Collectively, the class of 1997 remembers the best teacher they ever had—Mr. Brackett. He was something of a cultural touchstone because of the way they all stood up as one at their graduation ceremony and saved him from being unjustly fired by a cowardly school administration.

They also remember, maybe with tears in their eyes, how the ENTIRE community stood up with them.

Mr. Brackett had stood up for them for many years, sacrificing his time and sometimes emotional health to help his students in any way he could. They would not allow his kindness and his excellence to be repaid with cruelty.

And America looked on, touched by the loyalty this man had engendered just by being himself.

It didn’t matter that Howard Brackett wasn’t real. He was a fictional character played by Kevin Klein in the movie In & Out. But he spoke to us on a deeper level and asked us, subtly and with good humor, to learn from him.

And we did. But maybe not the right lesson.

Hollywood: It’s Okay to Be Gay

It was a big deal for a school teacher to be outed as gay in the 1990s. It wasn’t a question of IF you’d be fired, but when. Would they sack you the second they found out, or quietly wait until the end of the school year?

It was a blanket assessment: Gay = deviant predator. And like all blanket assessments, it was wrong. Hollywood took up the task to persuade the millions of people who’d never actually met a gay to judge each person individually.

Just look at their actions and character, the movies and tv shows urged us. NOT who they find attractive.

In & Out was just one of those films and, in my opinion, the best. It shed light on the reality that for most well-adjusted people, being gay was the least important thing about them.

It worked. And acceptance of gays in society, including marriage and adoption, became near universal.

So why, in 2023, was it found that gay acceptance has gone down? This state of affairs has gays my age and older rightly miffed. They worked so hard to be a part of the society, won, and now they’re being shoved back into the same category as perverts.

Why? Because younger millennials (and by extension, Gen Z) decided that ACKSHUALLY who they want to bang is the only interesting thing about them. And all of us are duty-bound to congratulate them for it.

They forgot what made Howard Brackett, and by extension, gays in general, universally accepted.

In & Out & All Around

If you haven’t seen the movie, Howard is a high school teacher and basketball coach who lives a normal, quiet life. He has been engaged to Emily, a fellow teacher, for MANY years. A loving, religious, celibate relationship. He cares for his charming parents and looks after his students. But on the night of his annual Oscars viewing party, a former student of his outs him as gay… something he never realized about himself.

Much hilarity ensues as he tries to convince himself and everyone else that he isn’t gay. Except he is. He just never realized it. I won’t spoil every plot point but I will tell you that the scene I described at the beginning of this post isn’t the happy ending of the movie.

One by one, his students stand up at graduation and say, “I’m gay too!” in support of Mr. Brackett, followed by every member of the community in attendance. It’s heart warming to say the least. At one point, wise old Wilford Brimley (who plays Howard’s father) stands up when the school principal insists that parents wouldn’t be comfortable with Howard teaching their children. He doesn’t raise his voice when he says, “Excuse me, I’m a parent.” But it chokes me up every time.

It’s a wonderful scene, and definitely the climax. But not the happy ending.

The happy ending is the wedding that plays over the end credits, which gives Howard everything he truly wanted:

* He gave his mother the wedding she so desperately wanted (her own vow renewal)

* The community he lived in got rid of the reporters plaguing them because no secret = no scandal

* Emily (played by Joan Cusack in all her boob-a-licious glory) got a husband who adored her and was intensely attracted to her. Something she very much deserved.

* Everyone was happy, which made him happy.

Did he end up with Tom Selleck’s character long term? Maybe. But if so, that’s just a bonus. The happiness of those he loved was his happy ending, something the movie made abundantly clear by showing us who Howard was. That was why we loved him. We gave our views on gays a second thought. And we became better people.

Are You Howard-Maxing?

The problem with scenes like that soaring graduation ceremony is that poorly raised narcissistic people look at that and only see the adulation Howard received, not the reasons for it. The annoying purple-haired narcissist doesn’t see that friends and strangers alike were willing to stand alongside Howard because who he was shone clearly in his actions. For decades, he had been kind, selfless, and a good friend and neighbor.

The younger crop of gays decided to make their sexuality the centerpiece of their identity and reason for being. Remember that certain child of Hollywood actors who came out at her grandfather’s funeral?

Remember all those TikToks about “queer” teachers who were having private conversations with their students about sexuality and telling the kids not to tell their parents?

You know, basically the worst fears of the 90s anti-gay movement?

Somehow, movies, books, and tv shows that touted the message: “Love people for who they are, not who they are attracted to” got turned into “Love and respect me specifically for my sexuality, or you’re a bad person.”

A good analogy of why Howard gays are liked and TikTok gays aren’t? Foot fetishists.

Even others in the fetish community can’t stand feet people. Why?

Because they are publicly gross. A bondage person would never think of sitting down at dinner with a bunch of their normie friends and start telling a friend’s wife about all the things they’d like to see them do/wear.

But feet people? They think nothing of asking a woman to kick off her shoes to “show me the pedicure.” Nothing of ogling and making comments ceaselessly in any setting.

And we won’t go into what they feel empowered to say online.

If you’ve ever noticed influencers blurring their feet out in their pictures… now you know why.

Feet people bring their nasty to the dinner table while bondage people don’t.

And it’s the same thing with Howard gays.

Contrary to the younger generation, they don’t think the flavor of queer you are constitutes WHO you are. And anyone who does is just boring.

I’m not the first to say it, but if that’s your go-to when describing yourself, maybe you need to do something else. Have you considered Warhammer?

If not that, maybe consider being of service to something greater than yourself. Because that’s the kind of thing people like to make movies about.

It’s also the kind of thing people like to pay money to watch movies about. Over and over, for decades.

Personally, I think that should be everyone’s goal: Live a life worth making a movie about.

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Why We Liked 90s Gays (But Not TikTok Gays)