Values Dissonance: There's long been a controversy over the role that bathhouses like The Ritz played in spreading AIDS among the gay community, with some calling them a main culprit, while others say they were a scapegoat. The breezy portrayal of the bathhouse here is definitely colored by the way things turned out. Terrence McNally himself said there was a while when he would've forbidden any revivals of the play because it was contentious, but he felt enough time had passed by 2007 to support that year's Broadway revival.
Values Resonance: There are stereotypes, but it's a positive portrayal of gay life. Among the straight characters, the only unrepentant homophobe is the villain, Carmine. Gaetano gradually learns to tolerate the gay men he's surrounded by, but not in a forced way.
The film adaptation:
Harsher in Hindsight: There's a scene where Tiger, one of the regulars at the titular bathhouse, assures protagonist Gaetano that he'll be lucky if all he catches there is athlete's foot. This line reads very different after the AIDS crisis, which began around five years after the film's release, and where public bathhouses were blamed for the disease's spread.
Unintentional Period Piece: The setting of an elaborate gay bathhouse dates the story to the post-Stonewall/pre-AIDS era. The film version is a fascinating example of a major studio (Warner Bros.) releasing a film with gay themes at a time when it would've been a HUGE novelty, and still a bit controversial.
