 |
 |
| Sharon Stone returns as an ice pick-wielding bisexual murderess in ‘Basic Instinct 2.’ (Photo courtesy of MGM Pictures) |
|
|
| | |
| |
|
|
| | |
HOME > ENTERTAINMENT > FEATURE
By: GREG MARZULLO COMMENTS
 
continued...
few representations of bi people or female attraction in the movies or on TV," Lambert says. "To have it be an ice pick murderer was very scary."
Historically, gay characters in Hollywood films fell into certain categories. Along with dysfunctional sissies and suicidal depressives, another classification was the gay murderer. In 1980, "Cruising," starring Al Pacino as an undercover cop searching for a gay pick-up killer in New York’s leather scene, became infamous for its graphic violence and kinky gay sex.
One year before "Basic Instinct" was released, "The Silence of the Lambs" featured a gay serial killer who stripped skin from his female victims to make a female suit for himself. Given this history, it’s no surprise that activists were appalled by Catherine Tramell’s ice-pick wielding madness.
"I do think that film really did link bisexuality and criminality together," says Basil Tsiokos, executive director of New Fest, New York’s gay and lesbian film festival.
IN "BASIC INSTINCT 2," directed by Michael Caton-Jones and written by Leora Barish and Henry Bean, there’s only a hint of girl-on-girl action, and all the same-sex titillating eroticism so memorable in the first film is nowhere to be found.
The new film opens with Tramell driving a car with a drugged up stud du jour in the passenger seat. After some really heavy petting, she drives the car off a bridge and into a river, leaving him trapped in a watery grave while she swims to freedom. In a court inquiry, a psychiatrist is called in to evaluate the novelist’s intentions, and as with the earlier film’s male hero, he’s quickly drawn into a mind-boggling plot of sexual gratification and violent murders.
Like GLAAD, bisexual activists have been almost mum on the new film.
"I wrote a bunch of people," says BiNet’s Curry. "I have not heard a word from anyone."
Lambert says the wide array of bisexual characters seen in films since 1992 has helped to subdue the reactions from activists.
"Now there’s more representations," Lambert says. "There’s a writer, and a hairdresser — all different kinds of people who are bi. And OK, you’ve got an ice-pick murderer," she laughs.
| 
