Larry Kramer: “Barbra Streisand is a hypocrite”
Larry Kramer’s anger at Barbra Streisand for acquiring the film rights to his play The Normal Heart but never making a movie is well known and surfaced again this week when Streisand issued a statement applauding the overturning of Proposition 8.
In a scathing post on the actup.org website, Kramer let loose on the Oscar-Grammy-Emmy winning star: “Barbra Streisand is a hypocrite. If she had made my play about aids, The Normal Heart, in 1976, when she first acquired the rights, only to sit on them for a full ten years without filming it, she could have done something for gay rights when we were really in the sewer of death.
But no, she chose to go off and make such vitally important and classic movies as Nuts and The Mirror Has Two Faces.
Barbra Streisand cares about gay rights as much as I care about spending a zillion dollars decorating a colony of houses in Malibu. As the mother of a son who is not only gay but hiv positive, she should be ashamed of herself.
Fortunately and at last, an exciting movie version is now being prepared by openly gay director-producer Ryan Murphy to star Mark Ruffalo. I hope it will prove that the best thing that happened for The Normal Heart is that Barbra Streisand didn’t make it. I think it is important for all her many gay fans around the world, which certainly had once included me, to know the above.”
Comments
(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)
Max F Grump says:
Larry Kramer and his comments are despicable. He has no right to be so mean and nasty to Barbra Streisand. Film making is a very complex and expensive process. So many factors come into the creative mix. How dare he blame Barbra, who has worked so hard on this project for years and years.
From all accounts it was Kramer who was difficult to work with and NOT Barbra. He acts as if his play being made in to a movie would cure AIDS. For him to to criticize Barbra as a mother and bring her son’s status into the story is pure unmitigated evil by an unbalanced resentful man.
Barbra has supported the gay community for decades, her financial contributions are well documented. Just by being Barbra she has liberated us all, especially in those early years when she overcame those odds to be a success. The force of her personality and belief in herself has inspired millions of gay and straights for five decades.
In summary, Kramer has exposed himself as an unprofessional nasty bitter old queen. Ironic that he should author a play called “The Normal Heart” and then appear to be lacking one.
PS- Greg, you excellent work on this site is very impressive and a joy to your readers. Thank You. We truly appreciate your great posts and wonderful photos. However on this particular story about Kramer vs. Streisand I was surprised that you did not take a firm stand and mentioned how foul these comments by Kramer were and that Streisand (love her or hate her) by no means deserves such a brutal lashing.
In any event, your site is one of the best on the web!
Alex Joseph says:
If Barbra Streisand had made The Normal Heart in 1976, she would truly have been a visionary as AIDS didn’t make its big primetime debut until 1982 or 1983. Also: Why is Larry so down on “Nuts”? I liked that movie a lot! Way way better than the Owl and the Pussycat.
Also I’m not sure why Kramer is so sure the filmed version is going to be “exciting.” Mark Ruffalo is a total babe but having a gay director is no assurance of quality at the movies, cf Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss. Remember Brokeback Mountain? Both male stars, the director, and writer Annie Proulx were…heterosexual. And it was pretty good!
Gavin says:
I too have read Larry Kramer’s recent unedited comments elsewhere, and it is he who sadly emerges as the shameful hypocrite. With cowardly venom, he indirectly attacked Ms. Streisand by publicly disclosing her son’s HIV status – a fact that many never knew. As one of the founders of GMHC and the supposedly heroic protagonist of THE NORMAL HEART, Mr. Kramer’s new emergence as a pathetically embittered viper may just derails the making of his film yet again.
Vince says:
Yes, Kramer is a nasty bitter person. How dare he attack Barbra. She has done plenty for the gay cause. God bless her.