Ben Hur: A Gay Tale of Christ

Ben Hur (1959), based on the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ, by Lew Wallace, was one of those big-budget epics with "a cast of thousands" that studios in the 1950s hoped would draw people away from television.  And it worked: 11 Academy Awards, second-highest grossing movie of all time to date (after Gone with the Wind), re-released in 1969, broadcast on tv in 1971.  With a palpable gay subtext.

Gore Vidal, the gay author who wrote the screenplay, apparently included a gay text: around the time of Christ, the Roman Messala (Stephen Boyd) is made tribune of the province of Judea, and looks up his boyhood lover, Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston, previously seen in Peer Gynt).  But Ben-Hur refuses to rekindle the romance, and the enraged Messala tries to destroy him.

The gay text was removed -- you can't have lovers on screen in 1959 -- but the subtext was strong enough, with Messala and Ben-Hur gazing into each other's eyes and linking arms to drink out of each other's cups.  The only problem is, there's no real explanation left for why Messala suddenly turns evil: when a stone from Ben-Hur's roof accidentally falls and injures the Governor of Judea, he seizes on the incident to sell his former "friend" and his mother and sister into slavery.

After three years as a galley slave, Ben-Hur makes a new "friend," Roman Consul Arius (Jack Hawkins), who brings him back to Rome, trains him as a charioteer, and adopts him.

But Ben-Hur wants revenge, and he wants to find his mother and sister.  So after a few years of domestic bliss with his older boyfriend,  he heads back to Judea and challenges Messala to a chariot race.  Messala dies, Ben-Hur is reconciled with his mother and sister.

Ben-Hur gets a girl along the way, but no fade-out kiss.  The final scene shows Ben-Hur and his family witnessing the Crucifixion, where they learn to forgive the Romans.








"Admitted heterosexual" Charlton Heston (Ben-Hur) was no gay ally: "I find my blood pressure rising when [President Bill] Clinton's cultural shock troops participate in homosexual-rights fund-raisers..and claim it's time to place homosexual men in tents with Boy Scouts."

But Stephen Boyd (Messala) was gay. Here he buddy-bonds with David Wayne in another gay-subtext movie, The Big Gamble (1961).

See also: Ramon Novarro, who starred in the 1925 version of Ben-Hur.

Stephen King's Cell

In the 1970s, Stephen King single-handedly revitalized the moribund genre of horror fiction by using contemporary settings, small-town high schools and supermarkets instead of castles in Transylvania, and by making his protagonists “total guys” who listen to rock music, watch the Boston Celtics, and drink Budweiser, instead of mild-mannered scholars translating eldrich lore from the Assyrian. But he failed to modernize the homophobia of the genre: In The Shining (1977), the Overlook Hotel in Colorado is haunted chiefly because it was the site of unimaginable depravity during the Jazz Age. There was even sex between men! In It (1986), the monster takes on most terrifying form imaginable, a pedophile Clown; there are also two gay human monsters, a lipstick-wearing swish and a bisexual pervert who likes to watch animals die. In The Tommyknockers (1987), a lisping gay necrophiliac swish receives a gory, well-deserved punishment. In Everything’s Eventual (2002), a man who stakes out a highway rest stop in the hope of engaging in sex with other men! receives a gory, well-deserved punishment.

Contrary to the pattern, Cell (2006) contains no gay monster, human or otherwise. Tom, one of the three survivors who band together when everyone with a cell phone turns into a murderous zombie, is certainly a stereotype, a throwback to the “confirmed bachelors” of 1960s comedy: mild-mannered, soft-spoken, with long, nimble fingers and King’s usual “something of a lisp.” Yet Tom displays hidden reserves of courage, he becomes an invaluable member of the group, and straight protagonist Clay likes him – the highest praise a gay man can hope for! King even addresses the pedophilia libel by giving Tom a paternal bond with twelve-year computer geek Jordan (see, gay men aren’t all pedophiles after all).

But King is careful to make Tom’s gayness nvisible. He is identified as “gay” only twice, both times during the concluding chapters (by then, King no doubt reasoned, his homophobic readers would be too engrossed in the story to toss the book aside in disgust). Otherwise you have to parse it out through stereotypes and subtle hints. When they take refuge at Tom’s house, Clay notes the fastidious neatness and muses that it is characteristic of men whose lives “don’t necessarily include women.” When Tom plans to spend the night with a hysterical teenage girl, to comfort her, he asks, “You know I’m safe with her, right?” Clay nods; he understands that Tom actually means “I won’t try anything sexual because I’m gay.” Even though civilization has collapsed and they are facing horrifying danger, they are still unable to lower their guard and Say the Word.

