“For a generation steeped in decoding the celluloid closet, queer characters had always lurked menacingly on the silver screen, exquisitely exemplified in Addison DeWitt’s suave viciousness and Eve Harrington’s ruthless backstabbing in Joseph Mankiewicz’s All About Eve. What queer characters emphatically and paradoxically did not do was experience intimacy or its carnal consummation—though, of course, part of the thrill and horror was knowing that they did do just that, beyond the fringes of on-screen representation.”