Last week I attended the opening gala of Toronto's Inside Out LGBT Film and Video Festival. The film was Patrik, Age 1.5, a Swedish romantic comedy/drama that had previously screened at TIFF to great reviews.
The plot, although nothing radically new, was a definite crowd-pleaser: a gay couple's attempt at adoption goes awry when a typo on their documentation leads them to believe that they'll be receiving a one-and-a-half year-old instead of a fifteen-year-old. Think Canada's Breakfast with Scot, but substitute the flamboyant, knitting Scot with Patrik, a troubled teen with a rough past and a tendency to utter homophobic slurs and pummel the neighbours' children. Naturally, Patrik throws a wrench into the relationship between sensitive physician Göran, who warms to the boy, and his bearish, rough-around-the-edges, heavy-drinking husband Sven, who wants Patrik gone from their house immediately.
Although the film's trajectory and conclusion are predictable, this familiar Anne of Green Gables-esque "strange child initially disrupts but ultimately changes everyone's lives for the better" storyline is treated with such warmth and humour that I found myself completely charmed. A near-perfect blend of comedy and drama, Swedish director Ella Lemhagen never allows her film to become maudlin, nor does she resort to stereotype or classless gay jokes in attempts to get laughs. Thomas Ljungman is a perfect Patrik, totally convincing in his angsty moments and when cracks in his armour begin to appear, and Gustaf Skarsgård's charming and endearing Göran is easily the film's most winsome character. Watch for the scene when, in a rare moment of outward anger, an enraged Göran destroys a public garbage bin and then, realizing he was being watched, stoops sheepishly down to pick up the trash he'd scattered.
Funny, sincere, and refreshing in its depiction of gay relationships, Patrik, Age 1.5 is worth a viewing. Hopefully it will be available on DVD shortly. Until then, watch the trailer here:
Billed as "a searing indictment of the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who actively campaign against the LGBT community they covertly belong to," the international premiere of Kirby Dick's Outrage was my second stop at this year's HotDocs festival. This aptly titled film successfully provoked its namesake in me, my companion, and judging by their reaction, a majority of the audience members.
Unfamiliar with many US politicians, I was nonetheless amazed at the litany of closeted, conservative homos who have consistently backed movements to deny gay-friendly bills including the right to adoption and marriage, employment protection, anti hate crime legislation, and public funding for AIDS research. Outed politicians include Larry Craig, an Idaho senator who was caught cruising in a public restroom; Charlie Crist, twice-married governor of Florida and potential Republican presidential candidate in 2012; Ed Koch, former mayor of NYC; and Jim McCrery, a Louisiana-based politician. As one outspoken critic said about Washington, DC: "You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a gay staffer."
Instead of simply resorting to a facile demonization of these loathsome legislators (which, in fairness, would have been easy to do and probably quite fun to watch), Dick chooses instead to take a more intelligent and complex approach, exploring the larger societal issues that keep certain politicians jammed tightly in the closet. Dick opens his film by exploring the political climate in Idaho, circa 1955, when Larry Craig was growing up: a public sex scandal involving gay men and youth triggered newspaper headlines that read "Crush the monster!". Indeed, in an environment like that, who would want to be openly gay? Dick also spends a lot of time interviewing James McGreevey, a former NJ governor (and first/only openly gay governor in US history) who resigned upon the revelation that he had had an extramarital affair with another man, a liaison that subsequently led to McGreevey's divorce. A highly sympathetic and admirable figure in Dick's film, McGreevey explains how, as a child who knew he was gay, he would spend time researching homosexuality at the library, internalizing the messages of shame and hate that he would uncover. Eventually, he realized that his attitude towards his own sexuality was so shameful and unhealthy because gays were being denied the right to be open with their sexuality in shameless, healthy, and public ways. Although the hypocrisy of these politicians is deplorable, Dick makes the valid point that the social conditions that permit and encourage this hypocrisy are at the root of this insidious, dangerous homophobia.
