To add a sense of the tone I meant to express that phrase in:
When a coworker says to me, on Thursday, “Hey, at least tomorrow is Friday,” I may respond by saying “EVERY day is Monday until Friday at five.”
Now if you’d heard me say “We all start out straight,” you would have heard the same tone.
Let me put it this way. I as as flummoxed by your reaction to that phrase as I would be if my coworker responded by saying, “That’s not true: today is Thursday and yesterday was Wednesday.”
“We all start out straight” is a phrase that one hears at Lambert House when volunteers are discussing, for example, the “straight” kids who come there, and make a show of telling everyone that they’re straight. Some of us remember going through that phase, and we may wink at one another and mouth, “We all start out straight.”
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).
Couldn’t agree more with the suggestions of Fucking Åmål (Show me love) and Beautiful Thing. A few more girly suggestions are:
But I’m a Cheerleader - http://us.imdb.com/Title?0179116
Best for kids who have been out a little while, they might not get the humor otherwise, this is a huge play on gay stereotypes. Has plenty in it for the guys too, even if it is mainly focussed on a girlie in the lead.
Better than Chocolate - http://us.imdb.com/Title?0168987
Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love - http://us.imdb.com/Title?0113416
I always mix these two up, cutesty babydyke movies, happy ever after, touches slightly on some issues, but mainly Rom-Com.
Lost and Delerious - http://us.imdb.com/Title?0245238
Wasn’t crazy about it, but has a high hottie rating and plenty of teenage angst. A bit odd tho, you might want to view it first to judge it’s suitableness for your viewers.
Kissing Jessica Stein - http://us.imdb.com/Title?0264761
Might be good for the “questioning” ones you mention, about two nominially straight girls who decide to give the whole lesbo thing a try and put ads in the personal section of their paper.
If These Walls Could Talk 2 - http://us.imdb.com/Title?0206036
Presents 3 couples in 3 different decades. A must see. Good mix of fun, issues, hotness, etc. Lots of discussion material!
Uhmmmm… my brain has stopped there, I know there are a good few more I can suggest, I will be back in again. Seems they made a movie of Aimee and Jaguar ( http://us.imdb.com/Title?0130444 ), I don’t know what it’s like, but if you want to tackle a toughie, it is the story of two women in love in WW2 germany, one a “jewess” the other the wife of an officer. Another toughie with queer-histoy perspective is Gia ( http://us.imdb.com/Title?0123865 ), “bio” of a bi (at least) supermodel in the 80’s. Again if it is to be shown to “impressionable youth” it might be best you check it out first and decide, I chose not to show it to my youth group having screened it myself and identified way too much with the self destructive feelings portrayed, flashed me right back to 16 again.
I am so jealous of LGBTQ kids nowadays, they have such good movies! When I was coming out we got to watch And the Band Played On, Desert Hearts and Personal Best. No bloody wonder queer teen suicide is so high. Bloody depressing films.
BTW, I didn’t assume I was straight before I came out at 12. I didn’t assume I was anything. People referred to how I’d marry a nice Jewish boy and have babies, and I’d think, “Huh. I wonder how I’m going to get there, cause I just don’t see it.”
On the ‘Bloody Depressing Films’ list, allow me to add in Gods and Monsters, found on the IMDB here. Maybe as a double feature with The Bride of Frankenstein.
I thought it was a good historical perspective on the life of a famous gay man, which could provide some context for your kids. Very sad, though.
Well you could definetly show the classic Frankestein/Bride of Frankenstein and also the original King Kong. Talk about feeling like a freak and the whole world is against you!
How about My Life as a Dog or* The 400 Blows*. 400 Blows might lure some in with that very misleading title but it is still a great film.
There is always that movie Kids. I’ve never seen it but I heard good things about it.
I don’t know if you can get it but The Point would be another good one.
Are we going for deeper meaning, or would a few “cute” films be appreciated? Trick for one. Jeffrey, possibly, though it’s kind of dated and probably appeals to a slightly older set (and does have a deeper meaning, to boot).
Iteki, on the subject of films we (25-35 yo) had coming out, don’t forget The Boys in the Band. Wonderful gay role models those characters were, no? Catty, bitchy, cold and shallow. Just lovely.
And for a slightly older group, we have Cruise (featured in The Celluloid Closet. Take a gay man home for a one-night stand and get inevitably brutally murdered!!
I’ll admit that I’m somewhat envious of today’s gay youth for a hell of a lot more than the movies they have. Being out in my school (which was, admittedly, a Catholic school) was unthinkable. Being out to my parents was impossible until I got out of the house. Being out in general was about the scariest thing I ever experienced for about the first six months. Now they have support groups, student advocacy leagues, a hell of a lot more sympathetic teachers and administrators… I almost wish I’d been born 10 years later.
