James Franco in Howl

1950′s American conservatism and prejudice collided with its 21st Century descendent at this year’s Sundance Film Festival as two very different gay movies, Howl and 8: The Mormon Proposition, both premiered.

James Franco and Jon Hamm starer Howl is about the obscenity trial that was brought against gay poet Allen Ginsberg in 1957 after the publication of a book of his poems that contained references to gay sex and drug taking.

8: The Mormon Proposition is a documentary about the Mormon church’s role in a successful campaign to overturn the right to gay marriage in California in 2008.

Speaking at the press conference for Howl, its lead actors Franco and Hamm (Mad Men) drew parallels between the failed attempt to ban Ginsberg’s poem (and the whole issue of freedom of expression that it forced a re-examination of) and the current fight for gay equality.

As Hamm points out, by putting Ginsberg’s poem, and the bookstore owner who originally published it, on trial, all that its misguided opponents achieved was to make the poem famous and usher in a more liberal interpretation of the law.

So, while the homophobes may have won the battle over Proposition 8, in bringing so much publicity to a piece of anti-gay legislation and the basic human right it denies a large group of people, they way be losing the war.

If you’re interested to hear a bit of the poem that got a lot of people hot under the collar in 1957, then USA Today’s movie correspondent covering Sundance had the great idea to try and get as many movie stars to read lines from Howl as possible and then piece it all together. He was partially successful…