THEGAYUK

Author: Roger Walker-Dack

  • Jennifer Hudson Celebrates Marriage Equality

    We always love us some Jennifer Hudson but even more so today after catching sight of her new music video called “I Still Love You.”

    It is a heartwarming celebration of marriage equality which opens with a young gay man calling his father and getting only his answering machine.

    He’s calling to remind him that today is his wedding day, and he’s marrying a man. But will he show up? In the father’s home, we see memorabilia from his military service and reminders of his son’s all-American upbringing.

    Meanwhile, the young man, played by Brandon Crowder, gets ready for the big day with his fiancee, sharing snuggles and writing love messages on shower doors.

    At the end, the video concludes with a caption that reads, “Jennifer Hudson, W Hotels [where the video was filmed] and the Human Rights Campaign ask you to join your fellow Americans in support of marriage equality.”

  • Family Guy “Outed” Bruce Jenner 6 Years Ago

    Video of an episode of TV’s Family Guy that first aired in 2009 and had outed Bruce Jenner as a woman is circulating this week.

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  • INTERVIEW | Mark Christopher: Making Studio 54 Gayer

    Not many filmmakers are as lucky as writer/director Mark Christopher who managed to fulfil a long cherished dream when he got to finally make a Director’s Cut of one of his movies seventeen years after the original was released.

    Christopher’s love letter to the New York disco scene in the late 70s about the infamous Studio 54 is a vibrant wonderful movie told from the viewpoint of some of impressionable young employees who were the heart and soul of the place.

    For a few short years in the late 1970s this was the Club in Manhattan where all the celebrities hung out and partied whilst all the desperate would-bes were kept outside behind the velvet ropes begging Steve Rubell, the very creepy co-owner and ringmaster, to be let in.

    Their efforts were all in vain as you had to have either a certain look or a gorgeous body for him to relent and admit you in to mingle with the stars.

    Shane a rather gormless New Jersey boy who was as cute as hell was in the latter group. This is his story, which starts off when Rubell tells him to remove his shirt and after he strips to his waist he’s invited into more than just the Club, and he stayed until the party ended.

    A very youthful and then unknown Ryan Phillippe puts in an unforgettable performance as the young innocent who got swept away in a drug and sex-fuelled world in an era that defined the whole disco explosion. Nightlife would never be the same, and Christopher’s new cut restores all the boldness and sheer vitality of what went down then in what will now become a new gay cult classic. I defy anyone to find anything hotter than watching Phillippe and Breckin Mayer, his best friend in real life, locking lips together.

    Roger Walker-Dack caught up with a very happy Mark Christopher after the movie had opened to rave reviews at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival, and just before the movie had its UK premiere at the BFI Flare Festival in London.

    RWD: So why Studio 54, and where did the story come from?
    MC: I had been there in the 1980s when it had been resurrected after it had closed when its colourful owner Steve Rubell had been jailed for tax avoidance. Paul Schrader, the writer of Raging Bull & Taxi Driver, was my professor at Columbia when I was in Graduate school. and he introduced me to a lot of the people who were involved in the heydey of 54 which was 1977 to 1979. I started meeting everyone, one by one and interviewed everybody that I could. Whether they were the entertainers, but more especially the bartenders, cloak-check girls and the busboys because as you know that is what the story is really all about.

    RWD: You were a real newbie director at the time so how did you get a big studio to give you the green-light?
    MC: Well I wrote the script, that took a total of five years, and they liked it. I had made some short films at school that were well received and that Miramax liked very much, and they said that they wanted me to direct. So that part was unusually kind of easy.

    RWD: Ryan Philippe went from acting on a TV Daytime Soap and then leapfrogged to be your star. Why and how did that happen?
    MC: The producers and I wanted to discover a kid as this part called out for it, so once we had cast Salma Hayek, Mike Myers, & Neve Campbell then I was allowed to get my discovery. The movie took a year to cast so when I first auditioned him he was a real teenager, but by the time the process ended and he came back for his second audition after doing the movie, I Know What You Did Last Summer he was a young man, and we all loved him.