If you hated Cruising then you’ll loathe Windows which is the lesbian version. Older predatory lesbian pays a cab driver to rape her girlfriend to help lock in the gf’s lesbianism. Charming.
I’m a newbie here, and want to say what great suggestions these are.
I’d throw in “Chutney Popcorn”, which is about the old world clashing with the new world, Deepa Mehta’s “Fire” about the old world clashing with, um, the slightly less older world. Actually both are South Asian lesbian films that are well worth watching.
And if they liked Hedwig, they might also like Todd Haynes’ “Velvet Goldmine.” Not nearly as good in my opinion, but a likeable (and very bisexual) movie nonetheless.
I thought Chutney Popcorn was pretty good, we watched it with our campus LBTQ (no G, we’re a women’s college) group last year.
I don’t know that young people should be exposed to two hours of postmodernism and glam rock, but maybe they would enjoy seeing Ewan McGregor snogging (and more!) Jonathan Rhys-Meyer and Christian Bale.
My wife and I saw this recently, and liked it quite a bit. It was oversold to us as a romantic comedy; it’s actually fairly bittersweet. Still a good movie, though.
I’m not a big fan of this movie either. Struck me as being rather overheated melodrama; I doubt a bunch of jaded street kids would be able to resist hooting in derision.
Regarding “we all start out straight,” I can see where some people would be confused by that. But knowing lissener personally off the boards, I totally understand where he’s coming from. Aside from the fact that he himself is about as big a queen as you’d ever hope to meet ;), he’s got a sarcastic edge to his humor that greatly informs the comment. No insult, I’m sure, was intended; if anything, it’s an ironic slap at those whose closeminded judgementalism has done so much damage to the emotional health of the kids he deals with at Lambert.
Regarding LGBTQ film in general, I briefly discussed with lissener a couple of years ago the rather depressing reality of just how many movies in this demographic deal with the stresses of coming out and/or being gay in a homophobic society, and I’m bringing it up again here for the board at large to comment on. Basically, I just observe that movies like Trick or Bedrooms and Hallways, which take gay characters as a given and simply tell stories about relationships, seem to be the exception.
Not being gay myself, my opinion on the subject is probably somewhat less than valuable, but I find myself conflicted about how frequently the so-called “gay film” centers on these problems. On one hand, I wish we could all just get past it; I’m saddened by story after story about intolerant parents and abusive societies, and I crave the release of a smart gay romantic comedy in the vein of Some Like It Hot or whatever. (The minstrel show “Will & Grace” doesn’t count.) But on the other hand, I’m fooling myself if I try to believe that society has come far enough to make that a reality, and I know that each succeeding generation of LGBTQ youth needs to have their struggles reflected in yet another cycle of coming-out stories.
I’m not sure what my point is with this digression. Maybe I’m just wondering out loud if Lambert’s at-risk youth would be better-served by “conflict” stories that help them deal with their own challenges, or by “escape” stories that let them believe things will turn out all right in the end. It’s an interesting question, to me at least.
>Maybe I’m just wondering out loud if Lambert’s at-risk youth would be better-served by “conflict” stories that help them deal with their own challenges, or by “escape” stories that let them believe things will turn out all right in the end. It’s an interesting question, to me at least.
Not that I was an at-risk youth back in the day (nerdy college kid is more like it), but I really loved seeing something about my life reflected in movies, even if it was the umpteenth coming out story. Granted, this was back in the early '80s when anything was like a drink of fresh water, even “Personal Best”, which nowadays resembles something out of a sump pump.
I agree with Cervaise’s conflicted feelings, near the end of his post, and also with Mojave66.
To a certain extent, it’s VERY important for these kids to see themselves reflected in the media produced by the culture. And since these images are so hard to find elsewhere, a good many of the films I will be showing will be films that I hope reflect that.
On the other hand (here’s where I’m conflicted like Cervaise), I don’t want to ghettoize the choices. After all, like it or not, these kids live in the real world, and many of them have major problems dealing with it that have nothing directly to do with their sexuality. After all, they’re teenagers too, on top of being gay (or questioning, or whatever). So I hope to be able to show films that will inspire some examination, or confrontation, or at any rate engagement, with those issues too.
I also hope to get a core group of kids interested in a more sophisticated examination of life-through-film–kids who whill be enlightened rather than traumatized by a critique of Cruising or shudderBoys in the Band, or even Tea and Sympathy. But I have no idea yet who will come to, let alone return to, these movie nights. I hope to keep a journal of some sort, to try to document the process. We’ll see how well I stick to that.
I like a great number of the suggestions, and I’m grateful for all of them. I will certainly report back.
