Zack Snyder insists that he isn’t a fascist, and that he made “the gayest movie in history”

What would, for you, be the “gayest” movie in history? Maybe The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert? Pride? Hedwig and the Angry Inch? Bottoms? Well, Zack Snyder, as a cis-hetero man, has said no: that it’s one of his. Specifically, 300… whose LGBT subtext was, of course, not intended from the outset and was something audiences only read into later. Anything to try to defend himself against the ferocious criticism of his latest movie, with some even asking that he be kept 100 meters away from a camera forever so he can’t commit crimes like this again.

I’m not a fascist, really

“There were only 1,200 people in the theater and there are thousands of comments. There was one that said ‘I haven’t seen it but I’m sure it’s horrible’. And look: whether you like it or not, it makes you want to click ‘I Hate Zack Snyder! He’s a fascist!’ more than to say ‘I saw the movie and it was fine’. Nobody gives a shit about that. And obviously, I’m not a fascist”, he said, trying to lower the tension around The Last Photograph, which has become the star of the Toronto film festival despite itself.

It’s not the first time they’ve called him a fascist, and he’s gotten used to it: in fact, he says that at the press conference after 300 was screened they asked him exactly the same thing… And his view of the film has nothing to do with fascism. “Obviously I’m pro-gay. I made the gayest movie ever made. 300 is one of the gayest movies ever made. I always say ‘Look, there are few movies where people went in straight and came out gay, and 300 is one of them’”. Okay, Zack.

Of course, Snyder also alludes in the interview to the lowest moment of his life: when his daughter had died by suicide and Joss Whedon took over directing Justice League. “I asked ‘How’s the movie going?’ and they told me ‘It’s going well! They’re doing some reshoots’, and I thought ‘Ah, okay’. Debbie went to see that version, came back, and told me ‘You can never watch this movie’”. It’s exactly what the audience has been saying about The Last Photograph, apparently.