Arts & Entertainment
Dishing with Bruce
Hollywood funny guy on ‘70s drugs, the Oscars and hanging out with Robert Reed


Bruce Vilanch is in town to honor Carol Burnett at the Kennedy Center this weekend. He’s at Cobalt Friday night. (Photo by Rick Stockwell)
Bruce Vilanch — perhaps America’s favorite gay funny man — will be at Cobalt Friday night to greet fans. Famous for his Oscar jokes and appearances on “Hollywood Squares,” we caught up with him by phone two weeks ago where he was in a jovial mood, cracking jokes the whole time. His comments have been slightly edited for length.
WASHINGTON BLADE: Is it harder to make people laugh in the Internet age? How do you still make people laugh when they’ve seen it all?
BRUCE VILANCH: Well yeah, it’s harder to come up with original stuff because someone will write something, post it online then it’s out there before it’s even been performed. It’s like instantaneous. So it’s harder now to surprise people. But on the other hand, people are so much more connected now that they get every joke. Things are in touch almost to a sickening amount so that by the time you try something live, they get every reference because they’ve had a chance to be exposed to it. I guess there are plusses and minuses. I think also the chances of offending somebody have quadrupled.
BLADE: Why?
VILANCH: Everybody feels their opinion is valid and they have a place to post it publicly now. It used to be reserved for the people who had the platforms but now anybody can post their opinion.
BLADE: Is it hard to keep doing it? I think many of us outside of Hollywood imagine it must be constant pressure.
VILANCH: Well, you have to keep working at it. Fortunately as a writer, you can generate your own work. Actors have a hard time doing that. But then you have to go off and try to sell it. You can never afford to be asleep at the switch, unlike the people who run trains in Chicago. But thankfully there are no real term limits on these kinds of things. I guess at a certain point you start fighting a creeping ageism but if you’re distinctive enough, people don’t mind. Everybody loved Rodney Dangerfield and now he’s up there with God. God must be happier now.
BLADE: What brings you to our fair city?
VILANCH: I’ll be in town to be part of the Mark Twain Prize ceremony to Carol Burnett at the Kennedy Center (on Sunday), so while I’m here I’ll be making a little appearance at Cobalt as well.
BLADE: Will you be performing at Cobalt?
VILANCH: Not really a performance. More of a meet-and-greet and maybe answer some questions. And getting some phone numbers hopefully. Facebook is unreliable. You have to save them in your phone.
BLADE: Did you do any writing for Carol’s show back in the ‘70s?
VILANCH: No, I never did. She and her husband at the time believed in hiring writing teams. They seemed to like what they were getting with the contracts for a writing team and I didn’t have a writing partner. I had a sex partner, but that’s not what they were interested in. Later I worked with her on some specials and some personal appearances but not anything where she was in character.
BLADE: What was the show she did in the early ‘90s on NBC?
VILANCH: Oh yeah, “Carol & Company” I think. It did fairly well I think, but she stopped because she said it was like shooting a new pilot every week. Each episode was like a one-act play and that’s very hard to pull off on a weekly basis. I think she had some success with it but she just didn’t want to work that hard all the time.
BLADE: The Screen Actors Guild just came out with a study on actors and anti-gay discrimination. It seemed a little surprising considering how many power gays we have in Hollywood like Ellen and Neil Patrick Harris.
VILANCH: Who look remarkably similar, don’t they?
BLADE: We see lots of LGBT actors, but is it still squeamish in the boardrooms? What’s been your experience?
VILANCH: I think it’s a lot less squeamish than it was. I’m not really in the boardrooms, so I can’t really comment on that. It’s just like every place generally. We’ve become part of the mainstream. We’re probably getting very close to having a big male action or romantic star who’s gay. I don’t know who it would be. Maybe if Cheyenne Jackson got a big role or something we could test the long-held theory that they won’t buy you in a big action or romantic role if you’re gay. It’s happening more in pro sports. … Maybe someday we’ll have somebody say, “Yes, I’m James Bond. And I enjoy a good old fudgepacking.”
