Good or Bad. It still took balls to make a movie like this in the 50's.
Just saying.
shareIt still took balls to make a movie like this in the 50's.
Somewhat, but not as much as you might think. Pretty much from the minute moving pictures were invented there have been those who want to film sexual situations.
Once the Hayes code came in, the way to bypass it was to make the movie a morality tale. Glen or Glenda is just one of literally hundreds of movies from the 30's to the 60's to talk about controversial matters under the umbrella of teaching a lesson.
To put this into perspective, all of the really sleazy footage in this movie (the strippers, whipping, etc) were not filmed by Ed Wood but taken from other films made by producer George Weiss, so it's not as if Wood was doing any trailblazing. share
It's not the footage of strippers, etc. that took balls, it's the sympathetic portrayal of transgender lifestyles. Wood was a cross-dresser in real life, and directing and starring in a movie about it was pretty bold for those days.
shareThe film is progressive, but again, really only to a point. Wood's own portrayal has very little to do with transgender lifestyles, the film is quite overt in saying that he just likes the texture of women's clothes and that he is NOT a homosexual or transgender in any fashion. It goes way out of its way to make these points.
As for the Alan/Ann character the screenplay is sympathetic, but ultimately that character is only there because Wood could not have made the film otherwise, as it was designed from the beginning as a sex-change exploitation movie. He was much more interested in the Glen/Glenda plotline and that's obvious in the structure of the film.
So, yeah it is ballsy to be so upfront about what was basically something he did in his spare time, but let's not put any social progress on this film that it doesn't really deserve.