What's Up with My Life in Ruins's Big Fat Greek Homophobia?

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Maybe it was short attention span, maybe it was just traumatic repressed memory. Whatever happened, I can't believe I omitted one of My Life in Ruins's worst transgressions from consideration in today's review. The Advocate didn't forget, though -- and even cornered the film's beleaguered co-star Rachel Dratch in an attempt to get to the bottom of it. Spoilers follow!

A little background spared from Movieline's review earlier: A big guy named Gator (played by Jareb Duplaise) is one of the loud, dumb, stereotypical American tourists traveling through Greece with tour guide Georgia (Nia Vardalos). Gator receives a souvenir T-shirt from a rival guide scheming to get Georgia fired -- a garish black-and-gold number with Greek lettering on the back that translates to "ENTER AT REAR."

Grateful but none the wiser, Gator wears the shirt to a pool party on the next-to-last night of the trip. Suddenly he's got all kinds of new male friends plowing him with free cocktails, but once a panicked Georgia alerts him to the real scenario, the illusion falls away. In grotesque close-up, the men lick their lips and blow kisses at Gator, who disgustedly recoils, tumbling into the pool after socking the rival tour guide in the face.

Of course, the gays do what all gays would do at that point: Yell "ORGY!" and jump in the pool with them. Not joining them, however, is The Advocate's Brandon Voss, who sought an explanation from a woman who plays one of the film's other loud, dumb, stereotypical American tourists, Rachel Dratch:

Speaking of stereotypes, you were hilarious as an obnoxious American tourist in My Life in Ruins [...] but I wasn't a fan of one particular scene.

Oh, my God, I already know what you're going to say. That gay scene?

Yep. I wouldn't want to spoil it for readers, but suffice it to say it involves an "Entry at Rear" T-shirt and lecherous gay men.

It's kind of cringe-worthy. Totally cringe-worthy! I was horrified when I saw that. But here's the inside scoop: I know that Nia fought tooth and nail to get rid of that part. She's upset about that. I saw it at the Tribeca Film Festival, and that's the scene I was talking about the next day. I was like, "Oh, my God, I'm going to have to warn all my gay friends." On the page it was kind of bad, but those predatory slow-motion shots of the guys licking their lips were just horrifying. So I don't condone that moment.

Yeah, pretty much. Ew.

· Rachel Getting Merry [The Advocate]



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