Homosexual characters and stories are still somewhat of a novelty in major Hollywood blockbuster movies. It seems big-buck producers and movie execs are too frightened to alienate the heterosexual majority by making movies that directly address gays as regular people.

So how do you proceed in making a safe, predominantly gay movie? You cast a major heterosexual Hollywood actor, like Robin Williams, to play the gay lead role.

At least that is what Mike Nichols did in Birdcage, the remake of the 1978 French Film La Cage Aux folles.

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Though the film is a comedy that takes a look at a family, that is considered dysfunctional by society’s terms because the father is gay, its bigger focus is the trials and tribulations of having a homosexual family member in a somewhat prejudice world.

Williams plays Armon Goldman, a Jewish homosexual who owns a drag queen night club in South Beach. His son, Val, who was raised partly by his father and his father’s lover, tells him of his plans to get married.

At first, Armon is happy. But when Val tells him it is to the daughter of the conservative Sen. Keeley (Gene Hackman), a leader of a morals and ethics committee, and that Armon must hide his homosexuality, he becomes heartbroken.

They also must hide the identity of Armon’s lover, Albert (Nathan Lane), a drag-queen performer in the nightclub. When the senator and his wife visit Miami to meet Armon, the true comedy sets in.

In the beginning, the film follows in the way that Philadelphia grabbed many viewers and gave them their first true look at some of the feelings, pains and pleasures that homosexuals feel, just like real people, as heterosexual are called in the movie. But Birdcage achieves this in a much more timid and less painful way.

The movie, even in times of seriousness, seems to find its way to the viewer’s funny-bone. This comedy is usually at the expense of Albert, who plays the stereotypical Hollywood homo that many movies have spat out like oddities.

In one such case, Albert thinks Armon is cheating on him, and Albert refuses to go on stage. He then blames Armon for making him fat and middle-aged. These antics are performed in a flamboyant, flamer manner.

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This is funny on the surface, but in the end it is these types of antics that resolve in a conversation between the two that is the most touching scene in the movie.

Lane’s performance is a good one, but it is Williams’ clear-headed, confident character who realizes the boundaries set upon him because of his sexual preference. It gives viewers their true link to the dilemma within the comedy presented in the movie.

What seemed somewhat confusing were the small doses of dark comedy that is thrown into the mix. When Ely Jackson, head of the morals committee, dies after having sex with an underage black prositute, Keeley’s future is in jeopardy. While listening to the radio, the news reported that the Rev. Al Sharpton believed Jackson’s comment to the prostitute before he died, Your money is on the counter, chocolate, was a racist statement. Keeley replied, Now the blacks will be against us.

These incidents occur throughout the film, before and after the senator and Armon meet. These incidents have no true bearing on the plot itself but create an aura of surrealism that surrounds the senator, compared to the real, genuine characters we see in Armon and Albert.

But nevertheless, these moments of racism, sexism and prejudice surrounding Keeley are satirical but funny and are meant to poke fun at their source and not at their subjects.

No matter how serious, funny, straight or gay the film becomes, there is never too much or too little of any of these. The film is genuine and will even tug at the heartstrings and pop the funnybone of the straightest men and women in the world.

three and a half stars