Fabulous!: A Loving, Luscious, and Light-hearted Look at Film from the Gay Perspective - Softcover

Reuter, Donald F.

3.83

12 ratings by Goodreads

9780767916004: Fabulous!: A Loving, Luscious, and Light-hearted Look at Film from the Gay Perspective

Softcover

ISBN 10: 076791600X ISBN 13: 9780767916004

Publisher: Broadway, 2004

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“Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Defining “gay perspective” is no easy task, but Don Reuter has created a star-studded new tribute to the Hollywood moments that give gay culture its own saucy language. Collecting the most memorable one-liners, gender benders, tearjerkers, nail-biters, and heart stoppers from the world’s most celebrated picture shows, Fabulous! is a campy, fun-filled companion to the movies that gay men love.

More than one hundred films are covered, from classics like All About Eve and Breakfast at Tiffany’s to newer films such as Chicago and Boogie Nights, accompanied by screen stills and snippets of dialogue that readers will know by heart—or want to instantly commit to memory. Dozens of selections include in-depth commentary featuring fun facts, vivid plot summaries, and a witty rundown of reasons for the movie’s gay appeal. Also included are sections devoted to the “gayest” made-for-TV movies, how to throw the perfect Oscar party, and a trivia quiz.

Hilarious, witty, thoughtful, and always surprising, Fabulous! is the absolute source for all things gay in cinema.

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About the Author:

The author of Gaydar, DONALD F. REUTER also served as the creative director for three books by legendary makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin, including the New York Times #1 bestseller Making Faces. Reuter lives in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly:

Reuter's arch and breezy treatise on what makes a film a queer favorite runs the gamut of the gay de rigueur, from superb classics like Judy Garland's The Wizard of Oz and Liza Minnelli's Cabaret to the camp car wrecks Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Valley of the Dolls. Reuter (Gaydar) explains what makes one film "homo-centric" and another hopelessly hetero (e.g., Double Indemnity gets the gay thumbs up, but Casablanca doesn't pass the litmus); actors, dialogue and plot all create homo or hetero tensions. He also amusingly delineates guidelines for decoding gay sensibility encoded in otherwise straight films such as Dr. Zhivago and The Way We Were. Themes of isolation and feeling different-which, for Reuter, define a gay-friendly film-are imbedded in nearly all of the 75 movies described here (there are another 25 suggested as queerish also-rans). Reuter elucidates the connections straight women and gay men find with so-called "chick flicks" of many eras (including Now Voyager, Thelma and Louise and Chicago), but as he reveals, a film can be homoerotic but utterly indecipherably so to a straight audience. Reuter's book isn't meant to be read as a film textbook, but as film context, and although the cutesy presentation can get tiresome if one reads from cover to cover, it's thoroughly successful for dipping into. With camp-classic quotes, lists of films to explore, short shticks on musicals and film themes, a trivia section, tips on planning an Oscar party and terrific photos throughout, Fabulous is definitely fabulous. B&w photos.
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