As about 109 other reviewers have mentioned, this is an extremely funny film about a high school teacher whose former student mentions him as being gay on national television.
His current students immediately start looking for signs that he's gay. Oh, he likes musicals and other performing arts and literature, he's a good dresser, all the stereotypical stuff.
His fiancée starts to doubt him. The townspeople start to look askance at him.
Here's the part that annoyed me. He turns out to really be gay.
Now why did that annoy me? Not for the reason you might think.
It reaffirms stereotypical American ideas about masculinity, the American conventional wisdom that says that "real men" don't like the arts or literature. It reinforces the masculine straitjacket that limits men's interests to work, sports, and television.
A trivial concern? Not for me. I know straight men were been beaten up by high school gay-bashers and called names because they had interests that "real men" aren't supposed to have. Interestingly, this stereotype of masculinity seems to be less common in other countries.
I wish the movie would have broken through the stereotype by having Kevin Kline's character be straight and marry his fiancée, with an epilogue of her gloating about how she has the only husband in town who will attend the ballet with her.
I wonder how many teenage boy musicians or artists got beaten up by gay bashers as a result of this movie.
His current students immediately start looking for signs that he's gay. Oh, he likes musicals and other performing arts and literature, he's a good dresser, all the stereotypical stuff.
His fiancée starts to doubt him. The townspeople start to look askance at him.
Here's the part that annoyed me. He turns out to really be gay.
Now why did that annoy me? Not for the reason you might think.
It reaffirms stereotypical American ideas about masculinity, the American conventional wisdom that says that "real men" don't like the arts or literature. It reinforces the masculine straitjacket that limits men's interests to work, sports, and television.
A trivial concern? Not for me. I know straight men were been beaten up by high school gay-bashers and called names because they had interests that "real men" aren't supposed to have. Interestingly, this stereotype of masculinity seems to be less common in other countries.
I wish the movie would have broken through the stereotype by having Kevin Kline's character be straight and marry his fiancée, with an epilogue of her gloating about how she has the only husband in town who will attend the ballet with her.
I wonder how many teenage boy musicians or artists got beaten up by gay bashers as a result of this movie.