Only CULTURALLY COMPETENT users should remove torrents from Themed Movies / TV
-
Does Call me by your name and moonlight count? I mean for gay themed movies, since that's the entire theme of each of the films.
Seriously? Of course both of those count…they're about gay characters! :cheesy2: :cheers: :jiz:
-
Screen name fits as that was a head scratcher. :crazy2:
-
-
Yes that was a head scratcher :)" scratches head"
-
Does Call me by your name and moonlight count? I mean for gay themed movies, since that's the entire theme of each of the films.
Yes, any movie with an LGBT main character is allowed, and both of those have been posted many times.
The "gay main character" is our trump card – whenever someone questions whether a movie is gay enough, if there is a gay main character, we can keep it from being deleted. But the gray areas are numerous:
-
What is a main character? How much screen time separates a major character from a moderately important character? What are the agreed-upon methods for distinguishing the two?
-
What is LGBT? Do closeted gays count as LGBT? What if they are in denial and won't admit that they are gay to themselves? What if the movie constantly suggests that they are gay, but never affirms it?
-
How much LGBT-oriented writing is required to meet the rules? What if the character is openly LGBT but that has nothing to do with the plot development?
-
How do we deal with movies that arguably have gay main characters, but were made before openly gay characters were allowed?
That last one is particularly difficult because it requires the most cultural competence -- in this case, knowedge of the way that specific societies have treated their LGBT members over time. We are sure that the master-at-arms in Billy Budd is a closeted/repressed gay, because he is portrayed in ways that were used, at the time of the portrayal, to indicate queerness without being explicit. This is true of both the book and the film.
But I would have NO WAY of knowing what subtle clues and culture-specific hints would tell me that a Bangladeshi character was a closeted/repressed gay in a movie from '60s Bangladesh. I just don't know what to look for. We all have blind spots.
However i am certain that there are Bangladeshi GTRU members who would know EXACTLY what to look for to determine if the filmmaker wanted us to assume that a character in an old code-compliant movie was actually gay. So if someone posts a '60s Bangladeshi movie with possible/questionable gay content, we should invite culturally competent GTRU members to comment, and learn from them.
If there are gray areas in any movie or show, we should socialize the decision, and invite people who really understand the subtle hints, the links to culture heroes and archetypes, the obscure idioms, the historical references, all the background information that you can only learn if you grow up in a culture.
That's all I'm asking for -- a second opinion, a third opinion, as many opinions as qualified members of this site care to contribute!
@cinemacapman, I completely agree with you, but remember all the arguments over Billy Budd? Just describing the gay content when you post isn't good enough for obsessive rules-followers, and our rules aren't written clearly enough for anyone to agree on what they mean, so it's an endless headache. Any time we write rules that incorporate newly-created compound words that have no agreed-upon definition, we're asking for headaches!
Basic proposal:
-
The mods can still immediately delete anything that obviously doesn't belong here.
-
When someone posts a movie or show that may not be gay enough, create a forum topic with the title and release year.
-
Put in that torrent's comments: "We're not sure this is LGBT enough to belong here, but we'd like your opinion, especially if you speak the language and grew up in the country of origin for this work. If you think this should be kept, or removed, share your opinion here: <forum link="">"
-
Give it a week. What's the rush? If it disappears because of DMCA in the meantime... problem solved!
-
Look at the opinions. Give extra weight to the opinions from people with matching cultural competencies. If they think it's gay enough, it should stay. Otherwise, go with the majority opinion.
This won't require any new coding or development... but if Joker was willing to spend some time on it, numbers 1 and 2 could be automated, so moderators could create the forum topic and add the comment with a single click.
Moderators save time, users have more ownership of the site's contents, everybody understands exactly why something was kept or deleted, and that forum-based decision can be used over and over, every time someone posts another copy of that title. The advantages are numerous. Am I missing something here? Doesn't that seem like a reasonable way to make difficult decisions about gray areas in the rules?
Yes, I would prefer to rewrite the rules for movies and shows, but that is never going to happen.</forum>
-
-
- How do we deal with movies that arguably have gay main characters, but were made before openly gay characters were allowed?
