And in you see this Russ you should start your own blog you have a great voice.

But, for me, this movie is fundamentally about another dying faggot. And to be frank, I’ve had just about enough of dying sick faggots. Point to one movie that’s made it to the big screen that’s got a gay boy in it that doesn’t involve his suffering? And if he doesn’t suffer he’s completely sexless (and therefore sanitized) or the swishy side kick (and therefore not a threat)—a la Will and Grace. Now I ain’t no pop culture guru, and fuck knows I don’t see enough movies, but I can’t think of one where two gay boys meet and live happily ever after. And I imagine some might say that the movie was an accurate portrayal of the times. Fair enough—verisimilitude is worth something. But then why does every chick flick out there always end up with two straight folks falling happily in love (once they’ve gone through the standard boy/girl has girl boy, boy/girl loses girl/boy, boy/girl gets girl/boy back)—when, in point of fact (verisimilitude again) 2/3 marriages end in divorce (in the US—it’s a bit less in Canada). Let me put it another way: if we’re talking about accurate portrayals, then why is it that we don’t get a love story that has a happy ending when in point of fact the bulk of heterosexual happy endings don’t end so happily?

Indeed, the end of this gay flick, the final punctuation is, in point of fact, a veneration of the heterosexual union. Del Mar gets a visit from his daughter, who asks him to come to her wedding and he says, of course, yes. So we have a gay flick whose final punctuation is a heterosexual wedding. Interestingly, the short story has no mention of a wedding—which for me, at any rate, raises questions. Hmmm. Wait, sorry, the final punctuation mark is when Del Mar turns around to look at the shirt of his dead lover—beaten, we are led to assume, on the side of the highway with a tire iron under circumstances that seem to be akin to a bashing—that is, not so ironically, pinned to a closet door. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to find a movie that’s made it to the big screen that is ostensibly about a homo but is in fact embedded in some sort of heterosexual pursuit.

And for me, the kicker is this: the movie is up for an Oscar. I don’t follow the Oscars—frankly, I often don’t know the names of the actors—but the Oscars are, I suppose, a mark of a good movie, a mark that a group of actors (I think?) gives to a movie as a sign of its value. This movie is about the suffering of two homos over the course of 20 years, a suffering done in silence, without witnesses (can there be any worse suffering than that which occurs without a sympathetic witness?). In the end, I’m not so sure that venerating this movie is much different than venerating the suffering of homos.

And sure, some might say “It’s just a movie”—and maybe I shouldn’t get “all political” about this. But let’s be honest: our cultural landscape is deeply embedded in our political landscape. The movie makes so much sense to so many people—and its success and the accolades being lauded upon it are an index of this “sense”—because the homos it portrays are hardly a threat to what it means to be a man. They look straight, they talk straight, their sexual practices are isolated to some outback in the middle of fuck nowhere, their sex is patently sexless, no one sees them, no one knows they’re gay, and they suffer in silence (all of this occurring during a time when the gay and lesbian movement was flourishing). In effect, the popularity of the flick is linked to the fact that the gay boys it represents don’t really matter to anyone—their lives as gay men make no ripples, impact, or effect on any other character. Indeed, they made no impact on me—that sex scene in the tent? Come on. Get fucking real. I couldn’t identify with them at all. And that scene about getting caught by the wife? For Christ sake. If they were that closeted, do you think they would kiss in broad fucking daylight. I wonder if this movie would have done as well as it did—which is to say, would have made the kind of cultural sense that it is currently making, as evidenced by the enormous success it has in the mainstream (and that’s the key point in all of this) if the two gay boys had been flaming queens and had fallen in love happily ever after?

Anybody seen Transamerica? Happy ending. Fine movie. No Oscar.

Okay, I’m done the rant. Thanks for listening. Yeah, yeah, I know. I should get my own blog.

On The Casting Controversy — I agree it’s much ado about nothing. Yes, out-gay actors get screwed in Hollywood [no pun intended]. But, aren’t what we’re fighting for is a society where it doesn’t matter if someone is gay or straight, as long as they are good at what they do?

On Who Saw The Movie — I’m not suprised the Pres hasn’t seen it. But what pissed me off what his dismissive attitude. Kind of scoffing, like, “yeah, right, like it’s go see that!” Can you imagine if the audience member had asked if he had seen “Schindler’s List” or “The Color Purple”? And he gave that same kind of “yeah, right!” attitude? It’d be all over the press.

I too dont’ really care for Heath however, I thought this the best performance of his career. (and to the comment about not being able to read him, that was part of the point. Heath pulled it off beautifully.) Jake is…well Jake. ‘nuf said.

What really stuck me is your last comment about it not mattering how many awards it won. It was a good movie that will hopefully become a gay iconistic classic. It will always be one of my favorite movies. No real special affects, no hifi art or sound systems. Just an honest portrayal of something so human and so raw that it speaks directly to your soul.

Thank you as always for you simplistic insight.