THE HOMEOWNER

Thursday, July 31, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Homeowner: Gays on film

By Mike Prevatt

If you follow movies or Hollywood at all, you know there's pretty much a film festival celebrating anything and anyone these days. Cinema genre themes aside, if you're Jewish, or black, or a woman, or a bipolar quadriplegic from a Third World country with a royal bloodline, you better believe that someone somewhere has developed a week of independent films with your kind in mind.

Across the country, there are various film festivals highlighting flicks by, for and about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender peeps. And while they are unique in ways non-gay fests are not, they remain dubious achievements given that at least 90 percent of queer cinema blows harder than the men who tend to see them.

Then there's Outfest, held in Los Angeles a couple of weeks back. It is considered one of, if not the best gay film festival in the country, its ideal location and easy access to resourceful sponsors notwithstanding. Its organizers are programming masterminds, mixing major-release premieres (this year: Party Monster) and erotically charged foreign flicks (Israel's Yossi & Jagger) with themed shorts programs (Boys in the Band prominently featured pop music) and activist-oriented documentaries (Gallant Girls). Amid all that specialty programming are various dramas and comedies depicting lesbians and homos in ways that either uphold or defy stereotypes, as well as gay-friendly mainstream revivals with an interactive element (a Chicago sing-along event; a screening of Flashdance for its 20th anniversary, complete with live commentary from author Dennis Hensley and his Screening Party friends).

Being that this was a meeting of the film industry and West Hollywood's homeowner population, and my first Outfest, I expected loads of superficial and incestuous exchanges. I envisioned movie company execs negotiating with hotshot gay filmmakers who financed their cheesy Boystown love stories through their "generous" lovers (who is a retired studio executive himself). Maybe they would talk shop while on the treadmill, maybe they would powwow over a sidewalk café brunch. The lesbian programming would be slotted at unsavory times, and the films with high sex potential would be packed with creepy trolls.

Turned out I was only clairvoyant about the troll part. A welcome diversity of people straight and gay, black and white were shuffling among screenings. People were eagerly chatting up the next sure-to-be-groundbreaking feature rather than their new Volkswagen or what will replace "Sex and the City." And for once a mass gathering of (mostly) gay men didn't look like a meat market.

As in most social situations where the majority of participants are gay men, I steadfastly remained the wallflower and stuck to my schedule. On the first day, I took in Brother Outside, an absorbing documentary about Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr.'s right-hand man who organized the 1963 March on Washington and was openly gay. It was dismaying to see so few people of color at this particular showing, seeing as how it said at least as much about the black struggle in America as it did the gay movement. In fact, looking past demographics, the auditorium was half full, leading me to believe people opted for the sexier features instead of a documentary they could always Tivo when it debuts on the History Channel.

Conversely, it was nearly standing room only for Gay Hollywood, a reality TV-like documentary that follows five young gay men eager to get their break in Tinseltown. While some of their meetings seemed plausible only because the interviewers would score free publicity, it was a telling and often hilarious account of how hard it is to not only succeed in Hollywood, but remain yourself. It was a feel-good film on many levels--when I got home, I spotted three of the guys in my Friendster.com network! (It will premiere in two parts on American Movie Classics, Aug. 11-12 at 10 p.m.)

I also caught one of the foreign films, a Spanish comedy called Bulgarian Lovers (Los Novios Bulgaros) that explored the sugar daddy phenomenon all too prevalent in West L.A. The film was poorly received--some of us thought the dramatic elements were awkward, while most of the attendees booed when the camera stopped short of displaying full-frontal nudity. The latter reaction was also present at the mixed-bag shorts program Boys in the Band, in which one featurette, "Encounter," ended just as the young cutie protagonist was to shed his skivvies. (Note to all you budding Paul Verhoevens: You seein' the dollar signs here?)

Unfulfilled porn fixes aside, Outfest had its participants and attendees excited about the evolution, variety and quality of new queer cinema. While the filmmakers' target audience is clearly seeking titillation, the budding auteurs themselves seem to be aiming higher, inspired less by Chi Chi LaRue and more by Todd Haynes. It is not presumptuous to think that the creative drought in gay cinema is looking at a wetter forecast. After all, Hollywood could use the rain.

The Homeowner appears biweekly. Send your comments, questions and nude pics (especially if you look like Cillian Murphy) to oughtabeinporn@yahoo.com.