Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Felix Gonzalez-Torres is perhaps the artist who most influences my work (or at least is in the back of my mind) and this image is the first of his I ever came across. 

One of his better known photographic images: a rumpled bed with two pillows. The image is relatively boring in a conventional sense especially for one you would expect to see on a billboard, but like most of Felix's work you need to know a little bit about it before you can truly assess it.

As part of his Billboard project, this image was displayed on several billboards across the city simultaneously (in this case NYC). This was done way back in the Middle Ages when there was no such thing as the internet (or at least it was in its infancy)...and it was also during a time when GLBT lifestyles were relatively invisible (especially to mainstream America).  Yet with this work he delicately touches upon two highly charged issues that will be part of a national discourse for the next twenty-plus years (and still is today).

The first being the distinction between the public vs. the private, something that will become increasingly blurred and obsolete with the ubiquity of the internet. By displaying an image of the bed he shared with his then recently-deceased partner, Ross, via a highly visible and commercial venue, it begins to question the boundaries between the public and the private... and more specifically to FG-T's intent, the role of government and society in our personal lives.

The second issue this work touches upon is the collective idea of a conjugal bed.

By displaying what is in all actuality an illicit scene (The U.S. Supreme Court had yet to strike down the laws that made same-sex sexual activity legal in the country and would not do so until 12 years later) the viewer is left to ponder the illegality and harm of such a serene site.

This image is not the graphic representation of a criminalized sexual act but a gentle reminder that an expression of love goes beyond the act of sex and unites us all in its commonality regardless of orientation.

You would be hard pressed to find someone that considers this image perverse and offensive regardless of political or religious leanings, yet this image is evidence of the most intimate and personal site of a relationship (in this case same-sex).

It is a tribute to love and loss while existing as a highly-charged political statement.

Law of Desire (La Ley del Deseo) 1987

One of Almodovar's early films and arguably one of his best. It is not so much a 'gay' movie but one that can apply collectively to the universal subject of love and desire. Of course, as with many of Almodovar's story-telling,  this is not your typical story of love, but the more obsessive, all-consuming and self-destructive version, the type of passionate love you wish you would be a part of but glad it hasn't happened to you. It could perhaps be compared in plot to the American film Fatal Attraction. But instead of fearing the obsessiveness of an emotionally unhinged one-night-stand you actually feel sympathetic and understanding of the stalker's motives despite his actions.

Almodovar's genius can be seen not only in the beautifully shot imagery full of color and  layered simplicity but it his writing and wit as well. He is truly a master in his craft, referencing Hollywood classics alongside current parallels, his cleverly chooses music to accompany his visuals. He chose a song performed by a long-forgotten Mexican trio from the 1950s, Los Panchos. Here he superimposes the song's plucking of guitar strings with the pounding of typewriter keys as if to insinuate that what is being written is what is being heard, the lyrics to the song become a surrogate to dialogue. But where Almodovar truly shines (and not just in this film) is with his original screenplay, always rendering an out-of-the-ordinary story with an unexpected outcome. He interweaves comedy and suspense, love and fear, camp and drama seamlessly from one scene to another and with every plot twist and turn. In Law of Desire, he plays with your perception and understanding of sex and sexuality by casting Carmen Maura (a famous Spanish actress) as a transexual woman longing for love and normalcy and an actual transexual actress as a heterosexual mother seeking to break free from the binding responsibility of parenting. Ms. Maura gives an Oscar worthy performance capturing the mixed emotions of a tortured soul celebrating the liberating freedom of gender reassignment with a desperate need for love and acceptance. 

Considering this movie was made in 1987 when many of the subject matter in this film was not only misunderstood but also taboo establishes it as both innovative and groundbreaking. But what is most surprising is the realization that it received wide distribution and acclaim in its country of origin, it had been less than 20 years that Spain had been released from the shackles of the righteous four-decade long dictatorship of General Franco, and this movie's mainstream acceptance in a country with strong Catholic heritage just shows the level of liberal cultural revolution Spain was going through at the time. You would be hard pressed to find a movie similar in plot to be made in the United States even today....lo dudo (I doubt it)!

Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender

I originally wrote this review in April 2011. One star out of five.

If you are interested in examining gay subtext during Hollywood's Golden Age, avoid this documentary and watch the much better researched and entertaining Celluloid Closet instead. 

Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender reads more like a lecture than an analysis and quickly loses all its credibility with highly edited dialogue taken out of context and freeze-framed montages peppered with disputable readings. To suggest that Walter Brennan's character in Westerns was a thinly veiled homo-erotic romance with John Wayne is a stretch of the imagination, you have to be really horny to sense any erotic tension between the old geyser and the neutered cowboy. Rappaport confuses Hollywood's use of the pansy in the 1930's and Bob Hope cross-dressing antics as some sort of social code of acceptance when in fact it served more as a reinforcement of strict gender roles through cheap laughs. He erroneously states the Lumiere Brothers' early stock footage of men dancing was a nod to homosexuality when in fact it was just a product of a homosocial society. Men danced together because men and women did not socially interact during the late Victorian era. Same as why the male buddy system in movies during the mid-20th century was in place, women were considered either femme fatales or vestal virgins and neither shared anything in common with male identity not because women weren't desired. Male-bonding is an embodiment of moral society's way of keeping the sexes separate, just because guys seek to hang out together watching football and avoid their wives doesn't mean they want to hump each other. Rappaport reuses clips from a few movies to make sweeping generalizations and merges the intent of a movie's written character with the rumored lifestyle of the actor playing it. There is enough pseudo-psychoanalytical erroneous hypothesis in these 100 minutes to give Freud a headache when the real truth is probably closer to a director's internalized homophobia surfacing as delusional validation. His thesis seems to be saying, it must be okay to be gay only because everyone else is gay too.....color that self-hating.

