The bird cage
Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend delves into adjacent queer and queer headlines from the past that deserve a watch or re-watch.
Birthday: the bird cage
Has it really been 25 years since The Birdcage became an unexpected box office success? That’s right: in 1996, the Robin Williams-Gene Hackman-directed comedy brought gay life and relationships into America’s zeitgeist … not to mention some of the best one-line zingers to ever engage in filmmaking. .
The plot, in case you forgot: The Birdcage resets the classic French comedy La Cage aux Folles in South Beach. Armond (Williams) and his longtime boyfriend Albert (Nathan Lane) together own a drag club, where Albert plays the role of the show’s main lady. When their son Val (Dan Futterman) becomes engaged to Barbra (Callista Flockhart), all hell breaks loose: Barbra is the daughter of Conservative Senator Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman), very anti-gay rights (or, for that matter, ,, homosexuals even existing). When Val, the Senator Barbra and his caring wife Louise (Dianne Weist) show up in South Beach to meet the family, Albert enlists Val’s biological mother Katherine (Christine Baranski) and his housekeeper Agador (Hank Azaria) to keep Albert a secret.
Do you have it all? The cast list for The Birdcage reads like a who-who of the greatest actors alive: a cast like this is rarely put to good use, let alone having so much fun. This is attributed to the directing by Mike Nichols and the script by Elaine May. The couple had a longstanding comedic partnership. In the hands of Nichols – perhaps the greatest director of actors in film history – May’s searing jokes play with an almost musical rhythm. Watching the actors joke is like watching an Olympic tennis match.
The birdcage also deserves credit for its groundbreaking portrayal (by Hollywood standards, anyway) of a queer family. The film tackles a number of major issues – marriage equality, same-sex parenthood, surrogacy, right-wing naivety – that wouldn’t become major issues for another decade. Then, of course, there’s the performances – each a gem in their own right. Robin Williams gives one of his best performances (and that says a lot), while Nathan Lane should have been nominated for an Oscar for his brilliant and exaggerated portrayal of Albert. Azaria gives an equally outrageous performance, and while some modern critics have attacked him for playing a whitewashed Latino man, we’ve always assumed that Agador was trying to pass himself off as Latin to add to his mystique. It sounds like something his character would do.
Ahead of its time, incredibly funny, and with a star cast to boot, we suggest you celebrate this Pride Month by revisiting The Birdcage. Try to watch it without wanting to quote the dialogue later.
Streaming on Amazon, Peacock, Paramount +, Hulu, YouTube, and VUDU.
