#nathanlane

In 1996, at the height of Robin Williams’ career, the actor started in The Birdcage with Nathan Lane, Dianne Wiest, Gene Hackman and Hank Azaria. For being made in 1996, the film is seemingly progressive. You have a gay couple, Armand and Albert, who own a night club called The Birdcage in South Beach, Florida, with a son, Val, that is about to get married to a woman, Barbara. Barbara’s parents are right wing conservatives, with her father being a senator and after a scandal with one of his colleagues, they decide to go and meet the parents. When Armand (Robin Williams) and Val (Dan Futterman) try to get Albert (Nathan Lane) to leave, he refuses, and they come to the conclusion to dress him up in drag. In the end, everything works out, and the wedding goes on. This is not where my story ends though. Even though the film has its good moments, there are times of glaring stereotypes that plague all the characters, especially the gay characters.

Let’s start by talking about the casting choices. Robin Williams, a terrific character actor, is cast as the “straight acting” gay man who is married to a flamboyant partner, played by Nathan Lane. Of these two, only Lane is gay, which leads to the question of why there weren’t two gay actors portraying the couple. While researching the backstory of the movie, I found out that Robin Williams originally wanted to play the more flamboyant character, however, he decided to switch roles to give himself more of a challenge. This fits with the “best actor” idea that Dr. Martin (2018) presents in his research paper. He says, “In the process, when skill is centered, the ‘best actor’ discourse often results in heterosexual actors playing gay roles.” (p. 287). This idea that Williams was the best actor at the time is kind of easy to believe, after all he is Robin Williams. One argument that I think of in this situation is looking at the timing of the movie. It was the 1990s, Clinton passed Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, two very strong pieces of legislation that stuck with America for about 2 decades. In the 90s you could name few movie and television stars that were out, still had careers, and still in good graces with the public. This was before Ellen’s dog, before Doogie Howser, M.D. became Doogie Howser, gay M.D. and before Gaga invented gay people with Born This Way (before some of y’all say “Gaga didn’t invent gay people” and get upset, it’s a joke). 

Gay actors weren’t really around at the time of The Birdcage and maybe that’s why there was no casting of two gay men. Hell, Nathan Lane wasn’t even out at the time of his role, so imagine how hard it would be to find two out, gay actors.Williams’ character, however, is not the worst part in terms of acting or portrayal in the movie. In second place, Nathan Lane’s character as a stereotypical gay man is pretty egregious. The drag performer turned mother is a hard pill to swallow, especially in this day and age and after taking this class. He is the over the top, flamboyant gay man most queer scholars have come to disdain. However, his cultural interpretation of the character is important to the idea of queer cinema. It’s almost as if you want him to be over the top so someone who would walk in mid movie could look at him and go, “he’s gay and this is a gay movie.” If he was the same type of person as William’s character, you would almost forget that they were in a committed relationship. In their article about queer media, Yvonne Andersson (2002) says, “While the essentialist suggests identity is a rather fixed, unchanging and authentic set of characteristics which unify a group of people- based on nature/biology and/or  their common past- the nonessentialist focus on a difference both inside and between those groups and suggest that identity is something that changes over time…What the non-essentialist definition also points at is that identity is not just about identifiable characteristic, something we can see, count and use as an objective tool for grouping people. Identity and its constituents is very much about meaning.” (p. 4) Lane’s character is an identifiable member of the LGBT community that was very much unseen in popular culture in the 1990s, no matter how stereotypical he may have seemed. As Cavalcante (2017) points out, “At the same time, other participants welcomed the opportunity to perform as cultural interpreters. They perceived the incursion to speak as less of a burden and more of an opportunity to take part in a larger social conversation- a conversation from which they often felt excluded by virtue of having stigmatized and disenfranchised identity.” (p. 11)

  What we can’t overlook about the movie, however, is the portrayals of queer people of color, especially Hank Azaria’s character Agador Spartacus, the Guatemalan housekeeper. Not only is Azaria not of Latin decent, but his stereotypical portrayal of a Latino/a housekeeper is almost unbearable. I would compare it to Mickey Rooney’s character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. However, this is a discussion for a class about race and stereotypes as well as white washing in films, rather than an in-depth exploration of the characters sexual identity. One could argue that both Lane and Azaria’s characters are the same stereotype that has been harmful to the queer community for years: the idea that every gay man is flamboyant, wants to be a drag queen, dramatic and over the top. These ideas have been fought against in recent years, but we are still feeling the ripple effect from years past.

Both Lane and Williams command the stage when they take part in the movie, and because of this, the movie stands out as a good piece of queer cinema. Ahead of its time for its portrayal of gay couples, The Birdcage is a must watch for anyone that wants a good laugh, doesn’t want to over analyze the movie, or just wants something on in the background while they browse social media. Though it does have its problems, the movie holds up to the test of time in a way that few queer movies have. There is a sense of timelessness of the story that resonates with so many people, that it is hard for one to absolutely hate the movie for anything other than the character traits and stereotypes that I have mentioned. If you have not seen the movie, I would suggest watching it one night when you have nothing to do and be open minded of the way characters are portrayed and acted. Afterall, we are all family and The Birdcage really does sing.

 Andersson, Y. (2002). Queer media? Or; What has queer theory to do with media studies. 23 Conference and General Assembly, IAMCR. 1-10. Accessed via Canvas module page: https://ucdenver.instructure.com/courses/392242/files/7295429?module_item_id=1541735

 Cavalcante, A. (2017). Breaking into transgender life: Transgender audiences’ experiences with “first of its kind” visibility. Communication, Culture & Critique. 1-18. Accessed via Canvas module page: https://ucdenver.instructure.com/courses/392242/files/7295434?module_item_id=1541747

Matt’s Instagram story | March 6, 2025