That last one is particularly difficult because it requires the most cultural competence – in this case, knowedge of the way that specific societies have treated their LGBT members over time. We are sure that the master-at-arms in Billy Budd is a closeted/repressed gay, because he is portrayed in ways that were used, at the time of the portrayal, to indicate queerness without being explicit. This is true of both the book and the film.
Hitchcock's Rope is a good example of that. The two main characters are obviously gay in subtle subtext but when the film was made, some straight people were probably oblivious to that. The characters are overtly gay in the play the film was based on.
A more recent example that would be difficult to classify is The Lighthouse. I would probably classify it as homoerotic and not gay-themed, but it could be reasonably argued either way, and in fact there are two torrents of the film here already.
-
There was an American cop show ("The Commish" I think it was) in the 90s/00s with a gay cop.
His being gay was almost non-existent in the show.
This isn't enough to be gay theme.
-
And of course this is a democracy! Torrents are alive or dead because people choose to seed them. Torrents are posted because people choose to share them. There is nothing autocratic about this site, except that one moderator has total control over which gray-area postings are kept and deleted. That's why we're getting random results.
@2222 – wouldn't your job be a lot easier if you didn't have to make any decisions about Themed Movies, because the users were making them for you, in their own spare time? Wouldn't that save you a lot of work? Wouldn't it be nice to say that every decision you make has the support of the majority of GTRU users?
Are you serious? suggesting this and called me autocratic? Even the most democratic country in this world, USA, all decision came from one the president, he may have many helpers but he's the who decide all and if his decision in line of the written Laws, do you call him as autocratic?
It won't save work, it means gave away my work. If you think I always close my ears and eyes to other opinion except mine (I think this is the reason why you called me as autocratic, because I refuse to hear one of yours while I was just standing in rules and started all this), ask around, I also have limitation, in that case I ask for help, and that help could come from users, my mentor, Google, critics, and many different forms and that's my job and responsibility. But the way you suggesting it, for example its like I'm the manager, Im the CEO but I give away the work to be decided by someone else, than why do I exist all at, I'm stupid or what?
Does Call me by your name and moonlight count? I mean for gay themed movies, since that's the entire theme of each of the films.
-
What is a main character? How much screen time separates a major character from a moderately important character? What are the agreed-upon methods for distinguishing the two?
-
What is LGBT? Do closeted gays count as LGBT? What if they are in denial and won't admit that they are gay to themselves? What if the movie constantly suggests that they are gay, but never affirms it?
-
How much LGBT-oriented writing is required to meet the rules? What if the character is openly LGBT but that has nothing to do with the plot development?
-
How do we deal with movies that arguably have gay main characters, but were made before openly gay characters were allowed?
That last one is particularly difficult because it requires the most cultural competence – in this case, knowedge of the way that specific societies have treated their LGBT members over time. We are sure that the master-at-arms in Billy Budd is a closeted/repressed gay, because he is portrayed in ways that were used, at the time of the portrayal, to indicate queerness without being explicit. This is true of both the book and the film.
OH MY GOD!!!!!! This is way out of the line. Do we need to even discuss the interpretation of 'What is a main character' 'What is LGBT' here? Look around, search around the web, Google it! Are you unable to find it? Or did you find it but not a result that you want it, so you ask it here to fish someone out to make mistake and then use it as a weapon? Or do you need me to make a paper and assist you through it all?
What if the character is openly LGBT but that has nothing to do with the plot development?
And this! I just caught someone who didn't even read the rules but bragging to the world he has he best idea in the world with strong force want to change the rules.
The rules clearly stated
All non-porn material must be LGBTQ themed by its main plot and characters or contain a recurring LBGTQ subplot. Gay-interest, an openly gay actor or minor gay references are insufficient to meet this requirement. Also acceptable are non-porn films involving voyeurism of the adult male physique. Examples of voyeuristic material include bodybuilding, wrestling and underwear/swimwear.
Do you understand it or do I need to explain that sentence to you?
