Widescreen Dreams: Growing Up Gay at the Movies (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog)

by Patrick E. Horrigan

Hardcover, 1999

Status

Available

Call number

HQ75.8.H67 A3 1999

Genres

Collection

Dennis R. Neill Equality Center

Publication

University of Wisconsin Press (1999), Edition: 1, 240 pages

Description

In 1973, a sweet-tempered, ferociously imaginative ten-year-old boy named Patrick Horrigan saw the TV premiere of the film version of Hello, Dolly! starring Barbra Streisand. His life would never be the same. Widescreen Dreams: Growing Up Gay at the Movies traces Horrigan's development from childhood to gay male adulthood through a series of visceral encounters with an unexpected handful of Hollywood movies from the 1960s and 1970s: Hello Dolly!, The Sound of Music, The Poseidon Adventure, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Wiz.

User reviews

LibraryThing member corinneblackmer

In this work, which combines autobiography with film and queer criticism, Patrick Horrigan represents how films such as "Hello, Dolly," "The Sound of Music," "Dog Day Afternoon," "The Wiz," and "Funny Girl" (among others) shape and are shaped by his queer boyhood. A self-proclaimed sissy from a

large Catholic family that makes well enough good on its pretenses to be a happy and supportive family, Horrigan endures bullying, isolation, and the anxious tolerance of his mother and father for ways of his that are clearly "gay." In response, Horrigan develops an elaborate and active fandom for musicals, figures like Barbra Streisand, and becomes an accomplished pianist who learns the arts of conversation and inquiry from his memorable piano teacher. Throughout the book, however, one continues to wonder about the implications and the consequences of the fact that LGBT youth do not have entertainments directed towards them and thus must invent a place for themselves in entertainments that have different subject matters and agendas. On the one hand, it is remarkable to what extent queer culture has managed to make movies like "The Wizard of Oz" or "Funny Girl" their own; on the other, one cannot help but wonder if the bullying and isolation would be ameliorated if we lived in a culture in which LGBT children and adolescents could see themselves on the cultural mirror.

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