BLADE: Of course we have to talk about the Oscars. The host job seems notoriously brutal. The critics seem like they can’t wait to hate anybody new who tries it. Yet you always seem to come out smelling like a rose. Is it because you’re not out there on stage?
VILANCH: I’m flattered you think that but obviously you don’t read the same blogs I do. I get slammed all the time. I get slammed for Oscar shows I didn’t even write, that I had nothing to do with. People are always saying, “Why don’t they get rid of that guy?” I’m like, “Well, if you stayed to read the credits, you’d see,” but I guess nobody is awake to read the credits at 4 or 5 in the morning so I really can’t blame them. But that’s the hallmark of the Internet really. People cutting loose with ignorant opinions, so I continue to get blamed. I feel like I wake up covered in mud. Even when the show’s a hit, or I win an Emmy, people are saying, “Oh, it was boring, it was horrible.” I remember the producer of the Oscar show used to have two framed reviews on his office wall. One was a rave from the New York Times and one was a slam from the Los Angeles Times. They were as extreme as they could be and they were about the same show. So you really never win, except, I guess, when you do.
BLADE: But why are people so tough on the host? I remember watching David Letterman and Jon Stewart do it and laughing throughout the night. They may not have been the best ever, but they didn’t seem to me to be as bad as everybody thought they
VILANCH: Well, just by the sheer numbers you realize that a lot of people who watch must be unfamiliar with these hosts beforehand. Suddenly you’re up there in front of 35 million people, so everybody has an opinion. And they’re working within a certain limitation, so they can’t just do what they do on their own shows. And sometimes things play differently at home but didn’t play that well in the house. Sometimes it’s just the wrong energy. With Letterman I think it was kind of like, “OK, we don’t need TV boy here coming out and making fun of our names.” But then he used that as a running gag on his own show forever. … And a lot of these people who watch aren’t even people who go to the movies. It’s like people watching the Super Bowl who never watch football. It’s just kind of a cultural experience people feel they have to share in. It’s like the people going out on New Year’s Eve and that’s the only time they go out. So you’re not always working with the best possible audience to be honest.
BLADE: You wrote for the “Brady Bunch Hour.” Was Robert Reed out to you?
VILANCH: Oh sure. He lived with his mother but we would go out to clubs together. He was kind of into rough trade. But he was afraid to go anywhere much because he was afraid of being seen. So we would arrange to sit back in some dark corner. It was very pre-Stonewall. I mean, it wasn’t technically pre-Stonewall, but it still felt like pre-Stonewall.
BLADE: What was he like? Was he fun to hang out with?
VILANCH: Well, he was so deeply closeted it was hard to get him to let loose and just have fun. He was always very nervous about it. A lot of these people living this kind of big secret tend to be pretty tightly wound because so much is at stake. But yeah, once you broke through all that, he was fun. I was always out and I was this big flamboyant comedy type and he was comfortable with me. I kind of helped him lubricate his way so to speak (laughs).
BLADE: For all the great stuff you’ve done, you’ve also been involved in some of the most ignominious bombs in all of pop culture history with stuff like “The Brady Bunch Hour” and the “Star Wars Holiday Special.” I hope you’re not offended by this question, but did you have any sense at the time, these would attain such train wreck
VILANCH: Well, you always go into something thinking it’s a good idea but you have to remember, this was the ‘70s and so we were all a bit chemically altered at the time. You have to also realize, like with the Brady show, this type of variety show concept was still popular at the time. We didn’t realize it was breathing its last. It’s the kind of thing that could have been really terrific if any of them could sing and dance. I mean they did a little on their original show but it became clear pretty quickly when we tried this sort of hybrid thing, that it wasn’t going to work. It’s still fun to roll the dice. Now had you told me if would have become like this kind of cult thing, that would have surprised me at the time.
