Cruising

Since 1980, the Golden Raspberry Awards, the anti-Oscars, have ‘honoured’ the worst Hollywood films of a season. And from the very beginning, actually especially at the beginning, queer titles have appeared among these films. Let’s take a look at them – these are by no means forgotten relics of a bygone era, but queer classics that are still present in the conversation. Are these in fact unsuccessful, bad films, (un)worthy of the Golden Raspberry Awards? Or was it the award’s chapter at the time that was homo-, transphobic and not ready for the representation of the rainbow community in the mainstream films of the year? We’ll take a look at three films and see how they have stood the test of time and how they are received by audiences anno Domini 2025!

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Never before (and never since) has the leather and sadomasochistic gay subculture been represented on the big screen in a mainstream film.

Al Pacino, portraying a police officer, gets a special assignment. As an undercover agent, he is to penetrate the world of New York’s gay sex clubs to find the trail of a serial killer hunting in such venues. The director, William Friedkin, previously an Oscar winner for ‘The French Connection’ and creator of ‘The Exorcist’, has himself become a goer at such places, appearing there only in jockstraps and wanting to depict these establishments as faithfully as possible in the film version.

And so, God-fearing conservatives would say: ‘how can such degeneracy be shown to the general public!’. Prudish gays, on the other hand: ‘well, okay, some of us get slutty, but is it really necessary to make a film about it right away?’. (Let’s remember, this was still only the beginning of the LGBT+ people emancipation in the mainstream).

‘Cruising’ was the most watched film in the US for a week. Judge it for yourself whether this is indeed a positive representation or rather a replication of stereotypes about gay men letting themselves go.