To get the taste of my last post out of my mouth, here's a question for a) writers/readers, b) Phantom fans, and c) any for whom those intersect. I think it would be a good idea to get myself writing more, even if it's not linear, that I will eventually use. I also need to build some kind of portfolio. So I have two plans:

1. Write an article for one of the cinema/horror magazines and attempt to get a byline.

and

2. Write more here for the Phantom community for my exercise and everyone's discussion.

My question for you is: What do you think might be good subjects to tackle for either? For 1, what's an angle that hasn't been taken before that I can tackle in a concise fashion? An overview of the History of POTO will only work if I can find a nice hook, and can limit it to a certain theme. For 2, what would you be interested in reading/discussing?

The problem with a film like The Boys in the Band, William Friedkin's film adaptation of Mart Crowley's hit off-Broadway play about a birthday party of New York City gay men, is that it looks different depending not only on which political stance you take but what year you're looking at it from. It was gay men, after all, who lined up to see it; it was likewise gay activists who railed against it for years because it traffics in every stereotype known to 70's homosexuality: promiscuity, effeminacy, self-hatred, self-medication, and a tendency for every conversation to be about being gay. Revival in the 90's implies that it has been rehabilitated somewhat, but I actually picked it up because of its prominence in the book and documentary The Celluloid Closet which holds it up as an example of how not to portray homosexual characters.
( The truth, for me, is a little more complicated. )