BLADE: Obviously when you’re writing an awards show, you have to know the material that’s nominated. How do you have time to watch whole seasons of TV shows and all the Oscar nominees?
VILANCH: Well, it’s a lot easier than it used to be because they just send you screeners now and you can sit at home. It sure beats having to go to screenings, which were horrible experiences. No popcorn. But I go to the movies anyway. To get paid for it just tickles me to no end.
BLADE: Obviously most of us are not Hollywood insiders, so something I’m always curious to ask people who are is this: Does the cream always rise or have you seen true cases of highly talented people who just never got the right break? Sometimes it feels surprising to watch some of the stuff that does get a green light.
VILANCH: Have I seen people fall through the cracks, yes I have. There’s a feeling that there’s a kind of natural selection at work and it’s survival of the fittest. You kind of have to have the right combination too. It’s not always enough to just have the talent. You have to have the talent and the ambition and the kind of personality that allows you to hang in there long enough and have a thick hide so that you can get through life with all that rejection. So yes, there have been lots of people who didn’t have just that right combination. Maybe there were too dependent on something or they just didn’t have the oomph to push themselves through. With others, the talent seems to rise briefly because they get lucky but the ones who really last really do have unbelievable stamina and manage to break through all the other stuff. It sounds terribly dry, but it’s true.
BLADE: Where do you live?
VILANCH: In West Hollywood. I was up in the Hills for 28 years, but now I have a fabulous loft right on the boulevard. I stand out on my balcony like Eva Peron for the AIDS Walk and Pride and Halloween. And now I can stagger home.
BLADE: Do you hang out at gay bars in West Hollywood?
VILANCH: Yeah, some. Usually the reason you go out to a bar is to meet people who don’t answer your job description. But now there’s Grindr and that stuff, so you don’t have to go out as much.
BLADE: Some of the stuff they try for the Oscars seems a little head scratching at times. Like one year, they handed out some categories down in the aisles. Another year they had all the nominees come up on stage. Do you have any say in those kinds of decisions?
VILANCH: Um, no. Listen, at the time that kind of stuff is usually a response to some criticism that’s come up. Like that year, somebody had said, “Gee, how can we save some time here?” All those technical awards, the people are sitting in the back and it takes them so long to get to the stage. Somebody thought maybe having some of that done in the aisle would save some time. That was the perceived solution, but then everybody thought it made them seem like second-class citizens. There’s a little bit of reinventing the wheel every year but with a lot of it, there’s not a whole lot you can do. And the networks aren’t really upset with the long running time, because that just allows them to sell more ads so even when it’s absurdly long, they’re still pretty happy. I think one year they added like three or four honorary awards and that ended up adding like 45 minutes to the show and the network said, “OK, guys, this is a little ridiculous.” But one thing that’s worked is to hand some of those technical awards out at its own separate function, then just show highlights as a clip package and that saved a lot of time. The innovation I really liked the most was when Bill Condon had previous winners come out and salute the nominees individually. Then they said, “Oh it was too long,” so they only did it in two categories the next eyar and it didn’t have the same impact at all. I thought it was a fabulous innovation but the only problem was after awhile you would run out of previous winners. You only get one each year in each category.
BLADE: Well, you could just keep having Luise Rainer (age 103) come out every year to do it, God bless her. She’s been great about coming back for the milestones.
VILANCH: Yes, wasn’t that great? And one year Olivia de Havilland flew in from Paris, that was just great too.
BLADE: What’s one thing you miss about ‘70s-era Hollywood and one thing you don’t miss?
VILANCH: Well I guess I miss the drugs. It was the ‘70s so there was all this hedonism so you had that and the porno mustaches, which I love. But on the other hand, to be honest, I don’t miss the drugs. I really don’t miss everybody being loaded all the time and they really were. It was probably the first time there was really this relentless
VILANCH: Um, no. Listen, at the time that kind of stuff is usually a desire to be young and that really hasn’t gone away but it was hysterical then when I was young. People would be wearing these flowered shirts with love beads and just trying very hard to be hip when really they were all barracudas. They did make us laugh.