Basic proposal:
0) The mods can still immediately delete anything that obviously doesn't belong here.-
When someone posts a movie or show that may not be gay enough, create a forum topic with the title and release year.
-
Put in that torrent's comments: "We're not sure this is LGBT enough to belong here, but we'd like your opinion, especially if you speak the language and grew up in the country of origin for this work. If you think this should be kept, or removed, share your opinion here: <forum link="">"
-
Give it a week. What's the rush? If it disappears because of DMCA in the meantime… problem solved!
-
Look at the opinions. Give extra weight to the opinions from people with matching cultural competencies. If they think it's gay enough, it should stay. Otherwise, go with the majority opinion.</forum>
-
What a mod can do and can't its completely in the hands of the site's owner. Even I can't do anything about it, so its obvious, so you don't need to suggest anything like that, it looks like you makes Joker like a stupid person.
-
I won't do that. Earlier you said want to make my job easier, but now you're asking otherwise. This will load my job ever more because I have to create a Forum every time something happen, a Forum that probably you won't even visit.
-
I do that all the time, but you probably didn't see it or you refuse to see. That's the function of the torrent comment box, we can share and discuss everything about the torrent in there. I cover all torrents in general and that's one of the process in my moderating job, I even private message the torrent owner for various cases asking their personal opinion to help me with the case.
-
Agreed, but only for classic movies that need cultural competencies. Once again I repeat, ONLY FOR CLASSIC MOVIES THAT NEED CULTURAL COMPETENCIES. Not gay interest and other insufficient to meet the requirement, its against the rules and I don't want to explain it over and over and over again because its clear.
And I hope this end here because its all clear.
- How do we deal with movies that arguably have gay main characters, but were made before openly gay characters were allowed?
That last one is particularly difficult because it requires the most cultural competence – in this case, knowedge of the way that specific societies have treated their LGBT members over time. We are sure that the master-at-arms in Billy Budd is a closeted/repressed gay, because he is portrayed in ways that were used, at the time of the portrayal, to indicate queerness without being explicit. This is true of both the book and the film.
Hitchcock's Rope is a good example of that. The two main characters are obviously gay in subtle subtext but when the film was made, some straight people were probably oblivious to that. The characters are overtly gay in the play the film was based on.
A more recent example that would be difficult to classify is The Lighthouse. I would probably classify it as homoerotic and not gay-themed, but it could be reasonably argued either way, and in fact there are two torrents of the film here already.
Its not difficult at all, its all about reading from legitimate source. Like the article you provide about the The Lighthouse and that's one of the ways of some process that I do every time I moderate a 'doubtful' Themed/Tv torrent. The article, which feature conversation with the movie director and 2 main actors, stated the script is gay but the director was more like "Forget about complexities of human sexuality or their particular inclinations. I’m more about questions than answers in this movie," approach and that's called homoeroticism when we see the picture movie.
-
-
@2222 - I agree…this entire discussion has gotten way out of line here, and (IMHO) specifically because of one particular person's excessive rantings.
1, As you said...the Comments in a torrent are the spot for someone to ask the Uploader how an upload qualifies as being gay-valid to belong here, if the reason hasn't been made clear in the Description (which I always try to do), or isn't obvious by the poster or screenshots.
2, Once again I have to state that Hitchcock's Rope belongs here. Period. The two main characters are as gay as they could possibly be for a late 40's movie...they're certainly prissy enough. The movie has also always been included in any book I've ever read on the subject of the history of gay cinema, particularly in legendary author Vito Russo's seminal classic The Celluloid Closet.
3. Once again...I say if someone has doubts or questions (as I do sometimes)...TRY using Google and looking a movie up for the gay references or characters. Most of the time, you will find the explanation there (although not always 100% of the time). If you can't find an answer as to the gay relevance, then politely ask the Uploader in the Comments as to the gay relevance.
-
Hitchcock's Rope is a good example of that. The two main characters are obviously gay in subtle subtext but when the film was made, some straight people were probably oblivious to that. The characters are overtly gay in the play the film was based on.
