In a brief essay for VICE praising Michael Fassbender for his work in Twelve Years a Slave, James Franco takes an aside to criticize the gay scene depicted in another Fassbender film, Shame:
He wasn't such an addict in my opinion, though. I mean, what did he do? Watch porn and screw a handful of people a week? I could point to quite a few folks who do that. And that scene where he's at his lowest point and wants to f–k and goes into a gay club, and it's depicted like the seventh level of hell… I mean, it goes back to the horrible representations of gays in the 70s, where the gay club is meant to signify everything dark and depraved. Then the guy gets a minor blowj-b, from, Oh no, a man! The horror!