BLADE: For all of us gays who love Carol, but will never get to schmooze with her, please give her our regards.
VILANCH: (laughs) OK.
Sports
English soccer bans transgender women from women’s teams
British Supreme Court last month ruled legal definition of woman limited to ‘biological women’

The organization that governs English soccer on Thursday announced it will no longer allow transgender women to play on women’s teams.
The British Supreme Court on April 16 ruled the legal definition of a woman is limited to “biological women” and does not include trans women. The Football Association’s announcement, which cites the ruling, notes its new policy will take effect on June 1.
“As the governing body of the national sport, our role is to make football accessible to as many people as possible, operating within the law and international football policy defined by UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) and FIFA,” said the Football Association in a statement that announced the policy change. “Our current policy, which allows transgender women to participate in the women’s game, was based on this principle and supported by expert legal advice.”
“This is a complex subject, and our position has always been that if there was a material change in law, science, or the operation of the policy in grassroots football then we would review it and change it if necessary,” added the Football Association.
The Football Association also acknowledged the new policy “will be difficult for people who simply want to play the game they love in the gender by which they identify.”
“We are contacting the registered transgender women currently playing to explain the changes and how they can continue to stay involved in the game,” it said.
The Football Association told the BBC there were “fewer than 30 transgender women registered among millions of amateur players” and there are “no registered transgender women in the professional game” in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
The Scottish Football Association, which governs soccer in Scotland, is expected to also ban trans women from women’s teams.
Theater
Theatre Prometheus spreads queer joy with ‘Galatea’
Two girls dressed as boys who find love despite the odds

‘Galatea’
Through May 10
Theatre Prometheus
Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center
7995 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, Md.
$27
Theatreprometheus.org
In a timely move, Theatre Prometheus thought it would be a beneficial thing to spread a little queer joy. And since the company’s mission includes engaging audiences and artists in queer and feminist art, there was nothing to stop them.
Co-artistic directors Tracey Erbacher and Lauren Patton Villegas, both queer, agree they’ve found that joy in John Lyly’s “Galatea,” an Elizabethan-era comedy about Galatea and Phillida, two girls dressed as boys who find love despite some rather slim odds.
Now playing at Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center on the Takoma Park/Silver Spring campus, the upbeat offering is a mix of contemporary and period, and strives to make audiences happy. Galatea’s cast includes Amber Coleman and Cate Ginsberg as the besotted pair.
Erbacher, also the production’s director, adds “queer joy is something that I prioritized in casting actors and interviewing production people. I asked them what it means to them, and resoundingly the reply — from both them and the play — is that queer joy is the freedom to be yourself without having to think about it.
“Galatea” was first brought to Prometheus’s attention by Caitlin Partridge, the company’s literary director. Erbacher recalls, “she strongly suggested I read this very queer play. I read it and fell absolutely in love. And because it’s a comedy — I really like directing comedy — I knew that I could lean into that while not neglecting its universal themes of young love.”
Villegas, who’s not ordinarily drawn to the classics, was also instantly smitten with Galatea.
“Usually with classics, the language doesn’t jump out at me the way modern works do,” she says. “But not so with ‘Galatea.’ The first time I heard it read aloud, I found it easy to follow and entirely accessible in the best way.”
Whether Lyly deliberately wrote a queer play isn’t known. What’s definitely known is the play was written with an all-boy performing troupe in mind; that’s partly why there are so many young female roles, the parts 10-year-old boys were playing at the time.
There’s not a lot known about Lyly’s personal life, mostly because he wasn’t wildly famous. What’s known about the times is that there wasn’t a concept of “gay,” but there were sodomy laws regarding homosexual activity in England geared toward men having sex with men; it was all very phallocentric, Erbacher says.
