With the AfterElton.com Greatest Gay Movies Poll in full swing (if you haven't voted yet, please do so!), we thought we'd take a look at the flipside, the bottom of the barrel, the worst of the worst when it comes to gay depictions on film.

Like the "best of" poll, these are not necessarily gay themed films meant for a gay audience, but rather there's something so egregious or offensive, or just plain wrong in them, that the film negatives deserve to be chopped up to be used as ukulele picks. These are films I saw once, and hope to never see again.

These selections are mine, and mine alone, so if you disagree with them (and you will), please take it out on me and not anyone else at AfterElton.com. (Well, except Brian, cause that's funny.)

Note - these films will be graded using the Cruising scale, with five being the worst.

The Choirboys 

Released in 1977, The Choirboys had an impeccable pedigree; It was adapted from Joseph Wambaugh's bestselling novel about street cops, and it was directed by Robert Aldrich, who gave us such classics as Kiss Me Deadly and What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?

Unfortunately, Wambaugh was so horrified by the result, he demanded his name be removed from the credits.

I know how he feels. In fact, I wish I could have been around when the movie was being made, so I could invest in it, then demand that my name be taken off of it.

The movie is about a bunch of drunken louts who harass people, beat up women, and eventually murder someone. Did I mention that these guys are cops, and supposed to be the heroes? It's a non-stop calvacade of racism, sexism, and homophobia.

In one infamous scene, a cop is handcuffed to a tree in the middle of a cruising park, after his pants have been removed by his police pals. A grossly stereotypical predatory queen walks by carrying a purse, and walking a pink poodle, and proceeds to smack his lips and lisp his way through a conversation with the increasingly angry cop.

If that's not bad enough, later in the film, one of the cops murders a gay park hustler, but in the film's "happy ending", the guy's cop buddies help him cover up the crime, and he gets away with it!

So how bad is The Choirboys? Let me put it this way: the most sane, reasonable character in the film is played by ... James Woods.

Cruising rating

The Rock 

One of the myriad of bad action films Nicolas Cage made immediately after winning the Oscar, 1996's The Rock would be just another forgettable "blow'd up real good" spectacle were it not for one scene that had my eyes roll completely out of their sockets, bounce down the steps, and hail a cab to Hollywood to smack the screenwriters.

In this scene, Sean Connery is getting his hair cut by a flamboyant barber (played by...Anthony Clark?) when some bad guys interrupt with guns blazing, sending the barber into a hysterically screaming, hands waving fit. They find him a few minutes later, literally cowering in a corner, sobbing uncontrollably.

So what's the point of including a scene like that? Easy, it gets laughs from the target audience, namely young, straight men. The producers know who their audience is, and they know exactly what to feed them.

Cruising Rating

See more barrel scrapings after the break.

The media coverage of the whole Senator Larry Craig situation is becoming an instructional guide in the art of misdirection. Why on earth is the focus on bathroom sex? I mean, other than the fact that it's sensational and sells papers, and because it's way easier to prey on the fears that the uneducated already have about gay men and what they do to one another than discuss the real issues at hand.

We've got reporters left and right bringing up pedophilia, as though that had anything to do with anything (sorry, but was the officer that Craig allegedly advanced on an eight-year-old?), and Tucker Carlson even took the opportunity to tell a charming anecdote about how he was propositioned in a bathroom and subsequently beat up the guy who came on to him (because apparently violence is the usual response to a come-on in Tucker's world).

We've made clear how disgusting we find all this. And now we'd like to take a different approach to the media's fascination with public gay sex by looking at its anthropological significance.

For your lack of enjoyment, here's a sampling of some of the more exploitative gay public sex scenes in movie history. If you have others to add, please do so in the comments!

The Sweetest Thing

In this light comedy (very light on the comedy, IMHO), galpals Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate go on a roadtrip to crash a wedding and find a hot guy (Thomas Jane). On the way they take a break at a rest stop, and find that there's a hole in the stall of the men's room at the end of a Yellow Brick Road drawn on the wall. Cameron peeks inside and gets poked in the eye with a penis, demonstrating that even straight women are in harm's way when it comes to gay bathroom sex. Don't believe me? Watch for yourself.

There's Something About Mary

What is it with Cameron Diaz and rest stop sex?! In this presumably wacky comedy, Ben Stiller finds himself being mistakenly arrested with a bunch of truckstop bathroom cruisers. The fellas even perform in the final music montage! Maybe all that toe-tapping paid off.

Basic Instinct

The girl-girl-guy scene between Sharon Stone and another lady in a club bathroom is pretty hard to forget, and was likely on everyone's mind when the film was protested back upon its release. Lest we think that it's only gay men who hook up with random people in toilet stalls, rest assured that bisexual women do the same when their characters are written and directed by straight men.

Cruising

Interestingly, no bathroom sex to be had in this legendary Al Pacino gaysploitationfest, although there is peepshow sex (and murder), Central Park sex (and murder) and lots of flat-out in-the-open bar sex. The lesson here: any time two gay men are allowed within 20 feet of one another, they will have sex, regardless of where or who they are.

• We noted a few weeks back that notorious anti-gay film Cruising will be hitting DVD in September, but our pal John Polly over at NewNowNext has also learned that the film will be screened theatrically in NYC's gay Chelsea neighborhood a few weeks earlier. In related news, The Passion of the Christ to be screened at the Jewish Heritage Center. Seriously -- whah?!
  
• Star runs a item referring to a male-male kiss as "not normal" (it was Adam Sandler and Kevin James shilling Chuck & Larry, so maybe it should have read "Not Funny" instead...). But BoyCulture's comments about the brainless Star reporter that showed up on last night's My Life on the D-List are even funnier.
• Anyone notice David Burtka On the Lot again last night, in the superhero movie? If this story is true (again, it involves Star, so be careful), he may have new rosebushes to trim very soon.
  
• Iowa City to get its own semi-annual glossy gay magazine. Notes Outlook Iowa City's editor: "Selling ads was really easy for this. A lot of people were excited to reach out to this niche." Just like the movie said: "If you build a readership bursting with dual-earning couples, they will come."
• Feast on some pics of AfterElton.com coverboy Cheyenne Jackson at the recent staged reading of Red Eye of Love.
• A cover of Culture Club's "Victim" recorded as a duet between Kylie and Boy George as a "joke" may now be the first single off of her new album.
  
• NewNowNext also interviewed gay-fave M.I.A. about shooting her 100-boy dance video in Jamaica.