Everett Collection
(Warning: Spoilers ahead for a movie released 43 years ago!)
There’s lots of talk of things being problematic and controversial these days, but most modern media controversies are child’s play compared to the fury that surrounded William Friedkin’s Cruising. In the wake of Friedkin’s death this week—and as some of his greatest work, like The Exorcist and The French Connection, are remembered—I wanted to pay tribute to his underappreciated portrait of gay culture, violence, and liberation, a film that was decried during its release four decades ago but may be more relevant today than ever.
The 1980 film, starring Al Pacino as Steve Barnes, an undercover cop sent to investigate a series of grisly murders targeting gay men. To find the killer, he immerses himself in the gay leather and S&M bars in New York City’s Meatpacking District. The queer community came out in droves to protest the movie, fearful that a film about a serial killer targeting gay men was going to destroy any goodwill the community had fought so hard to build.