At the beginning of the 90s, lesbians were a punchline for a male-gaze-oriented media, an easy target for expressing the anxiety that women might not need men after all. By the middle of the decade, women-loving-women had become the heroes of a number of neo-noir crime films, but the culture at large still rejected lesbianism when not intended to arouse men. While The Matrix has widely been reappraised as a trans allegory after the transitions of its directors the Wachowski sisters, their previous feature Bound was transparently queer, but its reception was complicated by the media’s perception of its makers. Bound was released just a few months after the burial of an extremely similar film called Wild Side. Barely seen on its initial release amidst studio recutting and the suicide of its director, today Wild Side plays as a heartbreaking and troubling example of what could have been for its star Anne Heche, who would soon after become one-half of the most famous lesbian couple in Hollywood – and suffer the career consequences.
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75: The Blacklist Part 5: The Strange Love of Barbara Stanwyck: Robert Taylor
74: The Blacklist Part 4: The African Queen: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn and John Huston
Blacklist Flashback: Bogey Before Bacall
73: The Blacklist Part 3: Dorothy Parker
72: The Blacklist Part 2: Crossfire – The Trials of the Hollywood Ten
71: The Blacklist Part 1: The Prehistory of the Blacklist
70: MGM Stories Part 15: Mayer’s Downfall
69: MGM Stories Part 14: Elizabeth Taylor, The MGM Years
68: MGM Stories Part 13: Gloria Grahame
67: MGM Stories Part 12: Lana Turner
66: MGM Stories Part 11: David O. Selznick Part Two: Jennifer Jones and Robert Walker
65: MGM Stories Part 10: David O. Selznick Part One: The Mayers and Gone With the Wind
64: MGM Stories Part 9: Spencer Tracy
63: MGM Stories Part 8: Eddie Mannix
62: MGM Stories Part 7: MGM's children: Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland
61: MGM Stories Part 6: Jean Harlow
60: MGM Stories Part 5: William Haines and Hollywood’s First Openly Gay Marriage
59: MGM Stories Part 4: John Gilbert and Greta Garbo
58: MGM Stories Part 3: Buster Keaton’s Biggest Mistake
57: MGM Stories Part 2: Marion Davies, William Randolph Hearst, and Citizen Kane
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