Shh! Hollywood is having a teaching moment — this time in the bedroom, where, if you’re straight, chances are you’ve been doing it wrong.
In the first frames of the new flick “The Kids Are All Right,” two boys snort coke. Next, a dad tackles his teenage son so ferociously, the child can’t breathe.
That boy soon tries to relieve himself on a dog. Gross. And a man with exceptional appetites proves that Cialis, not to mention heterosexual relations, is for losers.
That is how the most self-righteously moralistic movie to hit the big screen since “Forrest Gump” preaches an undeniable Hollywood truth: Men, and boys who will be men, are not just bad. They’re corrupt, amoral horndogs.
And women, especially neurotic, lesbian mommies who drive Volvos, watch gay male porn (go figure!) and get plastered before lunch, are perfect.
These are the life choices presented in Lisa Cholodenko’s “The Kids,” sort of a cross between “Leave it to Beaver” and “Kittens With Whips.” Choose your lifestyle wisely, moviegoers. For this film is set to go down in history as the first major motion picture to make a family led by gay women — A-lister Annette Bening, as the control-freak doctor Nic, “wed” to A-lister Julianne Moore, as the weepy, infantilized Jules — seem not just normal, but close to godly.
It reaches further than the gay-cowboy romp “Brokeback Mountain,” whose characters maintained a sense of otherness while shielding the kids from their shenanigans. In this movie, exposing kids is the entire point.
And this is how Hollywood does an end run around morality.
“Hollywood has set the stage for the gay agenda, nothing new,” said Laura Bailey, Brooklyn mom of two boys. “Why do you think they did propaganda films in the 1940s? They’re setting the new norm.”
“The movie industry is doing its best to undermine the American family,” said Patricia Whitehead, Connecticut mom of two girls. “Hollywood — we don’t care about the sick lives you lead behind closed doors. Just don’t bring children into it.”
This brazen attempt at trend-setting comes as national polls show Americans oppose gay marriage, half of us strongly. Support for it was at 47 percent in this year’s Washington Post/ABC News poll — but fully two-thirds favored civil unions, in which gay couples enjoy most rights of marrieds without having to stand under the chuppah.
It doesn’t take a genius to glean the truth: Folks are happy with gays living together. But bringing children into the equation is a deal-breaker.
That didn’t stop the fictional characters in “The Kids.” They produced seemingly normal Joni, 18, named for Joni Mitchell, and Laser, 15, evidently named by the wolves who raised him. The movie concerns the kids’ hunt for their “sperm donor” — a term used in place of “biological father” to diminish guys. The donor, Paul, is played by a scruffy and delectable Mark Ruffalo.
Inevitably, the kids, who have almost no friends and no discernible religion, find they don’t need Dad either. They’re tragically disappointed when Paul conducts a villainous affair with the neglected Jules. Oddly, straight sex brings the only hot and natural relief to this movie’s stifling awkwardness.
But, for reasons never explained, Jules dumps Paul and animalistic sex, and resumes being emotionally abused by Nic.
The movie was released Friday in Manhattan and Los Angeles to stellar reviews. A.O. Scott of The New York Times made “The Kids” sound like a cross between “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” raving about the “close to perfect” performances. Only NewsBlaze’s Prairie Miller wrote that a gifted cast “salvages this story from a couple of contrived plot points demonizing heterosexuality in an otherwise problem-free world.”
I went to see it in Chelsea, where the crowd was generally smitten. But therapist Karen Kopitz saw through the gay proselytizing.
“I’m not anti-gay,” she said. “But I don’t think you can compensate for the male-female role model.”
That doesn’t mean Hollywood can’t try.
Swiss-cheese justice
Add Switzerland to the list of places where judges can’t bear punishing demented celebs.
Pedophile director Roman Polanski, who escaped La La Land justice for decades after admitting he drugged and had sex with a 13-year-old child back in 1977, won’t be extradited to LA, a Swiss court has ruled. As a bonus, he’s also released from the indignity of house arrest in a plush Gstaad chalet, and is free to go home to equally celeb-loving and child-unfriendly France.
Mel beats out Alec for Oscar in obnoxious
Mel Gibson has overtaken Alec Baldwin in the race for the title of World’s Scariest Human.
Alec, you remember, was recorded calling his then-11-year-old daughter, Ireland, a “thoughtless little pig” and threatening to fly from New York to Los Angeles to “straighten you out.” Mel called his maid a “wetback,” told his baby mama that she’d be raped by “a pack of n – – – – – s,” and threatened to burn down her house.
Alec blamed ex-wife Kim Basinger for driving him to slobbering insanity. Mel blamed ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva for pretty much everything. Alec wrote a self-pitying book. Mel made “The Passion of the Christ” — either his masterpiece, or an anti-Semitic snuff film with homoerotic overtones.
Hollywood gave Alec a pass. Can Mel be far behind?
That’s $ome goodbye kiss
As a parting gift before the crew of Gov. Paterson flees from Albany, the administration has wrapped up a fat, $297 million, no-bid federal health-care contract, and awarded the generous prize to a firm whose parent company employs the gov’s wife, Michelle.
Nice. The best thing I ever got for my birthday was a card and a portable GPS unit.
He’s virgin on greatness
Herb the Virgin is fully loaded. Herb Shaw was my favorite squeezable geek, a guy who maintained his purity at an age most men are out trolling for babes and beer. I met Herb at a casting call in Midtown for male virgins, and he fit the bill — he lived in his parents’ Yonkers attic past age 24, obsessively playing computer games and dressing in the latest Kmart designs.
Well, Herb got married. Yay! We can only hope he celebrated his new status with a new sports jacket.
Reached by phone, Herb, 26, had little to say about his upgraded state, except that he’s happy and has kept off his baby weight.
I propose a toast to a guy who deserves the best of everything. Repeatedly.