fisher@smiley.DEC (Gerry --- Terminally Inane) (09/05/85)
RE: Bill Hurt's Gay Character in "Kiss of the Spider Woman" "A risky career move? [Bill] Hurt didn't think so" Reprinted without permission Boston Globe 8/25/85 "'I believe that people are created equal,' declared Bill Hurt, 'so anything well-written which is not about the standardization and homogenization of man but about equality is important to me. Hurt, 35, followed his convictions by accepting the role of Molina, the homosexual window dresser in Hector Babenco's "Kiss of the Spider Woman," although at the time it didn't seem like a wise career move. Shooting a low-budget picture in Brazil, alongside Raul Julia, who plays a revolutionary locked in a South American prison cell with Molina, was something no agent would recommend to a star...He rejected the notion that he was taking a huge risk. 'I don't consider it a financial sacrifice,' Hurt said. 'I mean, I don't think I ever did anything for money. And I've already played a homosexual on stage in "Fifth of July."' ...'The line between the feminine and masculine parts of ourselves moves around all the time,' he explained. 'It's not hard for me to identify with a woman. If it were a conscious choice, I would have exaggerated this character, but that wasn't the only way to achieve his truth. Occasionally, he will do that---"act gay"---but there's something else going on. 'His identity is a true thing and has nothing to do with the presumptions of others, even though he has to play to them, because otherwise they'll kill him. What does a homosexual or a revolutionary do in a society which is bent on their...destruction? The minute a gay shows his hatred or contempt for society's inability to conceive of him, he, in fact, hates their hate. And he can't afford that. So, often, a gay's ploy is to turn society's judgment of him as trash by acting trashy---thereby showing them the worst thing about themselves. Affection in itself and for itself may be degrading, but it can also be a useful tool. Here, it's even ennobling. 'Here are two characters who start from opposite poles and end up loving each other, and through their love for each other they find greater self-respect, It's beautiful. ...'There's no marriage between them in a typical sense,' Hurt opines. 'It's a mutual respect society they come up with, and it enables each one to go to his own destiny less afraid. You take these outcasts---and they are outcasts to each other, too, because of the standards they've chosen to bear---and you find that in the destruction of their mistrust they discover that there's a much greater prison and much greater freedom because they're human. 'These two people, even if they don't know it, are looking for the liberation of their own identity. I don't think I'm degrading either homosexuality or being a revolutionary, but these conditions can be seen as an attempt to simplify their own identity. Here each ends up pursuing his destiny with more commitment than before because they broke their prejudices...' Gerry Fisher ...decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-smiley!fisher *************************************************************************** Nashua, NH: Where the men are men, and the sheep are nervous.