A Cinematic Trend Emerges: 'Gays Gone Bad'

ART MEMO A Cinematic Trend Emerges: ‘Gays Gone Bad’ PETER L. STEIN Desirée Akhavan creates in Appropriate Be- a gay cause. They’ve seen enough episodes havior a central character, Shirin, who’s best of Modern Family to know that America ARLIER THIS YEAR, my film pro- described as a lesbian, Iranian-American may not need another likable homosexual on gramming colleagues and I at Frame- version of Hannah Horvath from Girls—so- the screen on whom the audience can project Eline—the San Francisco International cially awkward, narcissistic, immature for its sympathy or approval. They’re feeling LGBTQ Film Festival—met to begin the al- her years, and incapable of taking responsi- emboldened, or even entitled, to present ways agonizing process of selecting our fa- bility for her failings. what might be considered offensive gay or vorites from several hundred new films § In Joey Kuhn’s debut feature Those Peo- lesbian characters. Perhaps they wish to be submitted by filmmakers from around the ple, the film’s most volatile, charismatic gay seen as provocateurs as well as auteurs. They world, the goal being to assemble a represen- character is Sebastian Blackworth, a self-ab- certainly show a healthy disregard for accu- tative snapshot of our cinematic moment. sorbed, manipulative, Upper East Side so- sations of “internalized homophobia” (which There are a few obvious trends that we could cialite who may have abetted his swindling have been leveled by some critics of these spot immediately: strong narratives from father’s crimes (think Bernie Madoff). films). And they seem to trust the audience is Latin America with gay male or transgender § Lily Tomlin’s title character in Paul Weitz’ ready to embrace stories that aren’t, in the protagonists (In the Grayscale, Mariposa, Grandma, while admittedly a fierce and ad- end, an exercise in community pride. Carmín Tropical, among many others); fasci- mirable advocate for her pregnant grand- As a result, queer film audiences finally nating stories emerging from areas like the daughter, is mean, self-pitying, occasionally have a narrative pleasure that has been af- Balkans, which have rarely produced queer violent, and a self-described “asshole.” forded to straight viewers since the dawn of work (Sworn Virgin, Love Island, Xenia); § The irreverent Canadian black comedy film noir: a central character who is highly and a spate of bracing documentaries about Guidance is about a self-loathing, alcoholic problematical, but fascinating. There is an North American athletes, created in the wake former child star who’s in denial about his instructive parallel to this phenomenon that of Michael Sam, Jason Collins, and the homosexuality and, in career desperation, happened nearly fifty years ago involving Sochi Olympics (Game Face, Out to Win, lies his way into a job as a high school guid- another minority, namely American Jews. In To Russia with Love). ance counselor, offering the children vodka the wake of growing social acceptance of But there’s one development that has shots and such affirmations as “I want you to Jews and waning anti-Semitism at home, a taken me a bit longer to identify as it isn’t be an inspiration to all the other sluts.” wave of cinematic “bad-boy Jews” as clear-cut. Call it the Year of the Bad Rather than be appalled by this newly swamped the screen in the late ’60s and Queer. Some of the most memorable North hatched cast of fuck-ups or lament the early ’70s. Think of the cad played by American narrative films of the past year scarcity of queer heroes, I think we should Richard Benjamin in Goodbye, Columbus, have featured GLBT protagonists—not side see this trend as reassuring—precisely be- the matricidal George Segal in Where’s characters, but principals—who are deeply, cause these films refuse to repeat the tropes Poppa, or several of Elliott Gould’s rakes, irredeemably flawed. I’m not talking about of two decades of GLBT protagonists. Un- cynics, and reprobates. This loosening and the traditional flaws of antiheroes—quirks like their predecessors, the dramatis per- complicating of Jewish characters on-screen and oddities, suspect motives, disarmingly sonae in this new generation of indies are reflected a newfound confidence among human failings. I’m talking about polariz- not defined primarily by their sexuality, and young Jewish writers and directors, who ing, problematic, occasionally awful people their struggles are not about their sexual ori- were willing to risk offending people in who happen to be gay. Their journey is at entation. They’re dealing with a host of dys- order to widen the spectrum of Jewish per- the center of the film, so we are asked to functions—bad parents, economic distress, sonae beyond the pleasant pigeonholes of care about their fate, but their behavior is addiction, grief—but they’ve largely inte- scholar, singer, soldier, milquetoast, or sub- offensive; they are morally impoverished, grated being gay into their otherwise urban assimilator that predominated in the mean, vain, passive-aggressive, violent, im- messed-up lives. What’s most striking about postwar period.* mature, or, in more technical language, gen- these new antiheroes is that their flaws usu- Could we be witnessing an analogous erally fucked up. ally get the better of them. Most of these “bad queer” moment now, even as we wit- Some examples of the Bad Queer phe- films’ denouements do not come with a side ness the onset of marriage equality and IAm nomenon would include the following, all order of redemption (with the possible ex- Cait? I suspect we are in for an extended run quite accomplished films with theatrical dis- ception of Elle in Grandma, which, interest- of “gays gone bad” on the big screen, if only tribution deals in place or at least a lot of ingly enough, was created by a heterosexual because screenwriters now need something festival accolades and buzz: writer-director). spicier than vanilla queerness to flavor their § The title character of Justin Kelly’s IAm So why this sudden proliferation of queer films. Expect a rash of Patricia Highsmith Michael—based on the true story of Michael jerks and nasties? (Okay, there have been a adaptations (two are already around the cor- Glatze, played by James Franco—goes from few such characters in the past, like Aileen ner) and, who knows, maybe another biopic being a committed gay youth activist to a Wuornos in Monster or Ripley in The Tal- about J. Edgar Hoover, Roy Cohn, or Jeffrey homophobic evangelical preacher intent on ented Mr. Ripley, but they were once the ex- Dahmer. hurting the community he once loved. ception.) I believe we’re seeing a new § The screenplay of Sebastián Silva’s Nasty generation of writers and directors who are Peter L. Stein, a documentary filmmaker, is cur- Baby is almost sadistically constructed so eager to create characters that veer away rently senior programmer for Frameline, the San that its central character—a garden-variety from the well-worn track of indie queer pro- Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival. Brooklyn performance artist, played by Silva tagonists to date. Ironic and unsentimental, _____________ himself—transforms (spoiler alert) from lik- these filmmakers have moved beyond brave * See J. Hoberman’s Entertaining America: able prospective gay dad in the first half to teens coming out to disapproving parents, Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting (2003, Prince- brutally violent criminal in the second. misunderstood rural folk heading for the big ton U. Press) for more on this period in Ameri- § In her feature debut, writer-director-star city, or anything smacking of martyrdom for can Jewish screen history. November–December 2015 25.

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