Watch Once Pile© - In & Out ★
(Posted September 7, 2025)
“Welcome to Greenleaf, a picture-postcard Indiana town where the high school is the proud focus of attention and "alternative-lifestyle" means you bowl on alternate Tuesdays. But on the night of the Oscars telecast, the town's - and the world's - center of attention is Greenleaf teacher Howard Brackett. A former student who's now a superstar actor tells an audience of millions that Howard is gay. Poor Howard. He's outed when he didn't even know he was in!” - In & Out’s VHS Case
When my partner and I spotted this at the thrift store, we instantly knew it needed adding to our Watch Once Pile©. A comedy movie from the 90s focused around someone being outed had the potential to be an absolutely dumpster fire or potentially a surprise hidden gem. Either way, it would be rather fascinating and worth our time.
Let’s be real, the movie features a ton of straight actors either playing gay characters or espousing the most old school gay stereotypes about loving musical theater and other such silliness that we all know. However, in a world where people seriously believe eating soup makes you gay and only women can drink with a straw, some of those jokes have aged strangely better than they had any right to. It’s bad when stuff that should have aged poorly back in 1997 feels right at home with current times, but here we are! It sure feels better to laugh at it than feel naught but despair.
"There's only two times it's acceptable for guys to do gay stuff. If you're in prison, like as a substitute, and two guys in space."
Art By: Cai
And yeah, it’s got the cheesiest ending ever where everyone pulls a Sparticus and says they’re gay so their favorite teacher can keep his job but… We live in a world where being gay or queer in any way is extremely dangerous right now and literally still can get teachers fired so easily! It’s sad how such a cheesy ending that should probably be eyerolled at if we advanced properly as a society feels so damn heartwarming instead, but it absolutely does.
It was also neat to see a movie that didn’t just focus on sex as the biggest thing about being gay, but honestly kept things mostly outside the bedroom for the whole feature. My only complaint might be that for a film with so much of a focus on a big wedding happening not even mentioning at all how gay marriage wasn’t legal back then seems like a big missed opportunity. It’d be eighteen years until it was finally legalized fully in the United States, and even that seems to now be tenuous.
Overall, we genuinely had some good laughs and were surprised at how enjoyable a watch it was! It’s a rare movie we decided to add to our permanent collection after watching. Plus, it’s hard not to love a VHS that prominently features a LaserDisc of a different movie on it, right?
Oh yeah, and before I forget, I like that the character of the Oscar winning actor seems to potentially have a thing for feederism and curvy, plush ladies. Extremely high tier taste, wild inclusion for this 90s movie. I suppose if a teacher is going to sex up a now rich and handsome former student, it might as well have some extra spice involved, right?
Rating: Keep!