Another interesting figure is Michael Rogers, a blogger who dedicates himself to aggressively and publicly outing closeted conservative politicians. He serves as the thread that connects many of these individual stories, and a fascinating point of discussion: although it's satisfying to see hypocrites exposed for who they are, does this end justify his invasive and aggressive means? At what point do Rogers' methods become as harmful as the anti-gay laws backed by these politicians, if at all? I found myself intrigued if occasionally ambivalent.
Although Outrage is perhaps not extraordinarily shocking or radical by Canadian standards, I hope this film causes a stir south of the border. The only other film of Dick's I had seen is the fascinating/disturbing/eye-opening Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist(which warrants a gander if you have the stomach to handle, as the title suggests, extreme masoschism .. and I mean nailing-your-junk-to-a-wooden-board extreme), and with Outrage Dick again proves himself an accessible and engaging storyteller. Aside from succeeding as the "searing indictment" it claims to be, Dick's film provides inspiring soundbites from important figures in queer history, like Larry Kramer, founder of ACT Up, who suggests that "Activism is about anger. Activism is about responding to something you know is wrong, and you don't like it." Harvey Milk makes an appropriate appearance close to the end of the film, minutes after we are reminded by a contemporary activist that "the most important thing a gay person can do in terms of social justice is just be out." His words ring very true, especially as Dick's film moves to a close.
My first stop at this year's HotDocs film festival was Jerusalem, courtesy of Yun Suh's eye-opening City of Borders. Jerusalem's only gay bar, Shushan, is the thread that unites Suh's colourful subjects: Adam, a former Israeli soldier who was stabbed while marching in Jerusalem's pride parade; Boodi, a Muslim who faces life-threatening persecution in his hometown on the West Bank; Sa'ar, Shushan's founder, who also fights for queer rights on Jerusalem's overwhelmingly orthodox city council; and Samira and Ravit, a lesbian Israeli/Palestinian couple who struggle for acceptance from their families and community.
Most poignant was the film's tense opening scene, which features Boodi and his friends clambering over fences and through barbed wire in pitch darkness to cross the strictly guarded border separating Palestine and Jerusalem, home of the Utopian Shushan. In Shushan, Boodi says, there are no borders: gays and lesbians, Arabs and Jews dance, mingle, and love one another; one night at Shushan is, to Boodi, worth the danger of being arrested for trespassing. Unlike others, Boodi maintains, he and his friends don't sneak across the border to drop bombs -- they're just looking for a fun night in a space where they are at total liberty to be themselves.
The film is at times moving and upsetting, but also quite funny. In spite of their politically and religiously loaded relationship, Samira and Ravit in particular maintain an incredibly admirable sense of humour, warmth, and strength of will. Boodi, the most flamboyant of the bunch, alternately charms with his closed-door bedroom dance parties and devastates when, ultimately, he must give up his homeland and family to live the life he desires with the freedom he craves. And Sa'ar, who persists with his work on city council in spite of frequent death threats, faces difficult decisions about Shushan's future when he begins to struggle financially.
An ode to the human spirit and a reminder of the relative freedoms we enjoy as Canadians, City of Borders is definitely worth a look, at HotDocs or on DVD. In the meantime, you can check out the trailer right here:
In the last little while, I've been trying to catch up on my queer culture. I've read Gay America, watched Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, and listened to Barbra and Liza, among many other things.
One of the queer cultural must-reads that I've most enjoyed is Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series. I'd heard a lot about them and thought that they would be a great entry into the history of queer culture.
I was right. Really, really right.
For someone born in the mid-eighties (sorry), it was an extremely informative and fascinating look at the attitudes, opinions, and culture of the gay community in the 70s and 80s. I felt like I almost learned more from reading the series than I did from Gay America. So many issues were touched on, so many trends, cultural icons...it was a handy, book-shaped time machine and I loved every moment.
