I’ve been reading a lot about fashion designer-turned-writer/director Tom Ford’s debut film, A Single Man, and I‘m intrigued. It looks really good, and it’s been getting overwhelmingly positive reviews. The film is a day-in-the-life story of a British, gay professor (played by Colin Firth) living in California in the 1960s. I think the gist of it is that Firth’s character’s lover recently died, and Colin Firth’s character is considering suicide. The film also stars Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, Lee Pace and Nicholas Hoult. Many critics already have Colin Firth, Julianne Moore and Tom Ford down for Oscar nominations – so, of course, the backlash has got to start now too, right?

The backlash may have started when a new trailer for A Single Man was released. In the older trailer (released a few months ago), there were several vaguely blink-and-you’ll-miss-them homoerotic shots of Colin Firth and Matthew Goode kissing, and of Colin Firth and Nicholas Hoult frolicking in the ocean. Here’s the original:

The Weinstein Company (who produced the film) just released a new trailer, this time taking out the man-on-man kiss (and yet, leaving in the kiss between Julianne Moore and Colin Firth). As Indie Wire points out in a piece de-crying the “de-gaying” of the trailers, “the film’s gay content” is left out and “the new trailer essentially is altered to suggest the core of the film is the relationship between Colin Firth and Julianne Moore’s characters, even removing the names of both Matthew Goode and Nicholas Hoult (who play Firth’s love interests) from the end of the trailer.” Here’s the new version:

The second trailer has much less impact, in my opinion, especially compared to the more visceral reaction of “I want that!” when I saw the first one.

At the end of the day, it might simply be a business decision, and one that the producers and Tom Ford (who is openly gay) feel they have to give in to. In Ford’s profile in W Magazine, both Harvey Weinstein and Tom Ford take pains to “de-gay” the story too:

Like others involved in the project, [Harvey] Weinstein notes the film’s universality: “Everyone has had the kind of day that George has, an incredible adventure, and at the end of it finding peace.” Says Firth, “Anyone who’s ever felt alienated or anyone who’s ever felt they’ve got to make an effort to face the day or anyone who’s ever lost anybody will find something in this guy, I think.” And from Ford: “That’s the thing about my film—it’s the isolation we all feel and the universal need to connect with others.”

Translation: This is not a gay movie. While one may assume the sophisticate Ford to be above so mundane a pronouncement, the marketer Ford seizes that crucial moment of consumer connection, and if he has to spell it out, so be it. “I like chocolate cake. Do I define my life by the fact that I like chocolate cake?” he queries. “For me, that’s what sexuality is. I didn’t think of making a movie with gay characters.”

Yet he wants to make clear to those who don’t dine at the chocolate-cake table that there’s plenty of red velvet, too. For the article’s photo shoot, W had hoped to photograph the director surrounded by his leading cast members. With all but Moore assembled in London a day or two before the festival there, suggestion B was a picture of Ford with the featured male actors. He declined, saying it would send the wrong message, and subsequently agreed to the photo with only Firth.

“I want to make sure that people don’t think this is a gay film, because it is a universal film,” he says. “We all go through the same things in life—romance, grief, isolation, trying to come to an understanding of what life is about. I wouldn’t want someone not to see it, thinking, Oh, that’s a gay love story. That’s not the core of the film.”

[From W Magazine]

Indie Wire calls this “the Brokeback Mountain approach” to publicizing a film with gay content. Which I guess means that we can expect Colin Firth, his wife and Julianne Moore to sit on Oprah’s couch and talk about everything but hot, gay action. And, that approach resulted in a mixed bag during the awards season for Brokeback. The director, Ang Lee took home the Best Director Oscar, but the actors didn’t get any of the big awards. I hope that doesn’t happen with Colin and Julianne – they’re two of the most deserving actors out there. I love them. I want them to win everything this year!

Here is Colin Firth at the AFI Fest 2009 Screening Of ‘A Single Man’ at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on November 5, 2009.