    RWD: Did the fact that he was playing an openly gay character on Days of Our Lives make a difference to you?
    MC: I actually had no idea at the time he was even playing that as he only told me later. I think his character was the first openly gay teenage character on a daytime soap on US TV.

    RWD: Several of your actors were then on the cusp of stardom so is that why the original movie was made more mainstream?
    MC: When I cast everyone they were all very promising and the only real established stars then were Mike Myers and Neve Campbell then. As we were shooting they were all becoming more and more well known which was exciting for everybody.

    RWD: How did you get all those major celebrities like Michael York, Cindy Crawford, Morgan Freeman etc. to do those walk-on parts as themselves?
    MC: Once Mike Myers signed on (and by the way he reached out to us to play what was one of his first dramatic roles) the movie became THE project in town to do. We became a hot subject, and so all these stars were practically lining up to join in.

    RWD: Who was your favourite one?
    MC: Lauren Hutton was wonderful, although she, in fact, had a couple of lines too, and I loved working with her. I also loved hanging out with Sheryl Crow in her limo on the set because she was so non-disco and so cool. Another person who had a very small part was Mark Ruffalo as Rico who is Shane’s best friend from his New Jersey days. This was one of his very first movie roles ever.

    RWD: What are the best parts that you got to restore in this Director’s Cut?
    MC: Well the story. It really is a love triangle between the characters played by Ryan, Salma & Breckin and it was so very important to me to restore that story. Secondly, restoring the look of the film that we had shot to be very dark. Shooting a film on film negative in a dark club is very hard to light. My DP (Director of Photography) Alexander Gruszynski did a marvellous job as we worked very hard on figuring out how to light it in a way that I experience a nightclub, which is very dark with flashes of light. I have never really seen a film that has done that to this day and the when the movie came out in 1998, unfortunately, they put a lot of light into it and it did not look like the movie that I had shot. Now we are back to the original look of the movie, which I think is gorgeous and makes me very happy.

    RWD: Do you know if Ryan, or Mike Myers or any of the others have seen your Director’s Cut, and if so what their reaction is?
    MC: All the actors are very excited and very supportive. Neve Campbell came out to Guadalajara for the screening at the Festival there, which was quite wonderful.

    RWD: What are you proudest about this movie now?
    MC: Just the fact that it exists and is out there and that Miramax are supporting it. It truly is like a dream come true for me.

    RWD: Looking back on that period in time, what memories does it bring back to you personally?
    MC: The whole concept of the film is that it is about the worker bees who were the backbone of this fabulous nightclub, so it brings back two things. Firstly reminds me of when I was waiting tables and serving people and all the craziness around that. The other thing it brings back is remembering how very exciting it all was. Even though I wasn’t in NY at the time in the disco era, even in Chicago where I was living I remember how every week an incredible new song would come out and that they all became immediate classics. It was a very exciting wild time and I loved it all. If we can just draw you back into that world for an hour and forty minutes with this movie, I would be totally thrilled.

    It was, after all, this one iconic Club that really gave birth to what all clubs are like now, and which is the main reason why that this subject of Studio 54 will live forever.

    RWD: There is one line in the movie that had me in hysterics and I have to know if someone really said to you personally “it ain’t the size of the ship, it’s the motion of the ocean”?
    MC: (Laughs) That’s a cliché. What I wrote was the response “Who told you that? your lover?” “No, his father!” (laughs).

    RWD: I laughed because it sounded so like you (laughs). Anyway, what’s next for you?
    MC: I’m working on script for a drama for Warner Brothers called Berlin which is set in 1941. I also have a couple of other TV deals, because working in television is exciting for me now as that’s where I get to do dark character work that I have wanted to do my whole life. I am also looking at other feature scripts but haven’t found the right one yet. I still teach too at Columbia, Drexel and Carnegie Miller.

    RWD: Now I always finish my interviews with the same question. If there was a movie made of your life, who would play you?
    That’s pretty obvious right?

    RWD: Well no, as I wouldn’t have asked if I knew.
    MC: Wouldn’t it be Ryan Philippe? (laughs). Don’t tell Miramax, but I already have his entire wardrobe (Laughs).