See also: Two Zombie Movies with Gay Characters.

Benjamin Rojas: Argentine Disney Channel Teen Idol

Born in Argentina in 1985, Benjamin Rojas got his start in Chiquititas (1998), as a jungle boy who gets a girlfriend.  He gained teen idol attention in the telenovela  Rebelde Way (2002-2003), about teens in an exclusive private high school in Buenos Aires.  Pablo Bustamante (Benjamin), son of a famous politician, was the central character, a wealthy, charismatic prettyboy who falls in love with girls a lot.  I never saw it, but apparently there was some buddy bonding and a gay-vague character.  And a lot of ecstatic teen fan chatter.

Next came Floricienta (2004-2005), a teen telenovela that reprises the Cinderella story, with a poor girl becoming a nanny to a rich man, Federico (Juan Gil Navarro).  Benjamin played Federico's brother.  No gay content, but a "mistaken for gay" episode.

Same thing in Alma Pirata (2006): he puts on the swish in order to sneak into a gay nightclub.

But at least there's some buddy bonding on his resume.  La Leyenda (2008) was a classic buddy-bonding movie about two race car drivers (Benjamin, Pablo Rago).

Jake and Blake (2009-2010), a Latin American Disney Channel series shot entirely in  English, had Benjamin playing identical twins separated at birth and reunited as teenagers, when one saves the other's life.  They decide to do a Prince and the Pauper-style switch.

Cuando me sonreis (When You Smile at Me, 2011) was about a man (Facundo Arana) reuniting with his long-lost brother (Benjamin).

Harriet the Spy: Gay and Lesbian Kids

Harriet the Spy (1964), by lesbian author Louise Fitzhugh, is a classic gay-subtext children's novel about an 11-year old writer and grade-school spy.  Harriet is an oddball outsider with distinctly "masculine" interests, a penchant for dressing like a boy, and a romantic friendship with her best friend Janie.  Their male friend Sport (played by Alexander Corti, left, in the 2010 version) is also decidedly gay-coded, neat, artistic, wealthy, and fashionable.  Even the plot -- about Harriet spying on people to gather "sensitive" information, and thereby losing her friends -- can be taken as a metaphor for the secret lives of most gay people during the era, with constant fear of blackmail, entrapment, and discovery.

Fitzhugh wrote two sequels, The Long Secret (1965) and Sport (1979), which maintain the gay symbolism.  But in the 2000s, sequels by two other authors heterosexualize Sport.  Harriet Spies Again (2002) by Helen Ericson, gives Sport a crush on a girl.  And Harriet the Spy, Double Agent (2005), by Maya Gold, involves Sport and Harriet competing over the same girl.

One wonders why they heterosexualized Sport but not Harriet.  Maybe there is more cultural anxiety about gay boys than gay girls.

 There have been two film versions.  Nickelodeon's Harriet the Spy (1996), starring Michelle Trachtenberg as Harriet and gay-friendly actor Gregory Smith as Sport, leaves the gay subtexts intact.

Director Bronwen Hughes has also directed episodes of The L-Word and produced the movie Woman on Top (2009), which features a gay "best friend," so she is not unaware of gay/lesbian characters. Plus, notable lesbian actress Rosie O'Donnell plays Harriet's nanny, Golly.

The Disney Channel's Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars (2010), starring Jennifer Stone, makes Harriet a teenager who has "modern" problems like "mean girls" and "hot boys."  She is interested in a movie star, Skander (Wesley Morgan, who previously played a gay character on Degrassi High).  When he comes to town to film Spy Teen 2: The Sequel, she stalks him and blogs about him so obsessively that her friends Janie and Sport dump her, and Skander quits the movie in disgust.  But in the end she apologizes, and Skander gets a role in a new movie and hugs her.

There still is no heterosexual romance -- Harriet never "gets with" Skander (who doesn't seem interested in girls) -- and Sport remains neat, fussy, artistic,  a gay-vague best friend.  Even the crush that drives the plot seems less about Harriet's interest in the hot boy than her attempt to find an interesting topic to blog about.  The heterosexualization is minimal, a nod to the modern censors who yell that kids must never, never become aware that gay people exist.