2, Once again I have to state that Hitchcock's Rope belongs here. Period. The two main characters are as gay as they could possibly be for a late 40's movie…they're certainly prissy enough. The movie has also always been included in any book I've ever read on the subject of the history of gay cinema, particularly in legendary author Vito Russo's seminal classic The Celluloid Closet.
I think it is belong to the site, I just read an article about it here https://www.indiewire.com/2014/03/haysd-decoding-the-classics-rope-214547/, to ensure myself. Thoug, I've seen the movie long time ago, probably inspired by The Celluloid Closet, and I do agree that there is a strong gay subtexy between the two main characters. Hitchcock just couldn't do it more explicit because the time it was released.
I just made this one freelech https://www.gaytorrent.ru/details.php?id=b5b4ac403b9917241ea5c725ec39d434ee547b24d432b57a
-
Good move, 2222…
Many Hitchcock films have had subtle (and not-so-subtle) homoerotic subtext and themes, whether or not someone agrees with that evaluation.
As Bear said, much has been written about (in particular) Rope, Strangers On A Train, and Psycho and even North By Northwest (Martin Landau's character of Leonard is an obsessed homosexual who is "devoted" to James Mason). Just on the homoerotic subtext and implied themes, all of those movies I just mentioned all belong here. They've also all been written about in numerous books on gay cinema over the years. -
I had forgotten about this comment I made over a year ago on a torrent page for Strangers on a Train. Even though it is not directly relevant to this thread, it's important to note that Hitchcock use homosexual subtext to denote villains, something that has unfortunately been very common even in Disney cartoons.
#359028 by bearbearbear (Power User) at 2019-05-06 01:58:31 GMT- [Edit]- [Report]
It might be debatable, but plenty has been written about the gay themes and subtext in this film as well as many other Hitchcock films, notably including Rope and Psycho. For context, the film was released in 1951, a literal lifetime ago. Bruno's obsession with Guy is said to be fueled by sexual attraction. Hitchcock used gay coding in Bruno's effeminacy and implied homosexuality to portray him as a threatening villain to the audience. (Yes, that still happens, unfortunately.) Like The Talented Mr. Ripley, it was based on a Patricia Hightower novel, and the gay subtext in her novels, including Strangers on a Train, has also been written about extensively.
It is not directly relevant to your point, but it's interesting that actor Farley Granger was openly bisexual, which was unusual for the time.
Now, I will say I don't think it's important that Hitchcock films are available on gay torrent sites because they are so widely available elsewhere. What is important to have on gay torrent sites is gay-themed films with little distribution and availability elsewhere. If someone wants to torrent Rope (or RuPaul's Drag Race, for that matter), there are dozens of torrent sites to choose from.
-
In some parts of the world, it can be offensive to call someone out on any form of competency. Perhaps if one must, maybe a better phrase could be something like Culturally Aware.
One picture that comes to mind when thinking about subtlety in this thread, is the artwork of a jug that has a pair of lovers seen by adults, but kids see 9 dolphins.
-
Rocketman was one of my favorite films, especially how heartbreaking it was when elton broke up with reid.
-
Now, I will say I don't think it's important that Hitchcock films are available on gay torrent sites because they are so widely available elsewhere. What is important to have on gay torrent sites is gay-themed films with little distribution and availability elsewhere. If someone wants to torrent Rope (or RuPaul's Drag Race, for that matter), there are dozens of torrent sites to choose from.
I beg to differ a bit…the reason I come to a gay-themed torrent site is precisely so I don't have to go elsewhere for movies and shows featuring gay themes or characters...this way, everything is in one place. Regardless whether any of the downloads can be found elsewhere. That's the entire point of having gay themed torrent sites (of which I belong to four, including this one).
-
@bc22:
In some parts of the world, it can be offensive to call someone out on any form of competency. Perhaps if one must, maybe a better phrase could be something like Culturally Aware.
That's an excellent point…a much better term.
