Jim Spellman/WireImageIn the 2011 movie Shame, Michael Fassbender played a sex addict who—in a moment of desperation—had an R-rated encounter with another male in the back of a gay bar.
The film was received well by critics, but James Franco has some issues with it—particularly how the Steve McQueen-helmed movie depicts sex addiction and gay culture.
In a Vice op-ed published on Nov. 8, Franco writes that Fassbender's Shame character "wasn't such an addict," musing, "I mean, what did he do? Watch porn and screw a handful of people a week? I could point to quite a few folks who do that."
"And that scene where he's at his lowest point and wants to f--k and goes into a gay club," he writes, "and it's depicted like the seventh level of hell...I mean, it goes back to the horrible representations of gays in the '70s, where the gay club is meant to signify everything dark and depraved. Then the guy gets a minor b--w job, from, Oh no, a man! The horror!"
Franco, who played a gay character in Milk, has long been an outspoken supporter of the LGBT community. He's also totally fine when people speculate about his own sexuality. Before his Comedy Central Roast in September, he told the Daily Beast, "Bring on the gay jokes! Because these aren't insults at all…I don't even care if people think I'm gay, so it was like, 'Awesome!' I mean, I wish I was…I wish I was gay."
"And like, for me, the greater scheme of things—gay jokes as an issue is one thing but when people make fun of me being gay it's like [shrugs] do it all day," he went on. "It doesn't bother me in the slightest."