Has ANY high-profile movie had a gay protagonist?

[jere7my]

"Bazine" and "Grummgar" never get named or even sexed on screen. There is no reason to assume that one is male and one is female or that the two are a couple unless you are projecting human-centric traits onto alien beings from a galaxy far, far away.

The question here is not "Can we prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Bazine and Grummgar are engaged in heterosexual flirting?" The questions are "Does it read as heterosexual flirting to the typical moviegoer? Did the filmmakers intend it as such?" Since she is played by a woman, he is portrayed as exaggeratedly masculine and is referred to as male in all ancillary materials, and she's sitting on his lap stroking his thigh, I think the answer to both of those questions is "yes."

Another way to look at it: if, instead of Bazine, we'd had a male bounty hunter in the same position on Grummgar's lap, would there have been outraged Facebook threads and boycotts from the "moral majority"? (Yes.)

There is no textual evidence that Finn is straight. There is only textual evidence that he is not completely homosexual or asexual. Both Oscar Isaac and John Boyega have said that they intended their scenes together to be played as romance. That to me at least suggests that Finn is bi.

Oscar Isaac said he was playing it as attraction; as far as I know, Boyega's reply was to laugh and say that was only in Oscar's head. But, again, standards of proof: a typical audience member will hear Finn asking Rey about a "cute boyfriend" and assume he's interested in her, while anything between Finn and Poe is much subtler, which means he reads as straight. We don't need to have iron-clad proof before we point to something as reinforcing heteronormativity. That might change in VIII.

[Liquor Box]

I don't think characters which have no stated or depicted sexual preference in the actual movie should count. Theorizing about a fictional character's undefined sexuality is a pointless pursuit. Only if the movie clearly shows it can it be considered a fact and a data point.

Also, how are we defining a "high profile" movie? There are plenty of well known movies that are about one issue or another connected with being homosexual, bi, trans, etc. Most of the major characters in those movies are gay, because it is a major theme of the movie.

If you are excluding those movies, then I can't think of many in which either the protagonist or antogonist are clearly depicted as being gay. In many cases, sexuality is not a subject broached by the movie at all. Who knows if Poe Dameron or Finn are gay? We can't say either way, doesn't count. Dumbledore doesn't, either, there is nothing in any of the movies to indicate a sexuality for him. Gay action heroes? Can't think of any. Sci Fi movies? Not much there either.
Antagonists? Dune's Baron Harkonnen.

For the most part, it seems to me that the only time main characters are specifically gay is when the movie is about being gay, or is at least a central theme. Otherwise, sexuality is either undefined or hetero.

I agree that it is unhelpful when people begin interpreting vague implications of homosexuality or heterosexuality. Everyone seems to interpret the same character differently - you are never going to get a near consensus (this thread, particularly including the above few posts being examples of that). I think that in many cases people are reading too much into a depiction when they say what the sexuality of the character is when it is not unambiguously stated or shown.

if you check the list a couple of pages back there are movies where a protagonist's homosexuality is incidental to the movie - for example Leslie Chow from Hangover Part 3. In Hangover Part 1 he would be a homosexual antagonist as well.

[ZeroiaSD]

Finding hints is not rare, finding confirmed is very rare.

[Murk]

Which does raise interesting questions about assumptions.

It was perfectly normal for young greek boys/men to have an older (sexual/romantic) mentor before they got married. Actually, that was the norm.
Glossing over the entire "what is homosexuality?" debate (were all ancient Greeks homosexual. were they just able to have seks without being romantically attracted to someone, should we distinguish between homoromantic and homosxual, etc.) - can we just assume that all Ancient Greek men we see in movies are homosexual? That would up the list a bit.

I've seen people mention Alexander and 300, but there's a huge amount of movies about Hercules, Jason and the Argonauts, Helena, the Wrath/Clash of the Titans, Oddyseus. I think it is a safe bet that all the protagnists from those movies had same seks relations, historically speaking, even though it's not explicitly shown or mentioned in the movie.
(Even so, discount points for Troy, which went out of its way to remove any kind of homosexual relations. Poor Patroklos.)

[Vinyadan]

Which does raise interesting questions about assumptions.

It was perfectly normal for young greek boys/men to have an older (sexual/romantic) mentor before they got married. Actually, that was the norm.
Glossing over the entire "what is homosexuality?" debate (were all ancient Greeks homosexual. were they just able to have seks without being romantically attracted to someone, should we distinguish between homoromantic and homosxual, etc.) - can we just assume that all Ancient Greek men we see in movies are homosexual? That would up the list a bit.

I've seen people mention Alexander and 300, but there's a huge amount of movies about Hercules, Jason and the Argonauts, Helena, the Wrath/Clash of the Titans, Oddyseus. I think it is a safe bet that all the protagnists from those movies had same seks relations, historically speaking, even though it's not explicitly shown or mentioned in the movie.
(Even so, discount points for Troy, which went out of its way to remove any kind of homosexual relations. Poor Patroklos.)

Beside the fact that there is no trace of homosexual relationships in Homer's works, I think that the presupposition of sexual behaviour can only be based on the author's assumptions and intentions about what he is describing. 300, to me, looked very ungreek and very modern western cinema, so I wouldn't be too surprised if all the Spartans were to be heteros (interestingly, hetairos was a title which meant companion and used for the nobility in ancient Macedonia). I mean, if we can have the Spartans dancing naked while fighting, they may as well avoid sexual relations with other men.

And man-on-men relationships weren't normal in every city in Greece. There were cities known for the fact that men culturally avoided homosexuality (other cities thought they were effeminates for this).

Anyway, these are just details. Personally, I think it depends on the single movie and what the authors actually want to show, and up to which point they have adapted story and characters for their audience. And, to be honest, I don't really remember gay characters in ancient Greek theatre, although they adapted the stories for the audience, sometimes with big variations; it's just that they showed those stories, and homosexuality didn't play a part in them. I do remember some allusions in comedy, but I can't think of a character on scene showing homosexual behaviour, although it could simply have slipped my mind. With this I don't deny that many mythological character were reinterpreted or created ex novo as homosexuals, just that this didn't take place at theatre.

Homo Helena and Odysseus are totally new concepts to me, BTW.

I also add a comment that could be seen as a provocation, but which I actually make in good faith. Now, we know that a successful film requires a good level of self identification in the characters more than anything else. My question is, could it be that the highest grossing movies have no homosexual main character because it is very difficult for heterosexuals (which I assume are 90% of potential viewers) to identify in a gay couple, which leads to the movie being economically less successful and therefore not making it in the list? I know that there are some genres which have made a lot of money out of homosexual relations for a heterosexual public, but that looks like a niche.
There also is the fact that movies about gay couples tend to have their homosexuality as an interest point, rather than their being a couple: the difficulties that it brings, social aspects, introspection and so on. This makes for much less popcorn movies than, I don't know, a random Roland Emmerich film.