Most of it is complete narrative. There was supposedly an “explosion” of racist backlash against the movie when it was announced that a black woman would be starring in it, yet every news story quoted the exact same two or three tweets from accounts that had single digit followers.
Am I going senile? 2003 was a landmark year for gays in mainstream media. Queer Eye was a hit. Bravo premiered that gay dating show. Metrosexual became a thing. Ellen was an out lesbian and premiered a hit talk show. Christina Aguilera had a gay couple kissing and a trans woman in the video for her hit single “Beautiful.”
I was in high school and clearly felt a shift.
I will never forget seeing that movie at midnight a month after my college graduation with a group of my buddies. We looked at each other when the credits started rolling, realizing that our youth was over. That was the worst piece of shit we had ever seen.
Then we had to get up in three hours and go to our brand new big boy college graduate jobs.