Unexpected depths
Recently re-watched a run-of-the-mill 80s teen flick Teen Wolf. I don’t remember noticing at the time, but re-watching it, there was a fairly clear gay-subtext. By which I don’t mean that any of the characters were gay (with the possible exception of the second-rank friend Lewis). Just the whole story about struggling with an unusual identity coming on at puberty and worried about what folk might think if they find out. Though it clearly has general teenage resonance, there was a particular one if you’re gay. But I guess, however long it took Hollywood took to have a major actor in a sympathetic gay role, it played that sort of game for a long time. Hardly surprising, since it is probably the most gay-pervaded major global institutional structure after, irony of ironies, the Catholic Church.