I'm similar, not a lesbian, but smart and weird. Hopeless growing up in a small town with mostly working class, felt more at home in a university city.
I really like this movie, because it preaches tolerance and openmindedness. I don't know any gay people, just seen some and I really sympathize because they can't show their real nature. And this describes the situation in Sweden, one of the most LGBT-friendly countries on earth.
When I grew up in the early eighties we hardly knew anything about homosexuality, it was just considered a strange deviation not to be discussed and gay was a word mostly used by boys when teasing each others. A very nice boy who used to play with us girls in school was occasionally called gay by the boys. I later heard he moved to Stockholm and became a hairdresser, so I guess they were right, but I had no idea. Back then all gays had to move to Stockholm, only place to be yourself, I guess.
I spent more than ten years, mostly nineties, living in the big university city of Lund in southern Sweden, tolerant place you may think, but I never saw a gay couple, possibly one or two spottings of lesbians on the street. One lesbian couple sighting and one possible, could have been a feminine looking male, in ten years!
If you didn't go to gay clubs or had close friends, neighbours or workmates who were gays or lesbians you would never meet any and know. They were invisible. I saw some in Copenhagen, closest capital, though of Denmark. Then, after 2000, I began spotting a few lesbians along with feminists, vegans, left activists etc at alternative events in Malmö, just across the sound from Copenhagen, so I guess the tolerance spread to Sweden.
Also a few gay spottings, but I still haven't seen any gay couples do more than hold hands and then it's only when they feel absolutely safe. It has been common for years that gangs of either skinheads/nazis or certain immigrant groups go gay-bashing, so gays must be wary of assault especially at night. Both gays and lesbians will be called names and spit at in the middle of the day. Even in big cities. Just recently one gay couple in a small village were targeted in their home several times and thought of moving.
At my workplace a lesbian woman was moved a couple of years ago to a locality where she would work alone, so the workmates wouldn't feel "unsafe", union representative the driving force behind this decision along with the boss. I know because this union rep told me to be careful, this new colleague is a lesbian and she might like you. Don't be alone with her in the dressing-room. Oh, please. Not official motive of course, because discrimination is prohibited.
This is today's reality in one of the most LGBT-friendly countries on earth.
That's why I don't think this movie portrays the situation of 1957, it's relevant and spot on and extremely funny. Great cast as well, Tom Selleck for example isn't your typical giggly gay reporter and Kevin Kline is the everyman, not flamboyant or self-centered as some celebrities, so you empathize completely with him. This has been a popular movie on TV in Sweden since release so I think a lot of people here consider it a feelgood comedy, just as me. Not "gay interest" as some dvds I order from England are labelled , when I'd rather label them romantic or arty.
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