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... and they made the damn movie.
I saw "Making Love" (the movie with Harry Hamlin and Michael Ontkean as lovers with an onscreen love scene) in a conservative Midwestern town when it first came out in the very early '80s . When I left the theatre, I was right behind an elderly married couple. The husband turned to the wife and casually remarked, "That was different".
The funny thing about the kind of archaic thinking that straight men "naturally" shun all things gay is that you are much more likely to find it among gay men who don't have any straight male friends. Those of us who do, know better. Straight men who will be uninterested in this movie are much, much, much more likely to be so because it's a love story, not because it's a love story between two men.
Not all straight men are homophobes who won't see a movie just because it's about gay men. That was mostly true 20 - 30 years ago, much less so today. I'll probably go see it (though I probably would have 20 years ago, too).
Can it be broad appeal if it has to exclude the entire straight male population and at least some women? Because obviously it will have to
