I saw it in the cinema in the 70s. I was very disappointed. I went under the impression it was the first openly gay film to deal realistically with gay men. Huh, it seemed to be a bunch of disfunctional neurotic bitchy men having a mass hissy fit.
Like Nudeyorker, I found it depressing too.
I am so over the depiction of gays as self loathing, hateful, bitchy, campy, pathetic, sex addicted, emasculated men.
I am so over depicting gay men as a stereotype of how straight society see us.
As a gay man - I have never related to any of the sad desperate characters in this film and never will.
Oh maybe I can watch this again, I saw it when It came out, I was verrrrrrrrry young and it depressed me. Saw it again 20 years ago or so...we'll see!
I saw it when it first came out and I was horrified at how gays were depicted. Those
sad, unmanly, and repulsive characters were not like me, nor were they like any of the gays that I knew at the time. And, I am glad to say I've only met a few like them since.
I was BI, and had many gay experiences, but I had not had any experiences being a
part of a "gay society" since I had not been in a big city where it was found. I had just
moved to NYC and I thought, if this is what "being gay" is, then I don't want any part of
that awful, unhappy life. At the time, I thought all gays must be unhappy, bitchy, self-
loathing, rude, swished and paraded around like women, and I really was worried that if
I met any of them in NYC that I would become one of them. They were nothing like me nor any one I had EVER known and I certainly didn't want to become one or be a part of
that type of lifestyle.
So, for years I kept my distance from them as if they had the plague. But fortunately,
I later found out that it was not a true depiction of all gays or Bis. I didn't like "Boys in
the Band" then, and I'm certain I would not like it now. I think Boys in the Band" did
great harm, delaying the cause of the LGBT community for a couple of decades.