Hank’s Public Privates Looks at Almodóvar’s Shortie with Pedro Pascal’s Gay-For-Pay Butt

February 18, 2024
HANK ORSO

When straights play gay, is it allyship, exploitation, or something else entirely?

There's been a mildly big controversy over the last several years over whether or not straight and cis people should be playing gay and trans characters. There used to be a time when a gay actor would be loathe to play a gay character, much less come out himself. And if he did mince a bit onscreen, it was done with tongue-in-cheek bravado and with such stylized brawn backing up the limp wrist that it would only be seen, hopefully, as ironic. While some closeted actors like Rock Hudson rarely had a fey gesture on screen, moving him from hyper-masculine films like Giant to the bedroom comedy Pillow Talk was a gamble. A series of cinematic and PR slights of hand diverted away from the hidden issue at hand.

When we moved into the eighties and nineties, we had actors like Tom Hanks "daring" to take on "brave" roles in films like Philadelphia, but really only after their heterosexuality was firmly established in the public mind, to tell important stories most other actors still wouldn't dare to touch.

Pascal's crack of dawn.

So what has happened in the past decade or more, in the age of legal gay marriage, rising acceptance of the LGBT community by the mainstream, and more and more people in the public eye coming out with little damage to their careers? Who should play those roles is now up for heated debate.

Our blogs and news and internet sites are filled with out actors playing both gay and straight roles. So when straight actors want to play meaty gay roles, is this a fantastic display of allyship to be celebrated, or is it a cis member of the power structure taking work away from a less famous but more deserving gay performer?

And what does all this have to do with Pedro Pascal's great ass?

Award-winning and celebrated Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's 2023 short film Strange Way of Life is a dramatic queer Western starring two straight actors, Pascal and Ethan Hawke, as former lovers reunited by chance and crime over twenty years after their youthful affair. Their younger counterparts are shown having sex. Pascal and Hawke have sex. It's all fantastic-looking and well-acted because, hell, these are two terrific actors! And it should look great seeing as how it was co-produced and costumed by the House of Saint Laurent. (No, seriously.)

Jason Fernández and José Condessa as the young versions of Pascal and Hawke's characters.

We love Pascal and Hawke for their scruffy, handsome, aging faces, their rugged qualities, their dad bods...and oh yeah, their no-holds-barred acting. But could gay actors have played these parts? Sure. But would they have been convincing? Would they have brought to the roles what Almodóvar and the audience are looking for? Well, that's difficult to answer. The film has a 75% or so Rotten Tomatoes rating, pretty solid for a short film by a Spanish director doing only his second English-language film. So they must have done something right.

Almodóvar is an out gay director who has had straight actors playing gay in previous films. My first exposure to the inimitable and very straight Antonio Banderas was in the director's 1987 comedy thriller Law of Desire, his first among several films they collaborated on. And between you me and the fencepost, I'm thinking Almodóvar doesn't mind looking at some of his straight male leads as he's directing them in sexual and, in the case of Strange Way of Life, somewhat kinky scenarios at that.

Hawke and Pascal get close.

The critical reception for Strange Way of Life was quite good. David Fear of Rolling Stone described it as "a provocative movie that brings out the best in both of its leads," although Peter Debruge of Variety called it "a glorified fashion commercial" (for Yves Saint Laurent, with) "two stars eager to show their allyship."

Hey, I'm all for allyship, and if it's just a bit performative, I think I can excuse it if it gets the job done with aplomb. And from the looks of the above scene with Pascal, it gets it done with a peach!

Full disclosure, as a community theater actor myself, I have absolutely zero problem with straight dudes taking on gay roles. More power to them. Just as no one had any issue with me playing two straight characters and kissing up on the dames in a production of Almost, Maine I appeared in.

Conversely, I also have no qualms about saying that when it comes to trans representation, there are enough brave, talented, and fierce trans performers ready and able to take on those roles. We really can't have another embarrassment like Felicity Huffman in Transamerica or the cinematic hate crime that was Jared Leto's "Gaymos and Andy show" in Dallas Buyers Club, playing an absolute figment of the writer's imagination created to make the piece-of-crap straight character look more sympathetic. For a more eloquent argument for this representation, you need to look no further than to trans actor and Broadway's Wicked alum Alexandra Billings's scathing response to producer Cameron Macintosh's thoughts about hiring trans actors being a "gimmick."

My apologies for some personal musings here. it's not a debate that will be settled anytime soon, Until then, let's gaze a bit more at Pascal and his fine behind!

All clips and pics were courtesy of Mr. Man. Head over there to check out more celebrity nudes now!