She categorically adds, “Women’s sexuality wasn’t considered in the equation. In fact, it was often asked whether women were even capable of having sex with other women. It just was not part of the conversation. If there wasn’t a dick involved it didn’t count.
“Perhaps that’s how the playwright got around it. If there were two male characters in the play he could not have done it.”
Prometheus has done adaptations of ancient myths and some classics, but in this case it’s very faithful to the original text. Other than some cuts winnowing the work down to 90 minutes, “Galatea” is pretty much exactly as Lyly wrote it.
And that includes, “girls dressed as boys who fall in love thinking girls are boys,” says Erbacher. “And then they start to clock things: ‘I think he is as I am.’ And then they don’t care if the object of their affection is a boy or a girl, the quintessential bisexual iconic line.”
And without spoiling a thing, the director teases, “the ending is even queerer than the rest of the play.”
Erbacher and Villegas have worked together since Prometheus’s inception 11 years ago. More recently, they became co-artistic directors, splitting the work in myriad ways. It’s a good fit: They share values but not identical artistic sensibilities allow them to exchange objective feedback.
In past seasons, the collaborative pair have produced an all-women production of “Macbeth” and a queered take on [gay] “Cymbeline,” recreating it as a lesbian love story. And when roles aren’t specifically defined male or female, they take the best actor for the part.
With Galatea, Prometheus lightens the current mood. Erbacher says, “the hard stuff is important but exhausting. We deserve a queer rom-com, a romantic sweeping story that’s not focused on how hard it is to be queer, but rather the joy of it.”
Movies
Jacob Elordi rides high in ‘On Swift Horses’
Sony Pictures’ promotions avoid referencing queer sexuality of main characters

You might not know it from the publicity campaign, but the latest big-screen project for breakout “Euphoria” actor and sex symbol Jacob Elordi is 100% a gay love story.
Alright, perhaps that’s not entirely accurate. “On Swift Horses” – adapted from the novel by Shannon Pufahl and directed by Daniel Minahan from a screenplay by Bryce Kass – actually splits its focus between two characters, the other of which is played by “Normal People” star Daisy Edgar-Jones; but since that story arc is centered around her own journey toward lesbian self-acceptance, it’s unequivocally a “Queer Movie” anyway.
Set in 1950s America, at the end of the Korean War, it’s an unmistakably allegorical saga that stems from the marriage between Muriel (Edgar-Jones) and Lee (Will Poulter), a newly discharged serviceman with dreams of building a new life in California. His plans for the future include his brother Julius (Elordi), a fellow war vet whose restlessly adventurous spirit sparks a kindred connection and friendship with his sister-in-law despite a nebulously strained dynamic with Lee. Though the newlyweds follow through with the plan, Julius opts out in favor of the thrill of a hustler’s life in Las Vegas, where his skills as a card shark gain him employment in a casino. Nevertheless, he and Muriel maintain their friendship through correspondence, as he meets and falls in love with co-worker Henry (Diego Calva) and struggles to embrace the sexual identity he has long kept secret. Meanwhile, Muriel embarks on a secret life of her own, amassing a secret fortune by gambling on horse races and exploring a parallel path of self-acceptance with her boldly butch new neighbor, Sandra (Sasha Calle), as Lee clings obliviously to his dreams of building a suburban family life in the golden era of all-American post-war prosperity.
Leisurely, pensive, and deeply infused with a sense of impossible yearning, it’s the kind of movie that might easily, on the surface, be viewed as a nostalgia-tinged romantic triangle – albeit one with a distinctively queer twist. While it certainly functions on that level, one can’t help but be aware of a larger scope, a metaphoric conceit in which its three central characters serve as representatives of three conflicting experiences of the mid-century “American Dream” that still looms large in our national identity. With steadfast, good-hearted Lee as an anchor, sold on a vision of creating a better life for himself and his family than the one he grew up with, and the divergent threads of unfulfilled longing that thwart his fantasy with their irresistible pull on the wife and brother with whom he hoped to share it, it becomes a clear commentary on the bitter reality behind a past that doesn’t quite gel with the rose-colored memories still fetishized in the imagination of so many Americans.
