakers or Entertainment Industry People to Watch for?

Please list your thoughts, ideas, comments and/or pictures to this post. I would love to hear your thoughts.

 

First off, I want to say this is a really interesting topic and I'm surprised it hasn't had any comments for as long as it has.

I actually don't pay enough attention to actors and actresses personal lives to know which ones are gay or straight, but as far as favorite actors and actresses that I know are gay, I like Jodie Foster, Matt Bomer from White Collar, Nathan Lane and Neil Patrick Harris.

As for my favorite gay characters on TV, that would be the two gay dads from Modern Family. I haven't watched the show in a while, so I can't for the life of me remember their names, but I like them. They're funny, charming, likeable and very realistic, I think. The fat one isn't gay in real life, though. That's not a problem of course, since he plays the part so brilliantly. Their chemistry is great. They're apparently best friends in real life.

The thing is that I don't know of too many lesbian characters on TV. There was one on Rules of Engagement for a while. The surrogate mother. She had great chemistry with Patrick Warburton. I don't know if she's still on the show or not because again, I haven't watched it in a while. But I liked how they made the lesbian character primarily bond with a male character over both having low brow, sarcastic senses of humor. I wouldn't normally expect that. I'd have assumed TV sitcom writers would just make her a man hater or something predictable like that. Besides, as a bisexual woman with an occasionally low brow and intensely sarcastic sense of humor who gets along very well with men who are the same, I like seeing that. There's also Diana from White Collar. But those are the only ones I can think of. I'm not for shoehorning a lesbian character into a show if it wouldn't work, but I think it would be interesting to see a few more in the supporting cast of a show.

As for LGBTQ films, I don't really go too far out of my way to watch them, but I did see the documentary, Small Town Gay Bar, which is about gay bars in small towns in the deep south and the regulars at them. It was great and I'd recommend it to anyone. I'd also recommend Kevin Smith's story about it. The documentary was made by a friend of his, and at one point, he interviewed Fred Phelps. During the interview, he apparently zoned out and started staring at one of Phelps's flock's crotch and admiring how big it was. The way Smith tells the story is just fantastic. I can't do it justice.

 

My favourite gay actress would be Jodie Foster, she's been in a few of my favourite movies, although from memory, dont think she's ever played a gay woman.

But its like with everything else, its not about whether they are gay or not. With TV/Movies its how much the camera loves them and the vibe they give off.

If you try to purposely bring togeher an ensemble cast of gay actors to do a TV series or movie its unlikely to work, because how well they gel together or light up the screen as their characters is more important than actually getting gay actors to play gay characters.

And in comedy it seems to work the other way around(for guys anyway), as things have to be characturised, straight guys play funnier gay ones and vice versa

 

I've never thought of it that way. I know comedy is about exaggerations and absurdity, but I never really thought that straight actors are better than gay actors at playing gay people in a funny way before, but it does make sense. Like the guy from Modern Family, Eric Stonestreet. He's straight, but he plays a really funny gay guy. His husband on the show, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, is gay in real life, but he's more of the straight man in the relationship, for lack of a better term.

On the other end of that, Neil Patrick Harris on How I Met Your Mother and the Harold and Kumar movies plays a cartoonish womanizer and degenerate as well as straight guys like Robert Downey Jr. and David Spade, who are, or at least were at one point that in their real lives. Harris is gay, and apparently very monogamous.

So yeah, I never thought of that. It's pretty interesting, now that I think of it.