rivjudephoenix: […] And in “My Own Private Idaho,” the 21-year-old actor managed to make some film h

rivjudephoenix: […] And in “My Own Private Idaho,” the 21-year-old actor managed to make some film history. Phoenix, signed to play a scruffy, sleepy young man named Mike, decided the movie needed a scene with an explicit gay subtext, one in which he would spell out his love for Keanu Reeves’ pseudo-bisexual playboy. Around a campfire, Phoenix delivers a stammering, meek, heartfelt confession, ending with the words, “I love you and you don’t pay me.” With this he dealt a blow to Hollywood’s perennially brain-dead treatment of homosexual subject-matter, which currently wavers between creepy exploitation and bland condescension.By all reports a happy heterosexual, Phoenix spoke enthusiastically to the gay weekly, the Advocate, about his scene. “It wasn’t an improvisation. Everything was written. The stutters, the uh’s, were all written. I wrote all of it!” The interviewer, David Ehrenstein, then speculated it was the first romantic declaration of love between men in commercial American film. “Really?” River responded. “No other time before this? That’s beautiful. I’m so proud. That’s great. Cool! That makes me feel good!” Not as articulate, perhaps, as the liberal patter of celebrities who tell the Advocate how comfortable they are with lesbian and gay people, and how they would certainly play a gay role if the right one came along – but as it happens, more truthful- The Washington Post, November 1993 -- source link
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