-
Now, I will say I don't think it's important that Hitchcock films are available on gay torrent sites because they are so widely available elsewhere. What is important to have on gay torrent sites is gay-themed films with little distribution and availability elsewhere. If someone wants to torrent Rope (or RuPaul's Drag Race, for that matter), there are dozens of torrent sites to choose from.
I beg to differ a bit…the reason I come to a gay-themed torrent site is precisely so I don't have to go elsewhere for movies and shows featuring gay themes or characters...this way, everything is in one place. Regardless whether any of the downloads can be found elsewhere. That's the entire point of having gay themed torrent sites (of which I belong to four, including this one).
In one case, it's a matter of convenience but in the other case, it's a matter of available or not available. Certainly with the examples I gave it's a matter of convenience, not importance.
-
This thread is puttering out, but I want to thank everyone who contributed. I admit I started this thread in a fit of pique over the idea that THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG wasn't gay enough for this site, especially since we have so many French members… and anger is not a good starting point. But thanks to this discussion, I've learned a lot about how to make these suggestions most effectively. At some point, I'll re-write these proposals to be as simple, easy to understand, and compelling as possible, then post a new thread.
There are a few loose ends I'd like to tie up. I'd appreciate your thoughts on these:
- We should use the torrent comment box to discuss these things.
The same movie can be posted many times, so a single forum topic would be much easier to read and contribute to than hunting for all the torrents of that movie, living and dead, and reading each set of comments separately.
- Posters should describe these things better.
Amen, brethren. But they don't, and this isn't going to change. I used to always comment "Are there subtitles?" whenever someone posted a non-English language film, if they didn't indicate it in the description. I'd get a reply less than half of the time. I've pretty much given up. When other users post questions like this, I sometimes grab the movie then answer them myself, knowing that the Uploader will never respond.
The rules for torrent descriptions used to be much stricter, too. As this site has allowed more poorly-described torrents, we've seen a tremendous increase in the quantity of torrents. It's much easier for people to upload, especially if they have very little English, so they do it more often. We're getting much more awesome content, but the price we pay is poor descriptions. I don't know any way around this, except to work together as a community to improve the descriptions that uploaders can't or won't add themselves.
In general, I would always prefer having a poorly-described ultra-rare movie versus not having anything at all. Do you disagree?
- We can use google searches to figure out if a movie is gay enough for this site.
Couple of issues with this. I've been searching for descriptions of weird / rare / foreign films for a long time, and for many of them, there is not much English language information on the web. There may be articles in the original language, but they can be very difficult to find (you have to search with the movie's original title in the original script, not the westernized title in Roman characters) and they are not in English (and google translate only works with major language groups.) So there are going to be lots of rare films that really are gay enough to belong here, but google won't tell us. But... we have so many users from such diverse backgrounds! Tapping into that resource will give us all the information we need.
Second, the LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (DIE HARD 4) problem. The director made comments similar to those from the directors of SYNONYMES and THE LIGHTHOUSE. The director told Bruce and Justin to treat each other as romantic interests. It's really obvious when you watch the film, they have great chemistry and they get a daddy/twink thing going. Justin's character's sexual orientation is never defined. By the standards given in previous posts on this thread, google says it belongs here. Do you agree? (I suspect most members don't think it's gay enough, and having a forum topic for that movie would be the perfect place to build a consensus and make a shared decision.)
Similarly, while I agree that THE COMMISH (yuck) doesn't belong here, if you google "gay themes in the commish", in the first five results is a Wikipedia entry that says: "List of 1990s American television episodes with LGBT themes". So according to google/wikipedia, THE COMMISH is LGBT themed, and belongs here. If we had a forum to discuss this, raphjd and myself could argue against that.
- Doing google searches and reading articles about gay themes in a movie is faster than creating a forum and putting a link to that forum in the comments.
Research takes time. Creating a forum topic and adding a generic comment and link would take less than a minute. Then, members can do their own searches, and post the links to the articles in the forum, if anyone wants to spend the extra time reading them.
- Google can help with the gray areas.
