Postcript: Outing and 'positive images' in Hollywood

In this post, reflecting on discussion of 'positive images' in mainstream movies, I noted how:

Something like William Friedkin's Cruising can now be looked at by bleeding-edge film-maker James Franco as a sexy artefact to be examined. Back then it was yet another movie in which gay people receive their just desserts: death. Both that and the now seen as camp Basic Instinct, made 12 years after Cruising, attracted demonstrations when they were being filmed.

Huffington Post reports that Friedkin, like Silence of The Lambs director Jonathan Demme before him, has now expressed regrets.

I thought there might be some negative criticism of it, but I thought that that would come from more of the so-called 'straight community' who were not used to seeing those events depicted. To be accurate, the film was about the S&M world. It was a murder mystery set against the backdrop of the S&M world at that time, in the late-seventies. It was not about the gay community at all. But, here's the historical fact about it. Gay liberation had begun to make powerful steps forward and I'm sure when 'Cruising' came out, it was not the best foot forward for gay liberation. I recognize that in hindsight but I didn't at the time.

To say the movie is "not about the gay community" is disingenuous to say the least but, hey ho, regret ...