Monday
01Dec2008
Is 'Transporter' Gay?
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 10:59AM
A-ha!
Back in 2005, Transporter 2
director
Louis Leterrier told Chris Lee of
The Los Angeles Times, "If you watch the movie
and you know he's gay, it becomes so much more fun," Leterrier said. "It's so
great -- the first gay action movie hero!” 
I've maintained for years that the oil wrestling scene in the first Transporter movie was a little too homoerotic for its testosterone-fueled surroundings, but that may have been the idea all along.
Back in 2005, Transporter 2
director
Louis Leterrier told Chris Lee of
The Los Angeles Times, "If you watch the movie
and you know he's gay, it becomes so much more fun," Leterrier said. "It's so
great -- the first gay action movie hero!” “Action fans in general are pretty homophobic," argued the director. "You see these tough guys who say, ' The Transporter, that's such a great movie!’ If they only knew they're really cheering for a new kind of action hero.”
It makes no substantive difference to me whether Frank Martin, played by the stone-faced Jason Statham, is gay or not; I didn't like the movies anyway. But would it bother fans of the series? If there's truth in his generalization about action fans being homophobic, perhaps it would. I know this from my few rants about the series in the past: Transporter and Statham fans tend to be pretty touchy on any subject related to Frank Martin.
Leterrier says he put a specific scene in Transporter 2 that marks when Martin comes out, but Statham said at the time, "It's just Lou-Lou trying to be funny," adding, "although he did say, "In Part 2, you will become the gay icon.’”
The Times recently asked Leterrier what he thought of the third film, which was directed instead by Olivier Megaton. Like almost everybody else, he didn't see it, but he has apparently revised his story about Frank Martin over the past three years. “I was sick over the weekend and my 2 Transporters were on, so I watched them and in fact they aren't that gay,” Leterrier said. “But it makes for fun movie legends.”
I never thought of the character as gay per se, but I always thought there were real undertones at work about the films in general. I'm not sure why Leterrier either said it in 2005 if it wasn't true or why if it was true in 2005 he's backed off that stance. I would imagine it's a no hard feelings sort of campaign, and now that he's moved on, he doesn't want to get in the way of the franchise's future success.
But seriously: This scene? Yeah, that's pretty much an Abercrombie & Fitch ad.
Colin Boyd | Permalink | in Jason Statham, Transporter, Video | Print Article | Email Article | 2 Comments | Share Article
Reader Comments (2)
It's an easy test for the homophobic, replace Jason with Angeline Jolie, fighting with her shirt as a weapon, all greased up fighting off a bunch of chicks. Man do we need that movie. Will call it the traportress.
jason is 100% a womans, womens guy..i have not one bit of doubt he's not gay!!!! transporter 2 i watched the scene where the woman that hired him showed up at his apartment, Frank was on the phone upset his pizza did not show up. she knocks on the door he lets her in, she wants to talk to him the pizza man makes a comment are you really hungry he makes a comment you have no idea...meaning he was hungry for her..lets face it the point that was meant to come across was he would have made love to her because he was attracted to her and she had been seperated from her husband for a while, but when he saw she was drunk and wanted to make love to him he just was not the type to take advantage of her.. i'm sure if she was sober and talking out what she was feeling and the mood was right then his character would have allowed him to make love to her but she was emotional and totally drunk and he could have taken advantage of that situation but that is not his character. at the end of the show he was going to give her flowers but he saw that she was with her husband and son in the same room ... the Frank character is a man who enjoys the pleasures of a woman..and Jason loves the pleasures of women too!