Like: what separates a major character from a minor one, do repressed/in-denial characters count as gay, what specific quantity of gay content is necessary to differentiate between gay-interest (not a real word) and gay-themed, etc.
raphjd is the only contributor who even tried to give some hard answers to these questions. Quote:
A single gay character on screen for 15 seconds doesn't count.
A group of gays on screen for 30 seconds doesn't count.I agree entirely, and so will everyone else, because these are obvious. Unfortunately, these lower-bound limits do not give us any information about the upper bound. For instance, a gay character that is on screen for 16 seconds, or a group of gays on screen for 31 seconds, probably doesn't count, either.
Gray areas are real. Gray areas are a matter of interpretation. Crowd-sourcing works. The opinion of many GTRU users will be superior to the opinion of any one user.
When a film that is in one or more of these gray areas is posted, I think we should discuss it, reach some sort of consensus, then make a keep/delete decision as a group.
- Clips instead of whole works.
Clips take time to make, and many users don't know how to make them. They are by nature incomplete, which is unsatisfying. Also, if nobody ever posts the whole movie, nobody will be able to make clips from it!
Asking users to clip out the sexy parts of interesting movies is asking them to do work. People are lazy, and don't like to work. It's easier to post the whole thing, unaltered. Also, I prefer whole movies. I'm not the only one.
- We should be getting movies from other torrent sites.
and
8 ) The site owner doesn't want more torrents.
I don't believe I've ever interacted with the GTRU site owner(s), but I have worked with lots of corporate site owners. They want:
More and better content,
which attracts more users,
which creates more traffic,
which leads to more revenue (via donations, subscriptions, or advertisements)My proposals would increase the amount of interesting content in four ways:
-
Rare and/or obscure and/or non-English language films with that are significant to the gay community will be much less likely to be deleted, so more users will be able to find them.
-
Users who like straight porn, and want to see more straight porn with better lighting and longer scripts (i.e. themed movies with unsimulated straight sex) will be able to find more of that content under Straight Younger and Straight Older. Because these movies will not be in the Themed Movie category, the traditional Themed Movie users will not be bothered.
-
Users who want to see hot naked guys on screen will be able to find more content under the Voyeur category. Because these movies will not be in the Themed Movie category, the traditional Themed Movie users will not be bothered. (Voyeur is from voir, "to see". It seems to be the perfect category for watching hot naked guys. But if that isn't acceptable, these could go under "Softcore" instead. That category is rarely used.)
-
Users who want to see more classic films that relate to the history of fabulousness (i.e. drag) will be able to find more torrents of this type. These will be posted in Themed Movies, and I don't think most of the traditional Themed Movie users will be bothered by this either… but if they are, they'll have a place to comment and complain!
Because this site is indexed in google, the site owner(s) can expect more new memberships, as people search for a copy of a rare movie they want to see, and find that it's available only here. That's how I found this site, through a google search for a rare title.
-
I admit I started this thread in a fit of pique over the idea that THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG wasn't gay enough for this site, especially since we have so many French members…
I don't understand how you could reasonably take such a position. That film is not gay or gay-themed or homoerotic or anything else. It just is appealing to many gay men for various reasons. The same could be said for a good meal in a nice restaurant served by a handsome waiter. Just because it is appealing to many gay men for various reasons doesn't make it gay.
-
Fair enough! I can't guarantee my position is based entirely on reason. I love the film. I don't think it is gay-themed; it's clearly not.
But it is gay. It is really, really gay, like Scott Thompson wearing a pink tutu and sipping a Cosmo while listening to Peggy Lee and smoking a Capri 120.
I have a pink t-shirt that says "Run, Toto, Run!" across the front, printed in a slightly darker shade of pink. THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG is way, way gayer than that shirt.
And a lot of French GTRU users will agree with me on this. So I ask: what's the harm in keeping it on the site? If there is an issue, it will be deleted by DMCA. If you or me or anyone else, including moderators, think it's not gay enough to stay here, we can start a forum discussion for it. All I ask is that the opinion of French GTRU users be given extra weight, because they are the most culturally aware of the film's context.
Does that sound reasonable to you?
