Indeed these movies push people beyond their comfort level, but my question is to what end?

I saw Boys in the Band as a gay teenager, still in the closet. I found it very disturbing, depressing in fact. It didn't make me feel good about the kind of person I was, and I don't think it kindled any positive feeling in a heterosexual audience, unless you count pity.

Likewise a few years later, The Exorcist disturbed me deeply. Actually made it hard to sleep for a few days. Well, horror movies are exciting, but not when they continue to haunt you for days.

I also saw Cruising, because I wanted to know what I was protesting. Honestly, it would have been just another crime drama but the social context it existed in had such a potential for spreading negative ideas about gay people, which many even today, are willing to believe.

I'm not endorsing censorship, but I do think if you're going to push people beyond their comfort zone you should do it so they will have a breakthrough, rather than a breakdown.

But I am willing to give BitB another look when it comes out.

40 years ago, the black community rose up against the institutionalized bigotry they suffered. 40 years ago, the gay community did the same. The result? We now have a black president for whom a good chunk of the people who voted for him still see gays as potential pedophiles. A decade of "Will and Grace" episodes and 35 years of Elton John albums can't seem to make the same kind of dent in the gay rights issue that some no name preacher in the middle of bumfuck Iowa seems to be able to. How much more does the gay community have to endure before they recieve acceptance?

Andrew: Another great column as always. I saw both the play and the movie of this work, when I was a young, straight twenty-something woman in NYC. I loved both, and for some reason never heard about the negative reactions. For many of my generation in NYC, this film/play, along with Stonewall, were life-changing events. I still remember my reaction at the time, that gay people (male or female), either on stage or screen, are just another mirror that art holds up for us to see who we are. I remember a long discussion after the play with some friends, where we compared the versions of love in BITB with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, another claustrophic play/film that explores human relationships. I would like to say that I have never been homophobic, but that's probably not true. However, after seeing "Boys", it was impossible to view gay people as the Other. They were us and we were them. I have never forgotten what Matt Crowley (and Friedkin) taught me, and I'm thrilled to hear this work has stood the test of time. Thanks for bringing to my attention. Diana Witt

The play and movie, of course, predate AIDS, which lends them special poignancy.

I was working in Off-Broadway theater at the time the play opened and knew two of the cast members, Combs and Gorman. After reading your piece, I looked them up on IMDb to find out what they were doing currently, only to learn that Gorman died of leukemia in 2002 and Combs of AIDS in 1992. Then I looked up the rest of the cast and found all but three had died of AIDS, including Nelson and the brilliant Frey. Fine, courageous actors, every one.

Mart Crowley, who wrote the incredible play, is still with us.

I had forgotten utterly that Friedkin had directed the movie, but I was delighted to hear that he had viewed it as a love story rather than a "statement."

Thanks very much for your sensitive appreciation of a very important theatrical work. I hope the new DVD gives it a second life in this much different atmosphere.

This was long before playing a flamboyant gay character became a vital resume-builder for any straight actor longing to be taken seriously.

Gay men have been playing straight men in the theater and in the movies for generations, "passing" for straight. Sometimes the acting is great and sometimes not, but no one ever got all excited over the fact that a gay man was playing a straight man. But for some reason it's a big deal when straight men merely play gay men, no matter how bad the acting might be. Why does any of that matter?

As if that's what the gay community was like. Go back and read the novels of James Barr. Check out Michael Bronski's fascinating tour through various pre-Stonewall gay novels by various authors in his study Pulp Friction. Read the fascinating history Gay New York. Make sure not to miss Gus Van Sant's Milk The idea that of course gay men were self-loathing misses the point entirely. Lots of straights seemed to have a hostile view (check out even Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, but Where Afraid to Ask for a sudden sharp turn away from tolerance and truth when it comes to the subject of gay men), but the gay community had created enclaves and a culture unto itself that rejected this view.

The reason The Boys in the Band is not a Native Son is that the latter work clearly puts the blame on the shoulders of society: there's nothing wrong with being black, but being black in a society that degrades blacks is another matter entirely. The Boys in the Band is not about men degraded by a society that refuses to accept them, and in turn leads to their not accepting themselves. The plot ends with the questionably straight man calling his wife to patch things up, and the assumption is that this is the right thing to do.

Will I check out this movie again, in order to be fair? Perhaps. I have nothing against the direction or the actors. You are right that Friedkin did an amazing job filming this work. I remember most of the actors giving great performance. But the script's the thing, and I disagree that it isn't meant to represent the gay community in general.

The original ad copy for the movie ran "The Boys in the Band is not a musical." Pauline Kael rejoined, "Next time around, it probably will be." Maybe the American Family Association would like to take on the project, with a score by Anita Bryant.