    RWD: Ryan Philippe then or now?
    MC: The younger version of me would be Ryan as he has already played me in this movie, and Denis Quaid would play the older version of me. Who would play me now? I guess Madonna!

    RWD: (Laughs) You always leave me speechless MC.

    For news of future screenings and DVD release https://www.facebook.com/54Movie?fref=ts

  • Would You Wear These Pride Trainers By Adidas

    Adidas has just announced that to celebrate LGBT Pride Month, it has colourfully redesigned its signature sneakers – dubbing the collection the “Pride Pack.”

    Among the redesigned footwear is Adidas’ flagship shoe the Stan Smith, which commemorates 1965 as the year the sneaker went into production along with one of the first LGBT pickets held at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4, 1965.

    The brand also gave its Superstar sneaker (released in 1969 – the same year as the Stonewall Riots) the pride treatment.

    Adidas says it’s donating a portion of the proceeds from the shoes to New Avenues for Youth, an organisation geared toward assisting homeless youth. The colourful trainers will be hitting select stores worldwide on June 6.

  • Homophobic Russian Law Maker Wants It To Be Illegal To Be Topless

    If Russian’s most homophobic lawmaker (and there is quite a fierce battle for this particular title) Vitaly Milonov has his way, we will never get to see any more pictures of President Putin half-naked in public again.

    More importantly if he does strut around on his horse like that once a new Bill against “nudity or unethical attire” is passed, he will fined about £20-£30.

    The bill elucidates this as “either absence of clothes or nudity of either upper or lower parts of the body” for men and women alike.

    The list of “unethical clothing” includes men’s and women’s underwear and swimsuits. Milonov noted in explanations that the definition of swimwear and underwear can be found in the state register of industrial standards!

  • All Male version of Hooters opens in Dallas

    In parts of the US scantily clad buxom women waitress have made restaurant chains with names like Hooters and Twin Peaks (sic) very popular with men who just like to ogle and dribble when they are eating their burgers, but now one brand new eatery has turned the tables.

    The women (and obviously gay men) are getting a chance to to dine and drool over muscular waiters in tank tops and skin-tight short shorts/underwear in a place that has the tasteful name of Tallywackers!

    It is too early to see whether the fine upstanding citizens (and others not quite so upstanding) of Dallas will take to getting an eyeful of beef when ordering their juicy steaks, but we are shallow enough to welcome this new incentive to making dining that much hotter.

  • Boy Is A Bottom Racks Up 18 Million Hits

    Since it was released this wickedly funny parody of Alicia Keys “Girl On Fire” has racked up over 18 million hits.

    We simply cannot get enough of Willam, Detox & Vicky Vox as after all, this boy really is a Bottom.

  • James Franco plays gay again

    James Franco is obviously intending to get his a place in the Guinness Book of Records for playing gay-for-pay with his clothes on more than any other straight actor in Hollywood.

    His latest movie Wild Horses is about a Texas Ranger Samantha Payne (Luciana Duvall) who reopens a 15-year-old missing persons case, uncovering clues linking a local boy’s death to wealthy family man, Scott Briggs (Robert Duvall).

    Samantha will stop at nothing to discover the truth even if it means risking her own life. With the unexpected return of his estranged gay son Ben (Franco), Briggs must find a way to either silence the law for good, or come to terms with the hidden relationship between Ben and the boy that he tried to end years ago.

    Due to be released in the US on June 5th, and in the UK later this summer

    According to his instagram Franco is currently in the Hamptons trying to write a Musical which you can see from the photo he posted, for some reason he is doing somewhat naked.

  • UK ranks 23rd Happiest Place in the World to be Gay

    In a survey published this week by the Dutch gay dating and community site Planet Romeo the UK ranked 23rd in their Gay Happiness Index.

    The company collaborated with the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany to carry out an online survey of 115,000 gay men around the world.

    The survey itself combined rankings on public opinion, public behavior and life satisfaction to provide a worldwide ranking on gay happiness, with Iceland topping the list and Uganda at number 127 being confirmed as the worst country in the world to be gay.

    In fact there are no real surprises at the bottom of the poll as to which other countries that make up the worst ten i.e. Kazakhstan, Ghana, Cameroon, Iran, Nigeria, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Ethiopia and Sudan.

