Basic Instinct 2, the sequel to the controversial 1992 thriller, opened this weekend with little fanfare.  For months the film had been rumored to be nothing more than campy soft-core porn, with it's sole source of controversy being the 48-year old star's purported full-frontal nudity.

The release of a silly, pseudo-erotic thriller is rarely news-making anyway. But what sets this film apart is its legacy.  Fourteen years earlier, Basic Instinct was released and galvanized GLBT activists and queer media analysts. It also became a symbol of Hollywood's long history of misrepresenting queer people.

Even before filming was completed in 1992, Basic Instinct was decried by GLBT activists for its depiction of lesbian and bisexual characters as depraved homicidal maniacs. Activists groups such as Queer Nation and ACT UP protested at multiple San Francisco shooting locations, chanting " Hollywood, you stink" and attempting to disrupt filming.

In response to objections from the GLBT community, Basic Instinct screenwriter Joe Eszterhas wrote director Paul Verhoeven a letter stating, "I also want to strongly urge you to find the time to sit down with me in a meeting with representatives of the gay community. I realize you are busy, but I think it would only be fair if we listened to their concerns first hand. We are, ultimately, all of us, in the communications business. And when people feel they are being hurt, I think we have a responsibility as human beings and as filmmakers to listen to them."

When the film finally opened, activists protested screenings and carried spoiler signs claiming “Catherine did it” in hopes that blowing the surprise ending would deter potential viewers from seeing the film.  Despite – or maybe because of – the controversy, the film went on to gross over $100 million and catapult its femme fatale, Sharon Stone, to international stardom.

Stone wasn't the only one who garnered major publicity. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) led the charge against Basic Instinct, sending movie critics across the country a letter stating that "all the lesbian and bisexual characters in Basic Instinct are portrayed as potentially homicidal."  The profile of the organization was raised by their attempts to educate the viewers and reviewers, and the issue of accurate representation of GLBT people in the media was revisited with renewed urgency.

How far GLBT people have come and how the political climate has changed are highlighted by the sequel and the activist response (or lack thereof) to it. 

Before the film was released, star Sharon Stone—who has turned in a positive portrayal as a lesbian in If These Walls Could Talk 2 and become an AIDS activist in the years since the original Basic Instinct was released—assured reporters that bisexual content would play a role in the sequel.  In February 2005, Stone told Access Hollywood, “There is lesbian love. That's the thing in Basic Instinct, there is always a lesbian love. We are doing my favorite part--we're testing for her now."

But while Stone's scenes with the other woman were teased in the trailers for the film, they were not actually included in the final product. In Basic Instinct 2 Stone reprised her role as the kinky, murderous writer Catherine Tramell and she continued to manipulate and exterminate her male sex partners.  But gone were here female lovers, and any mention of her bisexuality.  In fact, the queer ghost of Basic Instinct only haunts the sequel, occasionally suggested in the kinky lesbian-themed photos hanging on the walls of a sleazy journalist whose untimely end may or may not have come at Tramell's hands.

Viewers who wish to see the bisexual love scenes with Stone, her male-love interest (David Morrissey) and another woman (Annie Caillon) will need to prowl the internet or wait for the DVD release of the film, for which said deleted scene will likely be the selling point  

After the disastrous representations of lesbians and bisexual women in the original film, one could interpret the de-queering of Catherine Tramell as the positive result of the work by GLBT activists and educators. Maybe Hollywood got the message and actually learned something about producing yet another film about a queer serial killer. 

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