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Some gays wouldn't mind if Philadelphia sank. "The movie was too polite, too ginger," says Scott Thompson, one of the cross-dressing quintet of Canadian TV cutups, The Kids in the Hall. "I am tired of the ginger treatment of homosexuality. It's insulting to the public. It says they are so stupid they wouldn't accept an honest portrayal. If Hollywood is using this movie to make America love us, they are making them love a false image. I don't want that kind of acceptance. And I am tired of hearing how brave Tom Hanks is! All you have to do to win an Oscar is play someone in a wheelchair, or someone blind, or someone gay. Besides, he looks better at the end of his life than most people do in their prime. It's like a bad hair day with a lesion."
Demme, sanguine with success, is ready to absolve the most rabid critic of Philadelphia. "We knew we were bound to tick somebody off," he says. "Actually, I was hoping to catch the ire of Jesse Helms -- that sort of terminally closed-minded person. I made this movie for people like me: people who aren't activists, people who are afraid of AIDS, people who have been raised to look down on gays. I feel we've connected with those people, and we've also generated press for the opposition. If everybody agreed the movie was great, it'd take the edge off the need for more films like this. So whether or not Larry Kramer buys it -- and I don't think it's his job to buy it -- he has to fight on behalf of the AIDS and gay communities for greater, in-depth material. We're just a little splash in the ocean."
It's a big splash for groups like the Gay and Lesbian Association for Anti- Defamation, which has named Philadelphia the "outstanding studio film of the year." As GLAAD sees it, the controversy could sell more than a movie. It could begin to persuade America to accept gay people as an intrinsic part of society and convince Hollywood that it should bankroll more movies with gay themes.
"Philadelphia is just one panel, not the entire quilt," says John Gallagher, San Francisco correspondent for the Advocate, the nation's oldest gay magazine. "But as a primer for people who are new to the issue, it is pretty effective." Tony Kushner, author of the Pulitzer prize-winning play Angels in America, believes the film has strong lessons for the straight majority. "It tells them, If you are going to be a decent human being, you can't just casually despise a huge segment of the human race. And if you are going to address AIDS, you are going to have to address homophobia."
That word -- homophobia -- has always seemed a misnomer. Many people don't fear the gay culture; they simply and unapologetically hate it. The idea of same-sex sex gives them the creeps. They want homosexuals out of the barracks and boardrooms -- really, out of American life. In Hollywood, though, homophobia may be the mot juste. There is fear that a film with gays might not appeal to every possible moviegoer.
The issue isn't even movies about AIDS. There is a good reason that there aren't more of those: people die in them, inevitably, grotesquely, and that's not a recipe for box-office success. The real issue is the absence of ordinary homosexual characters in mainstream films.