Review of "Blades of Glory"

For many gay men, the world of figure skating presents a buzzing hive of conflicting emotions and opinions. First, it's a sport that historically has celebrated a kind of theatricality and flamboyance that is seldom appreciated in organized athletics. Furthermore, it's an Olympic-level sport that has promoted (and seemingly is supported by) a number of men who are widely recognized, however quietly, as being gay — something that is almost unheard of in other sports.

And finally, it's pretty much drag shows on ice.

So when I went to see the new comedy Blades of Glory, I was beyond nervous. I was concerned I would see a bunch of dated, mincing stereotypes paraded about on-screen in ridiculous costumes. I was anxious about having to sit in an audience that would no doubt be laughing at, loathing and openly ridiculing gay characters (shades of 300). Most of all, I was worried that actors Will Ferrell and Jon Heder, both of whom I love, would be revealed to be homophobic louts for appearing in a film that slashed and burned gay men for laughs and box-office receipts.

So imagine my surprise when none of these things happened.

Was there a parade of mincing stereotypes? Absolutely. But oddly enough, none of the ridiculous characters was gay or was intended to be perceived as gay. Was the audience laughing at the few gay characters the film actually featured? Yes — because these characters were teaching the others about how dated and pathetic their own machismo-laden perceptions of masculinity really were.

But were Ferrell and Heder headlining a project that treated gay men as cannon fodder just to get a few cheap laughs? Absolutely not. In fact, I would argue that Blades of Glory is one of the most relentlessly clever and keenly perceptive comedies ever made about straight-male bonding, fear of intimacy, and masculinity — and figure skating, naturally.

Coming off a gay-friendly high after Talladega Nights (in which his Ricky Bobby character famously made out with Sacha Baron Cohen's character in the film's climactic moment), once again Ferrell has demonstrated that his pet cause is the breaking down of the straight American male in an attempt to promote a more advanced, sensitive, happy kind of man.

And how does he do this? Through repeated kicks to the groin.

Ferrell's smart brand of “dumb comedy” stresses just how childish, painful and vomit-stained the journey of the unenlightened man can be. In Blades of Glory, Ferrell plays Chazz Michael Michaels, a Detroit-born figure-skating champ who also happens to be a sex addict, a porn star, an alcoholic, and a complete and utter pig.

Michael Michaels' arch-rival is Jimmy MacElroy (Napoleon Dynamite's brilliant Jon Heder), a lithe, blond wisp who was handpicked from an orphanage by an enterprising investor and brought up to become figure skating's golden boy. MacElroy is everything that Michaels isn't: He's well-bred, athletic, graceful and, yes, girlie. But he's not gay, and despite the fact that the two characters spend most of their shared screen time unloading a machine-gun spray of insults at one another, Michaels never stoops to the level of gay-baiting him.

But that shouldn't be surprising, once you consider the bizarro world in which Blades operates. This is a universe where avowedly heterosexual men wear pink jeans and tinfoil ascots, and no one bats a glitter-embossed eyelash. These straight men take to the ice wearing what essentially amounts to garish body paint, and the rest of the community applauds it. At one point the villainous Stranz Van Waldenberg (Will Arnett) refers to Michaels and MacElroy as “freaks” for entering the competition as a male pair — while wearing a silver lamé onesie, straddling a bearskin rug and openly ogling his sister.

The simple fact is that the world of figure skating doesn't operate under the same rules as the rest of the world when it comes to effeminacy, flamboyance and emotive expression. In fact, it thrives on these things and could hardly exist without them; they're simply a part of the sport. And yet the skating world has been curiously reticent to admit that gay men (who are traditionally associated with these affectations) are a major contributor to its aesthetic, history and popular appeal.