First of all, I love media with a ton of characters that all unexpectedly intertwine. Movies like Love Actually and Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her are so fun and totally what I dig, regardless of their artistic merit. So the hilarious cast of characters in Tales of the City that fall in and out of one another's lives was so fun to explore. Then, the situations they dealt with were so alternatingly absurd and heart-breakingly real that I couldn't help but keep turning page after page. I literally read the entire seven book series in a matter of weeks.
One of the things that I loved most about it was how complicated and human it was. In the end, not everything finished happily. Normally I hate that in media (I like a happy ending, what can I say?), but with this series, it felt right that characters would drift apart, die, or move to a foreign country. It was all part of the fun. I think the first three books and the last, most recent edition (Michael Tolliver Lives, published a couple of years ago) were my favourites, but the whole series is worth a read.
I think I may re-read them once summer hits. They're just the perfect mix of clever writing, fun characters, and outlandish plot points to entertain, excite, and move you to the very last page.
I just finished reading an excellent book called In Bed with the Word, written by one of my favourite former professors. Although not distinctly queer, in its dealing with identity, cultural politics, and "otherness," Daniel Coleman's book reminds me of much of the queer stuff I've read in the past. His slim, inspiring volume also emphasizes for me the importance of storytelling (in various forms) to our own personal struggles with identity. In a world where we inevitably come to understand ourselves through stories in their limitless forms and genres, it's of crucial importance to see ourselves (or an understanding of ourselves) reflected back at us; in other words, we need to hear and read stories about us and the parts of our identities that we deem important. As Coleman writes:
"One of the great pleasures of reading is the experience of having confirmed in a book impulses or instincts that may not yet have become clear enough to be thoughts. There's a real delight that comes when some words on the page give clear, concise shape to a morass of ideas or opinions that you haven't had the opportunity or stimulus to sort through" (105).
The book, for me, was Virginia Woolf's Orlando in my fourth year of university -- I had my mind blown by the crazy idea that our selves were so bound up in performance that we may never have recourse to a true or essential identity or "self." Maybe I had been straight, maybe I was now gay (just as Orlando shifted from male to female) -- did it really matter? Who knew that labels -- male, female, gay, straight -- were just words that had arbitrary definitions and models for behaviour ascribed to them? And although it wasn't a book-oriented discovery, I also learned a lot about my high school aged self by stealthily watching episodes of Queer as Folk in my basement after my parents had gone to sleep. The availability of these queer stories helped me negotiate the twisted path of self-discovery -- or, in Coleman's words, they gave some shape to the "morass" of confusing thoughts about sexuality that I hadn't really sorted through.
So: stories and reading are important. We need to tell our own stories while reading and talking about the stories of others. You should start with Daniel Coleman's book.
Now, since Ogaypogo seems to think - and I quote - that "posting a video and calling it a blog is not a blog", I will accompany the above video with some commentary. (Love you!)
I think it's great that the majority of people were totally fine with those lads canoodling. I think it's awesome to see straight, older men telling a jackass in a bar to cool it with the gay jokes. I think it's wonderful that a woman could be so upset at the situation to refuse to stay in it (and to have a kickass quote: "So you can't kiss your boyfriend in f***in' America?").
Overall, I think the people in this video are fine, upstanding humans.
The real offenders, however, are the producers. I'm sorry, but in this day and age, tolerance is not a virtue. Acceptance is.
According to Merriam-Webster, tolerance is the "ability to endure pain or hardship"; whereas, being accepted is "being generally approved of". In my life I would much rather be approved of than endured, don't you agree?
Tolerance has been an interesting buzzword lately in the politics surrounding gay issues. While it is a step above previous opinions, it still has an undertone of disapproval or of giving just enough to assuage us for the moment. I don't want people's approach to the gay community to be that of dealing with us kindly enough until we are done our tantrums as you would a child. I want to be embraced and cared for, like every human deserves to be.
So while this video shows that most certainly attitudes are changing by leaps and bounds, I think the real attitude change needs to happen in the vocabulary we use surrounding our gay brothers and sisters.
But, in the meantime, I guess I'll just have to tolerate those who have yet to come around.
