“Cruising” by William Friedkin from 1980 surely is one of the controversial movies about gay culture and subculture ever and I agree with the gay activists of that time like William A. Percy that the way the movie shows homosexuality as a “destructive force” makes it pretty problematic. On the other hand the movie has got it’s really strong moments when the camera follows a disturbed and at the same time facinated Al Pachino (who plays a cop in search of a serial killer) into the clubs and darkrooms of the New York leather and SM scene – places Friedkin himself visited for three months to get an impression of what’s going on there and asked the people there to take part in the movie. As scholars like D.A. Miller point out in these moments the movie works like a field study and especially gay sex in a way it has never been shown in a Hollywood movie before and after it. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out. Here’s the trailer: