Last night I saw "J. Edgar", the new movie about J. Edgar Hoover starring Leonardo DiCaprio, directed by Clint Eastwood. Although beautifully filmed with great sets, costumes and makeup I was baffled at their presentation of Hoover, head of the F.B.I. for many years. In the the gay world he was known to be homosexual with a lover who worked with him and often getting into drag. The adage, "When you have a secret life the only one it's a secret to is you" could never have been truer. And this was years ago.
The movie presents him as a man who loved another man but probably never acted upon it, the movie even has the man he loved discover his nude body in death and cover it up with a bedspread as though he had never seen it before. Come on.
And only upon his mother's death does Hoover put on her necklace and dress and fall on the floor sobbing. Really. The whole thing is so overly dramatic and to a gay man the sensibility is ridiculous. I am sure the two of them were just a rowdy old pair of queens getting into bad drag at even worse parties. I saw photographs of him in a wig and a dress decades ago. So why all this delicacy? A very long, slow, dark movie about a really awful guy who blackmailed everybody and was quite crazy. DiCaprio is very sensitive in the role but I don't think dreadful, bossy old J. Edgar was much like that. And be so nervous about "Was he gay?", "Did he do drag?" It seemed dated. I left the theater wondering why they even made this movie.
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(Photographer: Ron Nickel. Collection: Design Pics. Royalty Free)
Dear David,
I follow your blog even though I am a woman. I find a lot of what you say interesting and relevant. I was in a relationship for seven years. We were engaged to be married. Then it all fell apart. Now a lot of men find me attractive and I am involved in a number of romances at the same time. Am I not behaving the way you think I should?
~Popular Gal
Dear Popular Gal,
You go get 'em, gal! If you were the masculine side of the fallen apart relationship everyone would be admiring you. So do I.
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