Kinsey aggressively glamorizes the tormented, bisexual researcher Alfred Kinsey, who has drawn criticism for his shoddy scientific standards and wild overstatement of gay behavior and other sexual variations. The film also portrays Kinsey's father (played by John Lithgow) as an angry cartoon of narrow-minded, fundamentalist Christianity.
This Oscar-contending release arrives in the wake of an election in which evangelical Christians played a particularly prominent role, and highlights Hollywood's habit of treating this substantial segment of the population with dismissive contempt. Exit polling data from Nov. 2 showed that a startling 41% of voters attend church at least once a week, while only 4% identify as gay. In other words, in the real world, (including blue states as well as red ones) committed churchgoers outnumber homosexuals by a ratio of more than 10-to-1. It therefore makes no sense, as a means of either reflecting reality or connecting with a mass audience, that gay characters feature so much more prominently (and sympathetically) than religious people in movies and TV shows.
What's controversial to one ...
Hollywood insiders may explain this anomaly by suggesting that the industry avoids devoutly Christian characters because they're inherently controversial, while gay people are not. But this argument takes little note of the election results and the crushing rejection of same-sex marriage in all 11 states where it appeared on the ballot.
A readjustment for the entertainment industry needn't require strict avoidance of divisive issues, nor demand that celebrities shun off-camera crusades. For the near term, however, it might help to refocus on non-political, humanitarian efforts (Habitat for Humanity, anyone?) that don't polarize the public. By the same token, some of the season's most profitable movie crowd-pleasers (The Incredibles, National Treasure, Christmas with the Kranks) affirmed traditional, unifying values of family, service and patriotism with no discernible political agenda.
For the health of the culture, and the welfare of show business itself, the industry ought to make a renewed effort to reflect, or at least to respect, the underlying attitudes of the 51% of Americans who rejected Hollywood's advice on Election Day.