Is that difficult in any country of the world?
In Brazil any homoaffective themed film has too much difficulty in getting companies that want to invest in its production! Even if you prove you are working on proposal of inclusive art or social responsibility culture.
Brazilian businessmen still fear associating their brands to the LGBT culture. The country has laws that encourage private sector investment in culture, but these laws end up becoming a marketing tool of low cost, since the business community sponsors just comercial art or "straight" movies starring celebrities. Should art be always comercial? Brazil shows itself as an openminded country but its reality is completly the opposite.
An example is the movie "Reaching for the Moon" which was very well received by international critics during its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival 2013. The film, directed by Bruno Barreto, tells the true story of the lesbian romance between the American poet, Elizabeth Bishop and Brazilian architect, Lota de Macedo Soares and according to its producers, they suffered lots of prejudice getting sponsors, supporters and investors because it is an LGBT film.
By ROBERTO CHRISTO
The University Teacher, Cleide Antonio Amorim, 42, was brutally murdered last week. Brazil opens 2012 as the leader in homophobic crimes in the world. According to information from the local Police, the teacher was in a bar in Tocantinópolis with two friends, where he was verbally assaulted with homophobic slurs by a man identified as Gilberto Afonso de Sousa, who stabbed him to death.
Even when evangelical institutions will pretend to see nothing and will continue to campaign against the creation of a special law to punish homophobic crimes?
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BBC Cuts Torchwood Gay Sex Scene
by Jessica Geen
British Torchwood viewers won’t see a raunchy gay sex scene because BBC bosses thought it was too explicit. The scene, with gay star John Barrowman’s character Captain Jack Harkness and a barman, has already been broadcast in the US on cable channel Starz. The Sun reports that a source said executives felt the scenes were simply too sexy to show primetime audiences 20 minutes after the watershed.
The source said: “It wasn’t that it was a gay scene that worried people, but just the fact it was such an explicit sex scene, full stop. “You can get away with scenes like that on American cable channels, but you can’t on primetime BBC1.” A BBC spokeswoman told the newspaper that the gay sex scene and another which involved violence had been cut. She said: “The UK and US versions of ‘Torchwood’ are slightly different. However, these differences do not change the story in any way and the strong storylines are first and foremost to the series.” Last month, Barrowman promised Torchwood fans that the new series would be the sexiest yet, with “man sex” and “full-on” nudity.
Pakistan Muslim Groups Condemn US Embassy Gay Meeting.
by PinkNews.co.uk Staff Writer
Muslim groups in Pakistan have condemned a gay rights event at the US embassy as “social and cultural terrorism”. The June 26th meeting, hosted by US deputy ambassador, Richard Hoagland, was held to support LGBT people in the country. However, the group of faith officials, which also included the head of Pakistan’s largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, said: “Such people are the curse of society and social garbage.” According to Associated Press, a statement continued: “They don’t deserve to be Muslim or Pakistani, and the support and protection announced by the US administration for them is the worst social and cultural terrorism against Pakistan.” While homosexuality is not specifically outlawed in Pakistan’s constitution, gay sex can lead to punishments of fines, whipping, prison or even death.
According to a statement released by the US embassy, Mr Hoagland told LGBT people at the reception: “I want to be clear: the US embassy is here to support you and stand by your side every step of the way.”
Eugen Sandow’s Gift to Gay Men
Source: Journal "The Gay & Lesbian Review"
THE ANNALS of gay history are littered with examples of men in the public eye who have successfully hidden their gay lives from view. They’ve used various strategies, such as marriage to a woman, to camouflage their sexual activities and to discourage gossip. Eugen Sandow was, for a short time, an exception to the rule. He was internationally known as the apotheosis of male beauty and the most perfectly formed man on the planet. Little remembered today, Sandow was the father of modern bodybuilding—and, for a short time at least, he was open about his sexuality: when he began his rise to international stardom in Chicago’s Loop in 1893, he arrived with his boyfriend in town.
Just a few years earlier, in 1885, Sandow left his home in Prussia at age eighteen to avoid the military draft, touring the Continent with circuses, taking part in wrestling matches, and giving exhibits of strength to make a living. In early 1887, he found himself stranded and jobless in Brussels. To make ends meet, he modeled nude for established and up-and-coming artists, some of whom paid for more than his ability to stand still (Fig. 1). Befriended by Professor Attila (Louis Durlacher), a famous local strongman and founder of his own bodybuilding school, San-dow became Attila’s star pupil, and for the next year, he diligently chiseled his body into a piece of art, one rivaling the classical statues that he admired.
Sandow left Brussels for Venice in 1888 and paid a visit to the Lido, a well-known cruising area for gay men. Much later he would claim (in an article in Strand magazine, March 1910) that he’d been swimming in the ocean when he noticed that “I had become the particular attraction for a gentleman sauntering by. As I apologized in passing him he stopped to compliment me upon what he was pleased to term my ‘perfect physique and beauty of form.’ That casual critic proved to be none other than Aubrey Hunt, the famous [English] artist, with whom I afterwards became on terms of close friendship, and to whom I had the pleasure of posing in the character of a Roman gladiator.”
Gay men easily read between the lines: Hunt was cruising the beach; Sandow was drumming up trade and knew he’d caught Hunt’s eye. By speaking first, he indicated that he was available, allowing Hunt to respond according to his wishes. By complimenting the Adonis quality of his body, the gentleman declared his desire for the 22-year-old hunk. Hunt’s painting of Sandow, The Gladiator (Fig. 2), depicts the model in gladiatorial drag, standing in the middle of what appears to be a Roman arena, with crowds and other background elements out of focus. What is in focus is Sandow’s highly-chiseled body, which is clearly seen as an object to be ogled and adored. The Gladiator is soft-core porn, late 19th-century style, and it gave Sandow an idea.