Fortunately, it counterbalances that candidly expressed disharmony with an empathetic perspective in which none of its characters is framed as an antagonist; rather, each of them are presented in a way with which we can readily identify, each following a still-unsatisfied longing that draws them all inexorably apart despite the bonds – tenuous but emotionally genuine – they have formed with each other. To put it in a more politically-centered way, the staunch-but-naive conformity of Lee, in all his patriarchal tunnel vision, does not make him a villainous oppressor any more than the repressed queerness of Muriel and Julius make them idealized champions of freedom; all of them are simply following an inner call, and each can be forgiven – if not entirely excused – for the missteps they take in response to it
That’s not to say that Minahan’s movie doesn’t play into a tried-and-true formula; there’s a kind of “stock character” familiarity around those in the orbit of the three main characters, leading to an inevitably trope-ish feel to their involvement – despite the finely layered performances of Calva and Calle, which elevate their roles as lovers to the film’s two queer explorers and allow them both to contribute their own emotional textures – and occasionally pulls the movie into the territory of melodrama.
Yet that larger-than-life treatment, far from cheapening “On Swift Horses,” is a big part of its stylish appeal. Unapologetically lush in its gloriously photographed recreation of saturated 1950s cinema (courtesy of Director of Photography Luc Montpellier), it takes us willingly into its dream landscape of mid-century America – be it through the golden suburbs of still-uncrowded Southern California or the neon-lit flash of high-rolling Las Vegas, or even the macabre (but historically accurate) depiction of nuclear-age thrill-seekers convening for a party in the Nevada desert to watch an atom bomb detonate just a few short miles away. It’s a world remembered by most of us now only through the memories and artifacts of a former generation, rendered with an artful blend of romance and irony, and inhabited by people in whom we can see ourselves reflected while marveling at their beauty and charisma.
As lovely as the movie is to look at, and as effective as it is in evoking the mix of idealism and disillusionment that defines the America of our grandparents for many of us at the start of the second quarter of the 21st century, it’s that last factor that gives Minahan’s film the true “Hollywood” touch. His camera lovingly embraces the beauty of his stars. Edgar-Jones burns with an intelligence and self-determination that underscores the feminist struggle of the era, and the director makes sure to capture the journey she charts with full commitment; Poulter, who could have come off as something of a dumb brute, is allowed to emphasize the character’s nobility over his emotional cluelessness; Calle is a fiery presence, and Minahan lets her burn in a way that feels radical even today; Calva is both alluring and compelling, providing an unexpected depth of emotion that the film embraces as a chord of hope.
But it is Elordi who emerges to truly light up the screen. Handsome, charismatic, and palpably self-confident, he’s an actor who frankly needs to do little more than walk into the scene to grab our attention – but here he is given, perhaps for the first time, the chance to reveal an even greater depth of sensitivity and truth, making his Julius into the film’s beating heart and undisputed star. It’s an authenticity he brings into his much-touted love scenes with Calva, lighting up a chemistry that is ultimately as joyously queer-affirming as they are steamy.
Which is why Sony Pictures’ promotions for the film – which avoid directly referencing the sexuality of its two main characters, instead hinting at “secret desires” and implying a romantic connection between Elordi and Edgar-Jones – feels not just like a miscalculation, but a slap in the face. Though it’s an eloquent, quietly insightful look back at American cultural history, it incorporates those observations into a wistful, bittersweet, but somehow impossibly hopeful story that emphasizes the validity of queer love.
That’s something to be celebrated, not buried – which makes “On Swift Horses” a sure bet for your must-see movie list.
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