The Birdcage (1996), apparently, is Hollywood's Most Monumental Gay Movie
Quote:The most famous moment from “The Birdcage” is probably the one where Robin Williams gives a bored young hunk a 15-second tutorial in the history of American dance. It’s one of the late actor’s signature scenes. In an uproarious gush of energy, Williams goes from coolheaded nightclub owner supervising a Sondheim number to erudite showman. He demonstrates Bob Fosse, Martha Graham, Twyla Tharp, Michael Kidd and “Madonna, Madonna, Madonna” with the zeal of a gay man who knows a thing or five about art.
While reading a new biography about the director, Mike Nichols, I was amazed to learn the whole thing was concocted on the fly during the shoot. Equally telling is the fact that Williams, then one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, had asked to play the more restrained of the two leads. His hyper-theatrical screen partner would spend the final 35 minutes of the film in drag, and Williams didn’t want to retread what he’d recently done in “Mrs. Doubtfire.” So Nichols offered that role to Nathan Lane, a Broadway luminary. It was for the best. Unlike Williams, Lane is gay and could easily grasp the complexities of this particular code-switching.
That’s what “The Birdcage” is about, after all ― gender performance, a topic far less commonly discussed when the movie debuted 25 years ago, on March 8, 1996. Adapted by Elaine May from the 1973 French play “La Cage aux Folles,” it became Hollywood’s first blockbuster to revolve around open, well-adjusted LGBTQ protagonists.