ABSTRACT
By the time Lorimar’s production of William Friedkin’s Cruising was distributed by United Artists in February 1980, several months of controversy, protests and demonstrations had passed. The publicity around the protests concerned United Artists, which contracted research on the gay community’s ‘problem’ with Cruising. This led to a series of measures, from changing print ad copy to including a disclaimer at the start of the film. These measures were taken to protect United Artists’ and Transamerica’s reputations rather than to ameliorate any concerned protestors. Critically panned, the public disengaged from Cruising after its first week run and United Artists began to focus its attention on Heaven’s Gate. Cruising’s legacy of protests and politics has continued to frame its historical circumstance for four decades. However, this legacy has often obscured other relevant and controversial issues directly affecting United Artists and Transamerica. One of these issues was the film’s contentious R rating, which was publicly denounced by a CARA board member. The problematic rating was then used to bolster national theatre chains’ resentment at having to legally run United Artists’ overtly homosexual and controversial Cruising. Having bid blind on Cruising, theatre chains would be in breach of their contractual obligations with United Artists if they did not adhere to the terms set out by the studio. As this chapter argues, this and other Cruising controversies provided an ideal opportunity to question the validity of the ratings system and for the theatre chains to push back against studio monopolization of distribution through the blind bidding system.
