Edge of the City (1957)
This is director Martin Ritt’s first film, and he’s a didactic artist. I try not to be, as so often message art gets the message wrong. Edge of the City is an anti-racist movie that is itself racist. Sidney Poitier plays the character he copyrighted, the perfect black man: handsome, articulate and kind. He also jumps around and dances a lot, places the bongos, and is full of animal joy. All fine and good, but for all Ritt’s good intentions Poitier is not only exoticized, but somewhat resembles Bill Bo-Jangles Robinson — a black entertainer dedicated to making everyone smile. It’s too bad that Poitier had to play this character constantly, but it’s not right to blame him for it (and Ruby Dee is amazing as his wife; but why was she ever a big star? We know…). John Cassavetes is actually the leading character (though Poitier got all the kudos). Cassavetes went on to be a brilliant avant-garde director, and his dark performance as a man who is doubly guilty — of killing his brother by accident, and deserting the army, and then has to decide whether or not to tell the police a warehouse racist bully murdered Poitier - is fiercely subtle. I am obsessed over the homoerotics of the film; no I’m not going to apologise. When do we get to see two beautiful male movie stars almost kiss? Apparently Ritt was aware of the homoerotic nature of the ‘buddy’ relationship between Cassevetes’ character and Poitier’s. The film is all about men, even the young Jack Warden (who plays the racist) is even kinda sexy in a brutal way. The problem with closet films is that the female characters are less interesting; gay men know that ‘buddy films’ are more about gay men who are required to have sex with women just so that no one will feel bad about watching the movie. I need to see gay art, and the fact that I have to settle for table scraps watching Casevetes throwing his arm around Poitier and hoping one or the other will take a shower, or even that they will shower together, is not enough. I’ve spent my life writing about gay men having love and sex, and my work has been consistently marginalised. I’m not complaining, as I love being marginalized, it’s where I write from, I’m just telling you. I had a friend over last night (yes, like all my pals, he talked about how his pals are on his case for seeing me, I couldn’t believe it). Anyway, he told me he was in a gay play recently with a slew of gay men (14), and some uptight woman came to see a preview and was praising them: “It’s so good to so many men on a stage together acting who are —” and then she stopped and admitted “I don’t want to say that word.” This is 2020, when have RuPaul and Will and Grace and can get married. So what in heaven’s name was stopping her from saying “it’s great to see a room full of gay actors?” Perhaps the politically correct notion that some might rather be identified as bisexual, or MSM (‘Men Who Have Sex With Men’)? So if I enjoy this continued marginalisation why don’t I just shut up? Because still I’m waiting for the day when Dad says “Thank God you’re gay, son, you won’t get some girl pregnant.” And all I want is a movie in which John Cassavetes and Sidney Poitier meet and fall in love, only their are problems are that Poitier is not a perfect black man, but deeply flawed in some way, and maybe there are also problems because Cassavetes actually prefers black bodies to white ones, and Poitier feels racially objectified, until Cassavetets points out that Poitier prefers white bodies to black ones, and they both come to understand that desire cannot be racist. Desire isn’t anything really, except truth, which is what makes bathhouses so interesting, I was addicted to them for years because there’s just no lying there (except on beds). If you are not attracted to someone then you are obligated to tell them nicely you won’t have sex with them, period. After so many years of having sex with women I so loved those hallowed halls when I discovered them, reeking somewhat of poppers and jiz (does cum have a smell?). There is nothing bad about two people agreeing to objectify each other, because every consensual act is an act of love. And why not? I know, desire is certainly not democratic; the young and beautiful and well endowed certainly have an advantage, and I have never really understood the attraction for instance of men with big bellies, as I have always somewhat had one, but only recently have I begun to be attracted to myself, not my opposite. I enjoyed sex with a fat chaser once, I used to attract them when I was heavier. He was so butch and sexy, and sweet, and he would always ask me to eat more, because if I did he would love me more. (I couldn’t do it.) Then there was Rodney who I wrote a book about, who had a 12 inch penis that he would pull out at parties and display. This was charming of him. He worked as a stripper and would disappear from my life now and then. It took me awhile to realise that it was because he was in jail. He was missing some bones in his nose due to some coke issue, and I kind of loved Rodney until I realised that he wasn’t really very smart or interesting. The relationship became non-consensual when he decided that ‘our song’ was Amanda Marshall’s “My money's riding on this dark horse, baby” and I realised all of a sudden that I didn’t want to have an ‘our song’ with Rodney, as I was not in love with him -- just charmed by his huge penis and my own romanticisation of working class thugdom. We had a huge fight when I told him I couldn’t be his boyfriend (actually he specifically wanted me to screw him up the ass and I wouldn’t, and he was very hurt, as for him that would have been a confession of love). He nearly wrecked my apartment. I deserved it because I was lying to him, and lying is the only sin, really. You can do all sorts of terrible things but please don’t lie. But at first he and I were all about mutual desire which is the most honest thing in the world. Looking back on it, I think Rodney might have been a ‘feeder,’ because he was always asking me to eat, and telling me how much he loved watching me do it. (I have terrible table manners. Christopher Newton tried to teach me better table manners once— because he imagined I was going to be the toast of the gay world some day — but that never happened — instead I was fated to be despised by middle class fags and never invited to fancy dinners.) I hope you are still alive Rodney and I want to apologise for not figuring out I didn’t love you sooner. And if you are dead this is my ode to you, because the joy was not only in your giant dick but in the innocence with which you loved someone who was, back then at least, not worthy.
