- [Narrator] "The Boys in the Band"
has now landed on Netflix.
- [David] Who's crying?
Same old tired fairies you've seen around
since day one.
- This gonna be fun.
- [Narrator] But this is the end of a long journey
for the film.
Originally staged as a play in New York,
adapted into a film in the seventies
and then revived on Broadway in 2018,
it is a natural progression for work as important
as this one.
"The Boys in the Band" is named after a quote
from the Judy Garland, "A Star is Born".
So, you know it's pretty gay already,
but after a Tony winning Broadway run,
it's now come to Netflix under the steady eye
of Revival Director, Joe Mantello
and televisual juggernaut, Ryan Murphy.
But before you watch it, it's important to know
that "The Boys in the Band" is more than just
a razor sharp observation of 20th century gay male life.
It is also a play that sits at the tipping points
of American gay rights, at a crucial moment
in how the Western world viewed homosexuality.
"The Boys in the Band"
might just be one of the most important gay works of art
ever made.
To understand why "The Boys in the Band" needs to be seen
in the same leagues as "Angels in America",
"The Well of Loneliness" or "Pink Flamingos",
we have to go back to New York in the first half
of the 20th century.
When we consider the history of homosexuality,
it's easy to see it as one long stint in the closets,
which only changed after the Stonewall Riots of 1969.
That however is not quite how it happened.
The truth is much more interesting.
For one, it's important to remember
Stonewall was not the first LGBT uprising.
There were the protests organized by the Mattachine Society
and the Daughters of Bilitis of the 1950s and 60s.
There were also dozens of other LGBT actions,
often protesting police brutality
like those at the Black Cat Tavern
and New Faces in Los Angeles back in January, 1967.
Secondly, and this is where it gets juicy.
It's true that at the time of Stonewall being queer
or trans in New York city was a frightening existence,
but actually in New York had seen an era
of queer liberation decades before.
And you wanna know what ended it?
Sing along if you know the words,
it was the excesses of capitalism.
If we look back at New York, even in the 1890s
for example, homosexuality was an accepted part of life.
Openly gay men could be found on the Bowery
or in Harlem lesbians moved freely about the village
and they had a culture and world all of their own.
Come the roaring 20s, drag balls were organized,
gay literature was proliferated
and gay performers found themselves on the Great White Way.
Some of this even lasted into the 30s
where the boom in queer performance was known
as the Pansy Craze.
Then along came the economic depression
and just like every utopia before it,
people blame socially progressive ideals
for the fact America's economy had collapsed
and its citizens when are struggling to get by.
Where once queerness had been a part of the Tapestry
of Manhattan, venues were now threatened
with losing their licenses
if they employed queers
or even tolerated gays as customers.
Hot plain clothes police officers would be sent into bars
to honeytrap gay men.
McCarthy the same guy who blacklisted supposedly communists
said homosexuals were a threat to national security
and police animosity ramped up twice.
Every gay bar in New York was shut down.
- It was illegal for men to dance together.
It was illegal for groups of gay men
to congregate together.
So you ran the risk of getting arrested socializing.
- [Narrator] In the land of theater, homosexuality
was just as controversial.
LGBT arts was from to recur but it also had precedent.
The turning point is often seen
as a set of queer friendly works
from just before the great depression,
including Édouard Bourdet, lesbian drama, "The Captive"
and Mae West, "The Drag",
a gay sympathetic play that went to out of town tryouts
in 1927 and never made it to New York.
Audiences were scandalized,
the play was censored and West was arrested.
- Wow, when I'm good, I'm very good.
But when I'm bad, I'm better.
- [Narrator] In 1927, the Wales Padlock Law was introduced,
which banned all representations
of homosexuality on stage.
seven years later, the Hays Code that the same for cinema.
This doesn't mean that all queer theater was gone however,
somebody always managed to sneak around the official line.
For example, Hudson Theater staged gay focused plays
like 1938 "WhiteOaks" and 1963 "Strange Interlude".
But the Wales Padlock Law meant theatre largely
was as homophobic as the rest of the country.
Cuts to 1957, when young American homosexual Mart Crowley,
meets actress Natalie Wood on the film
"Splendor in the Grass".
He is a production assistant
and she is starring alongside Warren Beatty.
She hired him as her assistant and they became close.
And eventually he was inspired to move out to Hollywood
where he continued to work for her and her husband.
Wood was sympathetic of the LGBT community
of the West coast already
and helped to financially support Crowley
so that he could write his play, "The Boys in the Band".
But wait, I hear you say a gay play
in the age of the Wales Padlock Law,
surely it wouldn't be allowed, and you would be right.
Not only were depictions of homosexuality illegal
at his time of writing, but agents recoiled at the idea
of supporting Crowley's openly homosexual production.
- When I started to write this play,
I had been so advised by so many people
in positions of authority, not to go there.
- [Narrator] Even with the support of august talents
like Edward Albee,
who wrote "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"
and Director Richard Barr
who would later go on to direct Stephen Sondheim,
"Sweeney Todd", major theaters balked
at the idea of staging queer work.
Then in 1967, the Wales Padlock Law was abolished,
making it a little easier to legally stage gay work.
Even if actors were now told starring in it
would ruin their careers.
- I wanted to acknowledge the bravery
of those guys that took on those parts,
even against the advice of their agents.
- [Narrator] Yet against all odds,
"The Boys in the Band" opened off Broadway
at Theater Four on West 55th Street in 1968.
It was meant to run for only five performances.
They ran for just a thousand closing in September, 1970.
One of the earliest plays the center
on the lives of homosexual men.
The New York Times reported that cast members drilled holes
in the set to see who would be sat in the best seats
and saw the likes of Jackie Kennedy, Marlene Dietrich
and Groucho Marx alongside City Mayor John Lindsay.
The original cast came together for a film version in 1970.
And although the play was rave success,
all the cast members who identified as gay,
remained in the closet during the run and afterwards.
Pride marches started in New York in 1970
to Mark the anniversary of Stonewall.
And yet after the play had ended
it was still technically illegal to be homosexual
in New York and 46 other States in America.
By the 1990s, five members of the original cast,
Director Robert Moore and Richard Barr
who produced the show died in the AIDS epidemic.
Though it's cast may not have escaped the shadow
of the close America built for it's queer citizens,
it is undeniable "The Boys in the Band"
did wonders for the art
that helps accelerate queer liberation
in years to come.
It showed how complex
and varied queer men could be like no art
before it had dare to do.
Without it, it is highly unlikely
we would have seen stories like "Queer as Folk",
"Will & Grace" or "Looking".
Now Ryan Murphy and the cast of the Broadway Revival
are helping to immortalize one of the 20th century's
most important plays on Netflix.
Both the 2018 run and the 2020 film feature the same cast,
all of whom are openly gay,
a huge milestone in and of itself and want to be celebrated.
- We've got leading man saying,
here's who I am and I'm still working
or I get to work, not in spite of that,
but because of it.
That is a turn of events, that changes the "Zeitgeist".
- [Narrator] Now gay men around the world
can have the privilege of seeing
their lives reflected in art,
just as it was for the queers of Manhattan,
half a century ago.
- There are certain historical things
that are part of your social DNA,
and you can be a better version of who you are
by knowing what came before.
- [Narrator] Make sure you subscribe to Netflix, UK,
for more insight into the history behind
your favorite movies, behind the scenes content
and deep dives into your favorite shows.
You can stream "The Boys in the Band" right now.
- Thank you and fuck you.