Warning! The new "Get Smart" movie is "disgusting".

I took my nephews (between the ages of 5 and 11) to see the new Get Smart movie. It was funny and very good especially if you enjoy slapstick comedy. They kept it much the same as the original television show and I thought they did a great job.

While watching the movie there is a scene in which Maxwell Smart (played by Steve Carell) kisses another male on the lips in slow motion. During this scene a man with three children (between the ages of 14 and 8) behind us contemptuously says out loud, “Disgusting!”

I was thrown back to 1978 watching the movie Midnight Express where two naked men in a shower scene kiss each other. I was a gay 15-years-old and was excited and aroused by the scene having never viewed anything like it before. The audience shouted anti-gay slurs screaming epithets like, “gross”, “fags” and then clapped when one of the men pushed the other away. The message sent to me at that time was, “never tell a soul about your homosexual interests or people will insult you”.

Back to the movie, Get Smart, 30 years later there is at least now only one man in the audience making a shaming and negative remark about two men kissing.

I sat there angry and hurt not knowing what to do. Had I not been there with my nephews I would have turned to him said something about this homophobic statement. But I didn’t.

When we got back into my car I told my nephews that the comment made by the man behind me hurt me and angered me. My 8-year-old nephew said, “Because you are gay?” and I answered, “Yes”. He then said something very wise, “But maybe to people who are not gay it is disgusting to see two men kissing”. I responded by saying, “Maybe so but people should not say that out loud you hurt people’s feelings. I kiss Mike like that and it is not disgusting to me”. He agreed.

I was glad I said something to my nephews so they do not think that what that man said in the movie was okay. What about this man’s children and the other children in the audience? Homophobic messages of hate and contempt go into the minds and psyches of children and perpetuate anti-gay beliefs.

What would you have done about this at a movie theatre?

I went to see, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry this weekend at an east side theatre in the Detroit Area. The line was filled with people between the ages of 16-15-years-old. The east suburbs of Detroit, Michigan are not the gay-friendliest so I expected to hear a lot of snickering, laughing at parts that were about gay couples and booing if anything was close to a scene of tenderness and romance between men. But, that was not the case.

I was updated to how people are today in terms of seeing and hearing gay issues. The crowed did not boo or hiss or snicker at any parts that I thought would be standard to do during scenes which were pro-gay.

I remember seeing, Midnight Express as a teenager and there was a scene where two men in a Turkish prison kiss. The audience booed and when one of the men in the scene stopped the kissing protesting that he could not do it, the audience applauded and cheered.

That was 1978. This is 2007. Perhaps thing are changing.

I even challenged the woman who took our movie theatres. I went with a straight friend of mine who cannot be mistaken for anything but straight. When the woman taking our tickets showed us the line (which was very long) I said to her, "Are these people all gay seeing this movie" to see if she would laugh. She didn't. Instead she gave me a dirty contemptuous look which normally would have angered me. However it was comforting. Even she was tolerating any anti-gay material that night.

Still, the skeptic in me thinks perhaps the movie did not get jeers because the two main characters were both straight--in the movie and in real life--and were not really gay. Maybe I should have seen Brokeback Mountain at an Detroit east side suburb movie theatre. That would have been the real test.

This audience of youngsters made my inner gay little boy feel safe and welcome.

I loved the movie. Two gay thumbs up!