    The real puzzlers are at the other end of scale: whilst we pipped the USA (26th), South Africa rather shockingly beat us by coming in at 22nd.

    Ireland was placed below us at no 25th but as the survey was conducted before all the euphoria of last week’s historic poll, they are bound to me moving upward soon.

    The top ten were:
    Iceland
    Norway
    Denmark
    Sweden
    Uruguay
    Canada
    Israel
    Netherlands
    Switzerland
    Luxembourg

  • President Obama’s Proclamation for Gay Pride Month

    President Obama has released a Presidential Proclamation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, which starts on June 1st. It reads as follows:

    From the moment our Nation first came together to declare the fundamental truth that all men are created equal, courageous and dedicated patriots have fought to refine our founding promise and broaden democracy’s reach. Over the course of more than two centuries of striving and sacrifice, our country has expanded civil rights and enshrined equal protections into our Constitution. Through struggle and setback, we see a common trajectory toward a more free and just society. But we are also reminded that we are not truly equal until every person is afforded the same rights and opportunities — that when one of us experiences discrimination, it affects all of us — and that our journey is not complete until our lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law.

    Across our Nation, tremendous progress has been won by determined individuals who stood up, spoke out, and shared their stories. Earlier this year, because of my landmark Executive Order on LGBT workplace discrimination, protections for Federal contractors went into effect, guarding against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Federal Government is now leading by example, ensuring that our employees and contractors are judged by the quality of their work, not by who they love. And I will keep calling on the Congress to pass legislation so that all Americans are covered by these protections, no matter where they work.

    In communities throughout the country, barriers that limit the potential of LGBT Americans have been torn down, but too many individuals continue to encounter discrimination and unfair treatment. My Administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors because the overwhelming scientific evidence demonstrates that it can cause substantial harm. We understand the unique challenges faced by sexual and gender minorities — especially transgender and gender non-conforming individuals — and are taking steps to address them. And we recognize that families come in many shapes and sizes. Whether biological, foster, or adoptive, family acceptance is an important protective factor against suicide and harm for LGBTQ youth, and mental health experts have created resources to support family communication and involvement.

    For countless young people, it is not enough to simply say it gets better; we must take action too. We continue to address bullying and harassment in our classrooms, ensuring every student has a nurturing environment in which to learn and grow. Across the Federal Government, we are working every day to unlock the opportunities all LGBT individuals deserve and the resources and care they need. Too many LGBTQ youth face homelessness and too many older individuals struggle to find welcoming and affordable housing; that is why my Administration is striving to ensure they have equal access to safe and supportive housing throughout life. We are updating our National HIV/AIDS Strategy to better address the disproportionate burden HIV has on communities of gay and bisexual men and transgender women. We continue to extend family and spousal benefits to legally married same-sex couples. And because we know LGBT rights are human rights, we are championing protections and support for LGBT persons around the world.

    All people deserve to live with dignity and respect, free from fear and violence, and protected against discrimination, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation. During Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, we celebrate the proud legacy LGBT individuals have woven into the fabric of our Nation, we honor those who have fought to perfect our Union, and we continue our work to build a society where every child grows up knowing that their country supports them, is proud of them, and has a place for them exactly as they are.

    NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2015 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to eliminate prejudice everywhere it exists, and to celebrate the great diversity of the American people.

    IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand fifteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-ninth.

  • GAY MARRIAGE: Greenland Says Yes, Germany Says Not Yet

    Following hot on the heels of Ireland’s historic Referendum, Greenland yesterday became the latest country to legalise same-sex marriage.

    In a unanimous vote in its Parliament Greenland, which is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, extended marriage and adoption rights to LGBT couples. This arctic wonderland with a population of only 57,000 became the 20th country in the world where same-sex marriage is now legal.

    However despite the fact that recent polls have shown that 75% of the German population is in favour of same sex marriage, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday quashed all rumours that they may be next saying that they were not a goal of her government. Her spokesman Steffen Seiber added somewhat tersely “In Germany we’ll take a path that suits Germany.”