The original The Longest Yard was a landmark of ’70s-era, anti-establishment sentiment. It was violent, savagely funny, mean and an unapologetic spit in the face of authority. As directed by the gifted Robert Aldrich, The Longest Yard of 1974 was about as cutting-edge as mainstream comedy got at the time.

Fade in to 2005 and an ill-conceived remake, with Adam Sandler in the Burt Reynolds role of Paul Crewe, a fallen NFL quarterback rotting in a Texas prison when he is tapped to organize a football team of convicts to play the guards. What is deemed cutting-edge a generation later? Hollywood doesn’t have the cojones to focus too much on the sociopathic tendencies of convicts. 

Nope, nowadays cutting-edge means anti-gay. And The Longest Yard of 2005 is chock full o’ backwards, redneck, stereotype-embracing, queer-is-ha-ha-funny gay-bashing:
• We’ve got a prissy fella who develops an instant crush on Sandler because our hero is boorish and has crashed his girlfriend’s Bentley after going on a drunken joyride. (Gay people love brutes, don’cha know).
• We have a gaggle of flamer convicts who make up cheers like, “Gimme a D! Gimme an I! Gimme a C! Gimme …” (Get it? They want, well, you know …)
• We have two inmates caught making out over a surveillance camera.
• We have Rob Schneider in a cameo (reason enough to avoid the picture) as an overzealous convict all aflutter over the possibility of a group hug in the showers.
 
It appears that gay-bashing is the one remaining widely accepted form of bigotry left in America. —Phil Bacharach

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