take action. Filmmakers, armed with cellophane, documented and scripted some of the most moving stories of our times. Films of the late 1980s and early 1990s had purpose and crossed many demographic barriers, even if there always seemed to be a death in the end.
Studios still seem intent on financing gay-themed films only if the homosexual dies in the last reel, but the real death you see on the screen these days is the suicide of the LGBT film. Recently, Gregg Goldstein with The Hollywood Reporter observed at this year’s twentieth anniversary of New York’s gay and lesbian film fest, Newfest, “For despite breakthroughs like ‘Brokeback,’ gay films already are well down the same path as 1970s black films, where quality projects like ‘Sounder’ were the exception and blaxploitation flicks were the rule. Cable’s demand for cheaply made gay movies has ushered