gay representation before #representation--tennessee williams speaks himself into existence through the voices of grand dames and southern belles. williams refers to gay men as "belles" in his journals; liz taylor's catherine looks into the middle distance and tells montgomery clift about a diary she writes in the third person--"she." this is all in the play, but maybe the hollywood magic of the film arrives with montgomery clift as the doctor. clift was gay in real life, and doomed. it's not his best outing, nor is it williams' but there they are. katherine hepburn's mrs. venable stares at the doctor and remarks how like her son's eyes are his, how sebastian would have been "charmed" by him. Gay is memory, never present. it can't be! but if liz taylor--corseted, screaming, drawling about flesh--isn't an authentically Queer thing to witness then babe i don't know what is loli introduced this film with austin dale at a backyard screening for the provincetown art society and the provincetown film society :)
