Gays Decry Benefit Screening of ‘Lambs’

A gay and lesbian media watchdog group has accused Orion Pictures of donating proceeds from a benefit screening of “Silence of the Lambs” to AIDS Project Los Angeles in order to draw attention away from elements in the film that it says exploit violence against women and perpetuates gay stereotypes.

“The moviemakers were obviously concerned about the movie,” said Richard Jennings, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). “They attempted to launder the film by using . . . an organization whose clients are mostly gay to offset criticism.”

“Silence of the Lambs,” adapted from the Thomas Harris novel, is the story of a gutsy FBI trainee (Jodie Foster) who helps track down a serial killer who leaves his women victims skinned. In the film, the killer (played by Ted Levine) is shown in one scene cross-dressing and a reference is made to his having killed a male lover.

The movie, directed by Jonathan Demme, is scheduled to open in Los Angeles on Feb. 14.

“The film is an atrocity against women and one more instance of an industry that can’t seem to create a positive gay character,” Jennings said Friday, hours before the AIDS benefit screening at the Cineplex Odeon in Century City. He maintained that the killer “is clearly intended to be gay, even though some of the effeminate aspects of the character have been minimized (from the novel).”

Jennings said that the killer’s personality “employs several gay male stereotypes, including an affected voice, the fact that he sews, he has a poodle named Precious, hates women and cross-dresses.”

A spokesman for Orion Pictures denied that the AIDS premiere was intended to derail anticipated criticism from the gay community. AIDS Project Los Angeles’ executive director, Stephen Burnett, also disputed Jennings’ claim.

“I don’t think Orion did this on purpose,” Burnett said. “We’re grateful for Orion’s help. It’s not that easy to arrange benefit premieres. So when something like this came along, we took it.”

Burnett, who estimated that the benefit would raise as much as $100,000 for AIDS Project Los Angeles, said that when he heard of GLAAD’s objections to the film, he asked Orion for a screening with GLAAD representatives.

“Orion turned down the idea, but (allowed him) to see it and I was relieved,” Bennett said. “I didn’t see much of a problem with it . . . (but) I do think it is violent and gory.”

Jennings said that the only conclusion he can draw from Orion’s refusal to admit GLAAD members to advance screenings is that “they think the gay community would have a legitimate problem with the movie.”

Reached on Friday, Orion President David Forbes said his company does not screen movies for particular groups. “The only groups we screen are for promotional purposes, not for censorship purposes,” he said.

Because many GLAAD members are involved in the film industry, some of them have seen the film anyway, Jennings said, and have been upset by its content.

“We expect the film to be popular,” Jennings said. “So we want to put out a message warning the gay and lesbian community not to support it with their dollars. We want to send a message to Orion and to the rest of the film industry that we’re tired of being depicted in the movies almost exclusively as villains, murderers and twisted psychopaths.”