I’m going to be presenting a bimonthly (fortnightly?) Movie Night at Seattle’s Lambert House. I’m starting the series tomorrow night with The Celluloid Closet.
I have as yet no idea what the follow-up will be in two weeks; perhaps Hedwig. I will doubtless have a list of possibilities after watching TCC again, but of course when I started fishing for suggestions I thought immediately of this forum.
Also, I’d love to be able to email Rob Epstein and/or Jeffrey Friedman, codirectors of The Celluloid Closet. If anyone here has any suggestions for how I might try to contact them, please email me: lissener@yahoo.
Can you give us a better idea of the age range? There are a number of suggestions I’d make but several of them contain “adult language” and/or brief nudity so may not be considered appropriate (although the occassional curse word and butt shot never did me any harm).
Beautiful Thing: Film of Jonathan Harvey’s play, upbeat and romantic. Should be quite safe in content terms.
Sitcom: Directed by Francois Ozon, this is much more political and may not be suitable for all age-groups. It was certificate 18 in the UK but I don’t recall any sex scenes ( though sex is discussed).
These are very savvy street kids; many of them are drug users and prostitutes, etc.; most of them are homeless.
Hedwig has already been shown at the house and is very useful in bringing these kids into a conversation; breaks down a lot of barriers and makes it clear that we’re not interested in whitewashing anything: connecting is much more important.
THe house is available to youth 13-22; most of them are ~17-21~ish.
I don’t want to show ONLY gay themed films, though of course that will be a big part of what I show.
The Sum Of Us - starring, of all people, a young Russell Crowe.
Also, Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss, Kiss Me Guido and it might be hard to find, but Gus Van Sandt’s 1985 film, Mala Noche, is a gay film set in Seattle with street kids.
(By the way, I agree with Eve - what the hell is that comment, “We all start out straight.”?!?!?!
No we don’t.
I suspected I was gay from about the time I was 5 years old.
But that is a discussion for Great Debates.)
Agreeing with the general scorn and derision being heaped upon the “we all start out straight” comment…
Suggestions: The Edge of Seventeen, All Over The Guy, Go Fish (for the ladies), Relax…It’s Just Sex (which I didn’t really care for myself but it’s one of the few gay-themed films off the top of my head without a lily-white cast), The Incredibly True Story of Two Girls in Love, Speedway Junky, My Own Private Idaho, The Hanging Garden, any of Gregg Araki’s queer-themed films (all fairly violent though), Kids, L.I.E., Bully (the last three are kind of messed up but older kids should be able to handle them).
If the kids have any sense of camp, Making Love, Zorro, the Gay Blade, The Christine Jorgenson Story, and if you’re feeling particularly evil, Myra Breckinridge.
Parting Glances is extraordinary IMHO but may seem dated to younger people. Stonewall is a good fictionalized representation of the modern gay movement.
As for non gay-themed suggestions, there are more than I have time to type. Try showing some older film noir stuff, gritty black and white things and see if there’s any interest.
It seems I’m not the only one taken aback by “we all start out straight.” But since lissener works with gay teens, he’s obviously not homophobic—so what did it mean?!
Did you know what the word “gay” meant, and what it implied?
When I realized, at 11, that words like “homosexual” or “gay” or whatever described the feelings I was having, I’d been having those feelings to one extent or another since I was around three years old.
Then I had to go through the process of understanding it, understanding myself, understanding my new relationship to the society I lived in, etc.
Until that process is completed–not that it ever is, but until it’s progressed to the point that you understand and accept who you are and communicate that to others in your life–you live your life under the radar.
You know exactly what I’m talking about: that period of “questioning” signified by the above Q that we all go through before we identify ourselves as gay. Until then, we assume that we’re just like everybody else. After we’re past that assumption, many of us must pretend that we’re just like everybody else. Most of us go through that stage, where we identify ourselves as straight, at least to the world at large, while we process the dawning revelation/suspicion/whathaveyou and identify ourselves as gay.
If most of us didn’t “start out straight” (sorry; I thought the irony was evident), there’d be no such thing as “coming out.”
Feel free to launch such a debate, but hopefully I’ve clarified for the purposes of this thread.
Actually, I thought the Q was for queer, since some younger folks (I sound like an old fogey, but I’m only 25, I swear) think gay sounds too old-fashioned. I also recently saw the following: LGBTQ? where the question mark indicates questioning.
And I have to admit, I’m floored by the “We all start out straight” comment.
Second the nominations for : Ma Vie En Rose, Incredibly True Adventures of 2 Girls in Love and Go Fish.
If you’re at all interested in doing the gay history thing, I’d highly recommend “Living with Pride: Ruth Ellis at 100” (African-American lesbian who lived to be 100-something), “Out of the Past: the Struggle for Gay & Lesbian Rights in America”, “Paragraph 175” (treatment of gays in the Holocaust–a bit graphic), and “Brother Outsider” (documentary of Bayard Rustin done by PBS).