Problems...


Let me start by saying I loved the cast of this film. With that said, there are issues. The decor/clothing/sets were all very daytime soap opera. In other words, heinous. And I felt like the movie was made in 1895 or something. Now, there's the issue of the content. It was disgusting to me the way the parents acted but even more disgusting the way Jennifer Beal's character acted and her husband when they found out the baby might be gay. Would anyone really abort a healthy fetus because they found out it might be gay? Is anyone that monstrous AND stupid? Maybe, I don't know but it upset me and I was just disgusted. And I realize that's what the film was trying to do. but all of the characters were so unlikable. UGh!

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I KNOW!!! They made it seem like the baby was going to have all of these health problems or awful deformities the way everyone was freaking out. I just felt like there should have been one character who wasn't so emotional that could have just been like "Guys, calm the crap down. Why are you all insane?"

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I don't know - it's not that easy a question to answer really, and I'm gay. While I would not abort a child for this reason, nor do I wish I was aborted (nor do my parents), when my son was very young, he seemed as if he might be gay (but so did my older son when he was young and he's straight).

My main concern, since I am gay, was that he would face all of the overt (and subtle) discrimination of our predominantly straight society. The teenaged years are hard enough without adding more to them, as I well know. Still, he is a great boy, and I decided that if he was gay, then he'd be the first gay kid to feel completely open and accepted, at least at home, and he'd never have to play the pronoun game or hide his feelings about anything. It is the best and really only thing I could do for him - and make him strong so he could endure any outside pressure.

As it turns out, he seems to be going down the straight path after all and was just doing the normal exploring children do when they're young. Now that he's going into junior high, instead of worrying he'll bring home a boyfriend I don't like, I have to worry about him bringing home a girlfriend I don't like! Same problem, no difference....sigh.

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Hey, you, 2008minds! this movie is from 1997. 12 years (11 when you posted) is too much time. People changed their minds about this gay or not gay issue. Not so much, anyway. Gays are still pointed out when they shouldn't if they were so accepted as you are saying.
I hate when people say "he's a good looking man, but he's gay" Gay or straight, he's goodlooking! what's up? or worse "he's a great singer, he's gay." What does being gay have to do with singing?
So there's still a long road ahead... let's not pretend everything's ok.

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[deleted]

And let me tell you, hon, that my younger sister's father, the man who raised and loved us for the eight years he and my mother were married (he still loves us, but he and Mom are divorced and he's been with Dale, his partner, for about 25 years) IS gay!!!!! I guess he tried the "normal" thing for as long as he could, and although I can only imagine how hard it was for him, I bless every day we had him as a father and am glad he's still in our lives. Any dick can impregnate a woman, but only a real man, gay or straight, can be a real Dad.

"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity." ~ Edgar Allan Poe

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[deleted]

There's a lot to like about this film; the issues are presented honestly and unflinchingly. The only real glitch in the story is that the brother-sister relationship between Fraser and Beals is an extremely close one, which makes it rather incredible that she would even contemplate aborting her child just because he MIGHT turn out gay. Had the brother and sister not been so close at the start it might have played better.



Never mess with a middle-aged, Bipolar queen with AIDS and an attitude problem!
roflol ><

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It might have made more sense because of the way they changed the ending from the stage play. The film ending doesn't jibe with the title.

In the play the Suzanne has a late-term abortion and David leaves the family. Suzanne has complications and must have a hysterectomy. With the 1993 assumption that David will not have children, there will not be a future generations of Golds. So emotionally and physically this is the twilight of the family Gold.

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I didn't know about the changed ending. They should have left it alone; it not only would have cleared up a certain confusion in the plot but despite being a downer it rings more true than the way the film handled the "resolution."


Never mess with a middle-aged, Bipolar queen with AIDS and an attitude problem!
roflol ><

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I kept thinking that Suzanne would wait too long to have the abortion, her husband would leave and David would offer to raise the baby and perhaps Suzanne would play the role of an aunt in his life.I think that would have been a nicer ending but I am unaware of whether it would be realistic in the time that the movie is set,adoption laws for a single man,etc.

"I say,open this door at once! We're British !"

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