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
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Nashua, NH: Where the men are men, and the sheep are nervous.