Film scholar Robin Wood called "Dune" "the most obscenely homophobic film I have ever seen"—referring to a scene in which Baron Harkonnen sexually assaults and kills a young man by bleeding him to death—charging it with "managing to associate with homosexuality in a single scene physical grossness, moral depravity, violence and disease." Gay writer Dennis Altman suggested that the film showed how "AIDS references began penetrating popular culture" in the 1980s, asking, "Was it just an accident that in the film "Dune" the homosexual villain had suppurating sores on his face?"