For the next six years, Sandow merchandised his body by posing for photographs, garnering profit and publicity for himself. He is often almost fully nude, his genitals hidden only by a well-positioned fig leaf. The photos were distributed as studies to inspire men who were involved in “physical culture,” the contemporary term for bodybuilding. But Sandow’s poses were also highly erotic spectacles targeted to gay men. The shape of the fig leaf, how the photographer (or Sandow) positioned it, how the photographer arranged the studio light to strike it, and even its size were calculated to tickle gay men’s fantasies. Light on the fig leaf was used to suggest penis length and girth (Fig. 3), and the fig leaf might even be positioned to suggest an erection (Fig. 4).
Sandow’s erotic appeal wasn’t just his good looks and muscles, nor the titillating fig leaf. Some poses included subtexts that seem to be there for the benefit of certain men. In “The Dying Parthian” (Fig. 5), for example, some viewers might see only a valiant but vanquished warrior defending himself with his last breath. Nude, on the ground, weakened by battle, he heroically continues. But he’s also raising his sword to produce an effect that, because it extends from his crotch, is undeniably phallic. He seems to be offering it to the soldier who’s just defeated him in battle (a peace offering? a bargaining tool?).
In “The Dying Gaul” (Fig. 6), the nude Sandow, again lying on the ground, looks up. His thighs are spread, his right arm up, his right hand open, palm out, imploring the gods to spare him from impending death even as his face suggests a pained acceptance of his fate. This, at any rate, would be the “straight” interpretation of the scene. However, a gay man might be forgiven for seeing Sandow in a state of sexual arousal, perhaps reaching toward his lover, his thighs spread in invitation. Indeed his expression is that of a man in an erotic swoon, not in the last throes of life.
As Sandow was posing for Hunt in Venice, Edmund Gosse, a well-known English writer, was buying Sandow’s photographs in a London shop. He called them “a beautiful set of poses showing the young strongman clad only in a fig leaf” (Chapman, 1994). Gosse was so enthralled with the photos that he sneaked them into the funeral of poet Robert Browning at Westminster Abbey to peek at during the service. He later sent copies of them to another writer, John Addington Symonds. In acknowledging the gift, Symonds was circumspect, though his prurient exuberance comes through loud and clear: “The Sandow photographs arrived. They are very interesting, & the full length studies quite confirm my anticipations” (Symonds, 1969). Gosse and Symonds were part of a group of men that also included Oscar Wilde’s lover, Alfred Douglas, who exchanged photos of young men in the nude.
A forbidden kiss that all Brazil is waiting to see
Source: The Guardian UK
Gay characters feature in latest nightly telenovela, and activists urge show to have first on-screen embrace
Love triangles, broken hearts and a reality TV star, accompanied by an upbeat samba soundtrack. It could only be one of Brazil's nightly telenovela soaps, the latest of which debuted last week. But Insensato Coração, or Foolish Heart, is set to break the mould by featuring at least six gay characters.
"We are going to take on a contemporary and pertinent issue," Ricardo Linhares, one of the show's creators told Brazil's R7 news website. He said he hoped the soap would help "combat prejudice and promote acceptance".
Most Brazilian cities have prominent gay communities but homophobia and violence persist. According to the Grupo Gay da Bahia, 198 gay people were murdered in Brazil in 2009, up from a figure of 122 two years earlier.
Soap operas often pull in close to 50 million viewers. Some have attempted to raise awareness of other taboos such as mental illness, drug abuse and alcoholism. "This is a step forwards," Julio Moreira, president of the gay rights group Arco-Iris, told the Extra newspaper. "Gay people have always been portrayed as marginal [characters] or in some negative way. It is important to show diversity and to raise political questions."
Toni Reis, president of the Brazilian Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transsexual Association, said that Foolish Heart was an important chance to break stereotypes and bring "visibility".
"It is a chance to show a reality and a vocabulary that can influence Brazilian culture a great deal.
"Today we are the country with the highest number of gay pride rallies in the world … but the nightly soap opera reaches every home in Brazil," said Reis, who made legal history in 2003 by securing a permanent visa for his British partner.
Reis said Brazil's television generally presented a "distorted image" of the gay community, with mentions of homosexuality restricted to three types of programme: comedy, crime, and religious broadcasts where evangelical preachers rail against homosexuality.
In contrast, among the gay characters in Foolish Heart are a lawyer, a professor, a journalist and a shopkeeper.
The set even has its own gay nightclub – the luxurious Barao da Gamboa, inspired by Rio's The Week club; in Portuguese, the club's initials, BG, also stand for Boate Gay, or Gay Club.
Gay soap fans have long called for an on-screen kiss, and in 2005 looked to have succeeded when the media announced that two male characters would do so in a soap called América.
The scene was eventually cut, however, provoking a kissing protest outside Brazil's Congress.
Foolish Heart's creators say that viewers hoping for a gay kiss will be disappointed. At a press conference to launch the telenovela, Gilberto Braga, another of its authors, was blunt: "The audience is not ready."
Reis said the decision showed "a lack of courage and daring. Kissing is a display of affection, and not an affront to society. Corruption, violence, accidents: these are affronts, and are shown on TV in excess."
He added: "I don't think it will be long before a gay kiss happens in a novela. If there is no kiss, then this will be a sign of prejudice."
