Denver’s Videotique: Too gay to die

By Josiah Hesse

Videotique, in the heart of Denver’s Cheesman Park neighborhood at 9th and Downing, is one of the city’s oldest and most treasured video shops. At a time when most movie stores have succumbed to competition from Red Box and Netflix, Videotique is standing tall. And the secret to their success?

Gay movies.

“A lot of our customers are starved for gay cinema,” said John Donahoe, the mustachioed owner and founder of Videotique. “Whenever gay movies come to the theaters – which isn’t very often – they’re only here for a week and a lot of the audience doesn’t get a chance to see them. And that’s what we’re here for.”

That, and a lot more.

As I talked with Donahoe at the patio table outside his store, our conversation was pleasantly interrupted by passersby saying hello. Some of them Donahoe’s known for decades, some for only a week. But they all wished him a good afternoon with the casual, unhurried manor that permeates the neighborhood.

For many years, the intersection of 9th Ave. and Downing has been an established gayborhood, with Videotique at the center and Donahoe it’s unofficial mayor. Boasting a collection of 700 gay movies and 800 adult rentals, the store is a quaint library of titles unavailable in most video stores – including Netflix.

“We have a lot of customers from the suburbs,” said Donahoe, “some even from Colorado Springs or up in the mountains. They’ll rent a bunch of things at one time; and sometimes they bring them back or sometimes they’ll mail them back.”

How many video store owners can say that?

In the age of Red Boxes and Netflix, it’s rare that someone would travel any distance for a movie. But when traveling to Videotique – or just the area of 9th and Downing – for many it’s for the entire neighborhood experience. Whether driving or walking, when you get here it’s difficult to resist the veil of leisure that falls over you.

Many will spend hours with coffee from Dazbog or ice cream from Skoops, chatting with old queens telling stories of Cheesman in the ’70s. And whether you ventured into Videotique casually or with a title on your mind, a recommendation from John Donahoe is essential.
Unlike the snobby intellectualism seen in many music or movie shop owners, Donahoe’s passion for cinema comes off with complete sincerity. He’s a fan, not a lecturer. And his infectious love of movies lead many to go home with a stack of titles under their arm they didn’t even know they wanted.

Growing up traveling around the world with a father in the Air Force, movies were one of the few consistencies in young Donahoe’s life. “I was born in D.C., but my favorite place to live was Okinawa,” he said. “Texas, Las Vegas, New Jersey, all over. On the Air Force bases they’d show movies all day for 25 cents. My mother would drop me and my sister off and we’d spend all day there.”

This was before gay movies started popping up in theaters during the ’70s and ’80s – although that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything recognizable for teenage Donahoe. “Most of the gay characters were very covert. I would always have a feeling for actors who played more sensitive characters – like Lawrence Harvey. Very suave.”

Donahoe settled in Denver in 1970, and a few years later met Jim Doescher, who would become his partner of 38 years. In 1985 they opened Videotique together.

“There were a lot of locations we looked at, but they were all within about five blocks of here.”

Not only was this a good time for movie rentals (in two years they would, for the first time, outsell theaters), but the new queer cinema movement was just around the corner. Breaking out of the old gay character mold of “the sissy” or the tortured schizophrenic, this new series of films presented gay characters more three-dimensionally, telling intimate stories from inside the LGBT world. Unfortunately, many of them had a difficult time opening in theaters.

Thankfully, video shops like Videotique were assembling large collections of these groundbreaking movies.

“Netflix has a lot of gay movies,” Donahoe said, “but we have more. And Red Box definitely doesn’t have any.”

This is ultimately the saving grace for Videotique. While even big box video chains like Blockbuster are having difficulty keeping their doors open, Videotique rests comfortably. They were slightly bruised by the down economy, and while Red Box and Netflix undercuts them on mainstream titles, they are still the go-to shop for all your gay cinema needs.

It’s a brilliant strategy, though Donahoe doesn’t come off as a calculating businessman. He is aware of the fact that his location is key to his success, but this is more an extension of his love of the neighborhood than any get-rich-quick mentality. “Everyone is very accepting here,” he said, “we have a lot of straight customers and they’re fabulous. There’s a lot of diversity here. It’s such a close-knit neighborhood.”

Donahoe’s top 10 must-see gay films:

Brokeback Mountain

Undertow

Chris & Don: A Love Story

The Boys In The Band

The Business Of Fancy Dancing

Longtime Companion

A Single Man

Milk

Shelter

A Beautiful Boxer