YOUR FAVORITE LOGO TV SHOWS ARE ON PARAMOUNT+

13 Embarrassing Gay Movie Villains

Movies and television have a long history of casting effeminate gay men as the bad guys - the added layer of "otherness" is a popular way of making a villain all the more loathsome to a mainstream audience. While recent years have brought us several notable subversions of this idea with aggressively masculine gay villains (Strike Back's James Leatherby, Dexter's Ivan Sirko), the hissing, scheming gay baddie has always been the more popular stock-in-trade.

Whether explicitly gay or just "coded" that way to slip past the sensors, these guys represent some of cinema's most notable acts of heteronormative villainy.

300_xerxes

Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) — 300

Much has been made about the fact that a movie that could otherwise have doubled as an International Male swimwear catalog went out of its way to present evil King Xerxes as a prissy, jewelry-crazed predatory homosexual (despite the fact that the actual Xerxes is portrayed in classic art as being quite butch). At the time, Zak Snyder - who insisted his movie was neither homoerotic nor homophobic - told the press: “What’s more scary to a 20-year-old boy than a giant god-king who wants to have his way with you?" First, what the hell is a "20-year-old boy"? I think that might point to the root of the problem right there.

hitchcock_rope

Phillip (Farley Granger) and Brandon (John Dall) Rope

Based on real-life killers Leopold and Loeb, Brandon and Phillip are two superficial, society-climbing apparent lovers who have nothing better to do than to kill a schoolmate, stuff him in a trunk, and then serve his family dinner over his cooling body (didn’t the Queer Eye guys do an episode on that?). Allows for some incredibly loaded dialogue that managed to sneak the sexual nature of the relationship past the censors, but otherwise a curious portrait of gay men that links their sexuality to wanton murderousness. It's also worth noting that director Alfred Hitchcock deliberately cast closeted gay actors as villains in several of his films - an apparent attempt to mine their dual nature for their performance?

Murder By Numbers Ryan Gosling

Richard (Ryan Gosling) and Justin (Michael Pitt) Murder by Numbers

This modern-day riff on both the famous Leopold and Leob murder case and Rope finds Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt as teenage murderers who execute the perfect crime for kicks in between scenes of drinking absinthe and having hissy-fits at one another for making eyes at girls. As I said, Rope did it first, but Murder by Numbers did it trashiest.

Bride-of-Frankenstein-Thesiger4Doctor Praetorius (Ernest Thesiger) The Bride of Frankenstein

The seething, slimy villain of gay director James Whale‘s classic horror film was played by a closeted and married actor, and the titular Bride was herself married to a gay man (Charles Laughton). What a set that must have been! Praetorius is basically the end-all of gay-seeming supervillains, and the film’s attack on the institution of marriage is pretty hard to ignore. Whale set out to make a camp comedy follow-up to his classic horror film Frankenstein, and with the help of Praetorius, he succeeded in spades were it not for the undercurrent of dark humor in the film, this character would have been much more difficult to tolerate. It's notable that The Rocky Horror Picture Show - which aimed to reclaim many of the sci-fi and horror genres' tropes for a transgressive audience - clearly used both Praetorius and Whale's The Old Dark House as models for its mayhem.

the-maltese-falcon-

Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) came up against some mystery and some sistery in this noir classic Peter Lorre‘s mincing treasure hunter Joel Cairo, to be precise. While the character was straightened up quite a bit for the screen, this hissing queen is still undeniably meant to be a queer counterpart for the macho hero, whose disgust at Cairo’s obvious sexuality is quite apparent and quite intense. Much has been noted about the fact that Spade slaps Cairo instead of punching him, which codes the character as feminine, gay, and weak.

LauraCliftonWebb

Waldo (Clifton Webb) — Laura

Manipulative and incredibly bitchy Waldo (who preys upon heroine Gene Tierney) was originally explicitly scripted as a homosexual, although ultimately his sexuality was buried and his actions blurred (to the point that many viewers interpret his actions as those of a spurned lover, not a controlling queen). Still, this arch villain represented a culmination of the noir era’s sissy baddies, which stood for everything perverted that decent society needed to destroy.

braveheartedward

Prince Edward (Peter Hanly) Braveheart

Historically incorrect and downright rude, noted class act Mel Gibson‘s version of Prince Edward was as mincing and offensive as they come one scene even depicts Edward and his lover (dressed in drag) prancing about the palace with a servant holding a full-length mirror so that they can admire themselves. Is this really what straight men think that gay men do to entertain themselves? Please drinking alone and complaining to your cats is far less exhausting, and doesn’t require any hired help. Much like 300‘s Xerxes, this Edward ignores historical fact (that Edward was actually quite rugged) in favor of creating a hateful character that small-minded bigots can easily compartmentalize and openly detest.

Wint and Kidd Diamonds Are Forever

Mr. Wint (Bruce Glover) and Mr. Kidd (Putter Smith) - Diamonds Are Forever

These two Bond franchise assassins are ruthless sociopaths and also probably boyfriends, as evidenced by the fact that they walk away after blowing up a helicopter holding hands. They also exhibit some petty jealousies toward one another, seem to relish the macabre nature of their work with a camp sensibility, and of course there's the small matter of Wint's predilection for ladies' perfume (which is of course what eventually gets them killed).

jamegumb

Jame Gumb (Ted Levine) — The Silence of the Lambs

It’s pretty shocking how ugly this character is — and how much of that ugliness is tied to his sexuality and gender identity. Pretty much the most graphic example of the strange perception that gay men (or is it transsexuals? The film is too busy grossing us out to worry about the details) are hysterical, murderous creatures who hate their bodies and women alike. A giant step backward, either way you slice it — and it swept the Academy Awards.

strangers-on-a-train

Bruno (Robert Walker) Strangers on a Train

Openly bisexual Farley Granger once again found himself submitting to the wiles of a predatory Hitchcockian gay man this time in the form of obsessive Bruno. As far as sissy villains go, this one at least is lacking the stereotypical affectations that generally make up these characters. Still, a complete nutjob.

Any more suggestions? We’d love to hear them!

Latest News