Small Town Gay Bar

A rather weak documentary on an important yet under-examined topic. This film highlights how homophobia is alive and well in rural america, however the documentary only focuses on a small section of the Bible Belt (Northeast Mississippi) and the couple of gay bars that exist in the area. It would have been interesting to see how the people in these scenarios differ, if at all, from other rural areas in the country or from larger cities within the Bible Belt. The documentary quickly glides by a horrific case of hate crime in the area and the tribulations that the LGBT community has to endure to survive and mostly focuses on the management, state and status of said bars. However this documentary is still a must see if not simply as a reminder on how homosexuals are still relegated to living in danger and rejection in order to live out their desires (something that is taken for granted by the same community in metropolitan cities). What's is even more scarier to comprehend is to see an actual neo-con religious group in the area that targets G.W.Bush as being too liberal and lenient on alternative lifestyle.

Sordid Lives (The Movie)

Review was originally written in June 6, 2010 and refers to the movie, but the same strengths and weaknesses applies to the LOGO television series of the same name aas well.

A hilariously funny movie interspersed with painfully bad scenes. Del Shores wrote and directed his theatrical play's transition onto the big screen (and the television series that followed), and while its low budget gives it an early John Water's look and feel, it fails in its conflicted direction. The film shines with the over-the-top portrayals of southern women in a small Texan town. Beth Grant's attempt to quit smoking and Bonnie Bedelia's obsession with big hair and neighborly gossip are the true gem of the movie. These laugh-out-loud movements are even more enjoyable because of its true-to-life characterization (as can be attested by anyone growing up in the South). It is a shame that these scenes are scattered with really bad acting regarding its 'coming out' story line. Those scenes in particular are played with a mix of over-acted intensity and self-conscious foolishness and threatens to bring the whole movie down with it. (This storyline also ruins the LOGO series, the fact the character was re-casted with Del Shores then real-life boyfriend further taints it with a tinge of nepotism that only highlights the bad acting). In the end it reads as if Mr. Shores was giving us two sides to story-telling. On one side you have the heartwarming, sidesplittingly funny craziness of southern life played to the hilt by solid actors and on the other a painfully preachy and forced coming out story that is mis-casted as well. This is not to say that it shouldn't have been included but perhaps treated with the same approach and touch as with the rest of the movie. 

The cast between the movie and the television series is mostly the same except for a few changes, namely Delta Burke's character played by Caroline Rhea and the addition of Rue McClanahan (not pictured) in the series.

The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green

This movie made in 2005 is based on the syndicated comic strip by Eric Orner which appeared in many LGBT publications during the 1990's. I wrote originally wrote the review in January 2009.

Unfortunately, the movie is less dimensional than the comic strip, the acting and plot feels amateurish and dated. Perhaps if it had come to be in the early 1990's during the raise of independent films and the burgeoning post-AIDS era alternative lifestyle it wouldn't have felt new and fresh but by 2005 the storyline is overplayed alongside the token interracial lesbian couple. 

You can find better acting and a more engaging storyline in a porn movie, at least with pornography you have a valid reason to watch it.

There is little chemistry between the two love interests and the token interracial lesbian couple seems stereotypical.

The Kids Are All Right

A light-hearted adult comedy, I first saw this movie while visiting Philadelphia in the summer of 2010. I was looking for much needed relief from the heat wave that was hitting the city at the time in a dark air-conditioned locale. The movie was funny and heartwarming without pandering. 

Review originally written in July 2010. Five out of five stars.

A funny light-hearted adult comedy, well-written and superbly acted (especially by Ms. Bening who is a joy to see hasn't succumb to the cosmetic knife). Not everyone will be pleased with this indie sleeper hit since it is not a slap-stick roll-in-the-aisle comedy but one that relies on smart dialogue and recognizable moments in human relations, instead it is more apt to just make you smile throughout. What is truly refreshing about this movie is realizing that this unconventional family is anything but...the familial relationship is as banal and ordinary as any other. The parents fret about the kids and the kids just want to be left alone to discover their own identity. However, the parents are lesbians that are as sexual and loving as any heterosexual counterpart in a 20-year relationship, along with the misunderstandings, concerns and misgivings that come with the territory. I was personally a bit disappointed that the impetus to move the characters into self-realization had to do with an extra-marital affair in which (SPOILER-ALERT) a lesbian sleeps with a heterosexual man. Unfortunately this might add fodder to many who are dismissive of lesbianism as merely women in need of men, but I was glad that it was treated properly and the outcome was realistic. In the end, it shows the commonality in family dynamics regardless of its make up. When the kids shout their hatred to their lesbian moms and voice how sick they are of their unconventionality, it is not because same-sex parenting doesn't work but rather because they are simply teenagers rebelling against parental control. Ultimately everyone realizes how important a loving nucleus is once it becomes threatened.