Hollywood Pride

A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film

De: Alonso Duralde

Narrado por: Alonso Duralde

For generations, members of the LGBTQ+ community in Hollywood needed to be discreet about their lives but—make no mistake—they were everywhere, both in front of and behind the camera.

On the eve of the twentieth century, in Thomas Edison’s laboratory, one of the earliest attempts at a sound film depicted two men dancing together as a third plays the violin. It’s only a few minutes long, but this cornerstone of early cinema captured a queer moment on film. It would not be the last.

With Hollywood Pride, renowned film critic Alonso Duralde presents a history spanning from the dawn of cinema through the “pansy craze” of the 1930s and the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s, all the way up to today. He showcases the hard-working actors, writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, art directors, and choreographers whose achievements defined the American film industry and charts the evolution of LGBTQ+ storytelling itself—the way mainstream Hollywood decided it would portray (or erase) their lives and the narratives created by queer filmmakers who fought to tell those stories themselves.

Along the way, listeners will encounter a fascinating cast of characters, such as the first generation of queer actors, including J. Warren Kerrigan, Ramon Novarro, and William Haines. Early cinema pioneers like Alla Nazimova and F. W. Murnau helped shape the new medium of moving pictures. The sex symbols, both male (Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, and Anthony Perkins) and female (Lizabeth Scott and Greta Garbo), lived under the threat of their private lives undermining their public personas. Underground filmmakers Kenneth Anger and John Waters made huge strides in LGBTQ+ representation with their off-off-Hollywood productions in the 1960s and ’70s. These screen legends paved the way for every openly queer figure in Hollywood today.

Hollywood Pride points to the bright future of LGBTQ+ representation in cinema by revealing the story of the community’s inclusion and erasure, its visibility and invisibility, and its triumphs and tragedies.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Cinema is often discussed as an empathy machine because of its power to draw our attention deeply into faces, details, and situations we would otherwise miss. But this only works because of cinema’s less-often discussed power to draw our attention away from other details. As much as it illuminates, cinema also obscures. So much so that queer people, people of color, and of course women are often placed into the position of the outsider, fighting their way into a system not designed for them. Hollywood mythologizes the role of the outsider as something romantic but, in reality as a gay Black filmmaker, I can say it’s more often than not exhausting.
But then someone like Alonso Duralde and his meticulously researched Hollywood Pride comes along to fill in the staggering blanks of the accepted history with a people’s history. Suddenly we realize that in the fight for authentic queer expression within cinema, we are not just outsiders seeking our way into a foreign land, but in fact this is territory we have a right to. As Duralde uncovers for us with characteristic wit and passion, we find that queer people and queer sensibilities were there from cinema’s inception. After all this time, we were not crazy to read into the subtext or to stare into a cavalcade of supposedly heteronormative realities and gendered faces, and instead see something more like ourselves.”—Justin Simien, filmmaker

“As another sociopolitical war against LGBTQ+ people, our history, and our culture wages on, Hollywood Pride catalogs the enduring spirit of our community as manifested in film. Alonso Duralde’s offering—comprehensive and digestible, perfect for cinephiles and the everyday moviegoer—is simultaneously a necessary reflection of how far LGBTQ+ representation has come and a reminder of how far it can still go.”—Tre'vell Anderson, authoress of We See Each Other: A Black, Trans Journey Through TV & Film

“Hollywood Pride isn’t a recitation of the most important LGBTQ+ films; it is an exploration of the forces that have made film queer. From gay love for straight stories, queer charisma from closeted actors, or ridiculous trends which shifted the performance of gender on film, Alonso Duralde masterfully traces an often-hidden lineage of queer culture on the big screen. His short, poppy essays combine authoritative research, incisive criticism, and dishy gossip to let gay text and subtext shine with the glitter they deserve.”—Guy Branum, writer and comedian

“With his sharp wit and vast movie knowledge, there’s no one better qualified to tackle this formidable subject than Alonso Duralde. I know this book will be enjoyed and consulted for years to come.”—Leonard Maltin, film critic and historian

An Outstanding and Deeply Informative Read

I absolutely loved this book. On the one hand, having listened to Alonso for years on Who Shot Ya (subsequently Maximum Film), it was amazing to hear the book narrated by its author. On the other, as someone who came to film late (my family was literally the last family in the block to buy a VCR back in the day; forget about cable!), this was incredibly educational and compelling. And as someone who now teaches a film class to high school students, this book is invaluable. Thank you!

So much info

This book gives you so much info on queer cinema. I have seen many of the films mentioned but still had to pause to research the titles I had never heard of. Needless to say, I have a long list of films I now need to see.

Depth of knowledge and understanding of queer cinema

Excellent overview and examination of LGBTQ cinema. Offering insight and understanding of what made these films, memorable, often notorious, and special.

A lot of supposition

Back in the 1980s or 1990s I read a book called something like Gay in Hollywood which basically outed celebrities from the first two thirds of the twentieth century. It was eye opening.

I thought the audiobook of HOLLYWOOD PRIDE might be similar. Instead the writer interspersed a lot of supposition with some known facts. Did he know that during Shakespearean times, men often performed both male and female parts which didn’t make them transgender? Women wearing pants before their time doesn’t make them trans. Cross dressing can be kink, it’s not automatically trans. Maybe some were, maybe some were not. Stating supposition as fact is dishonest.

Did someone pay the writer to speed talk his way through his narration? It sure sounded that way.