Every year, I tell myself that I will not waste countless hours of my life watching American Idol.
There's so much I despise about the Idol machine. The meandering, substanceless filler between performances. The in-your-face product placement (those heinous Ford commercials are nauseating). The cheesy, step-clap group numbers (what's up with the pre-recorded schlock this year??). The eternal results shows. And yet, here I am sitting on the couch, laptop in .. uh, lap .. watching David Cook perform live when I don't even like David Cook, completely prepared to sit through 5-6 more commercial breaks in the next 25 minutes simply because I have to know who "America" has voted out this week.
Something different seems to suck me in, year after year. Last year, it was the cherubic David Archuleta (his cover of Robbie Williams' "Angels"? Heavenly.) This year, it's the fabulously flamboyant former Fiyero: Adam Lambert.
Adam first wailed and belted his way into my heart with his performance of Michael Jackson's "Black or White." He further intrigued me with his bizarre version of "Ring of Fire." But it was today, over lunch, when I found some clips of Lambert riffing it up as Fiyero from the musical Wicked that he sealed the deal.
In a broadway.com interview, former Elphaba Eden Espinosa says that Lambert "was one of my favorite Fiyeros to sing “As Long As You’re Mine” with, because his voice is obviously just so gorgeous. He was one of only two Fiyeros I know who would do optional notes higher than Elphaba’s in the song!" Sister does not lie. See below:
This afternoon, I engaged in a bit of creepage on Adam's various Facebook fan pages, and I was surprised (although not really?) to see just how much of the chatter about him revolved around his sexuality. I knew that, a while back, a couple of pictures of Lambert locking lips with another dude had surfaced on the web. But it was disturbing (although, again, not that surprising?) to see the usual ignorant epithets and Biblical references being tossed about. Although most of them aren't even worthy of anyone's attention, I'll share some of my favourites gleaned from my short-lived perusal (spelling and grammar, of course, have been left intact in the name of authenticity):
"Taylor," from Nashville, has the following pearl of wisdom for us:
i agree with all of you homosexuality is an abomination but the bibles also say there is now tehrfore no more condemnation! and god says to show love to all and love our enemies more and show compassion to those who dont know the love of Christ homsexuality is a sin but we must love and be loved the greatest lesson in life is to love and larn to be loved in return- moulin rouge
also we should show adam the ways the lord so he may turn from sin not run from god in fear
... ah yes, nothing like a fluidly integrated quote from the puritan classic Moulin Rouge to support your argument about the sins of "homsexuality."
"Shirley" from Lubbock, Texas, informs us:
Welllll....I believe...NOT ENOUGH SAID! "Intolerant" is not the word. Gross and horrible is MORE like it. Homosexualism is NOT right and NEVER WILL BE. I know I have just shaken the hornets nest. BUT...I still live in America so I can speak freely just as everyone else can. This really saddens me.
HomosexualISM! I find this very exciting! Shirley's insightful critique prompted me to wonder -- what is homosexualism? What is the system of beliefs, the ideology, the philosophy that guides the gross and the horrible of this planet? Peronsally, I believe in the fabulousness of rangy belting and the aesthetic value of owning cute socks. What about you, fellow homosexualists?
I should add, of course, that for every Shirley and Taylor there are four or five refreshing comments telling the Shirleys and Taylors quite specifically what they can shove and where they can shove it. Here is one of my faves, courtesy of my friend "Tyler" from Staten Island:
wtf is wrong with some of you, are you retarded, hes gay. get teh fuck over it. its not liek littel rainbows fly out of his mouth when he sings, its not leik hes having sex on stage. close your eyes and listen to him. u wouldnt give two shits if he was gay. if you spend so much tiem absorbing the fact that he f*&#s men, then you need to get a freakign life.
Hear hear, brother! I'll forgive your typographic troubles with the letter "e" because of the beautiful images you've conjured...
Homosexualism: to worship one who possesses a belt so fierce that rainbows fly from his/her mouth as the notes are sung...
