Bohemian Rhapsody — film review
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Bohemian Rhapsody is a biopic of one of the greatest rock bands of all time — Queen. Much like one of their concerts, it’s two hours of unbridled, outrageous flamboyancy that would be hard-pressed to make more entertaining. The film has everything that one might want from an exceptional piece — from moments of desperate, heart-wrenching sadness, to beautifully-timed, laugh-out-loud humour. Not to mention the music. My god, the music.
As one might expect, one of the film’s core concepts is Freddie’s never-personally-revealed homosexuality, and the demons that his prohibition spawned, a depressing necessity in an era that didn’t just treat gayness with intolerance, but with a reviled spit in the face. I remember an old alcoholic who I used to play darts with bragging about “queer bashing” back in the 70’s, that glorious decade when it was considered admirable by some to assault men because of their apparently abnormal sexuality. With such people not just lurking in the shadows but bragging about their behaviour, Freddie Mercury didn’t stand a chance of showing his true colours. His closeted position was smart, but dismally sad nonetheless. The so-called norms of society also pervaded the expectations of those who were supposed to love him most — his Zoroastrian, traditionally-Persian family. His father, cutting a typical dominant, authoritarian male…
