diversity cinema

In my quest to watch as many awards-nominated films as I could before The Oscars, I recently watched Queer. Daniel Craig did a sterling job of acting. I felt the heat with him and could feel the sweat trickling down his back. I felt his sadness at being not needed and his propensity for being clingy. His acting was the best part of this film. I admire the risk he took accepting this role.

I did not, however, care for the film. The first part of the film was too long and drug out. Maybe I felt this way because I didn’t need to be explained to on and on about what the late 50’s early 60’s gay scene in Mexico or South America was like or what drug addiction to combat the loneliness of this was like, the trauma of being hated by everyone, even each other. I’ve seen countless films and read countless novels on the topic. I also didn’t need to be explained to about what it’s like to want someone and not have that feeling returned. I’ve lived that, been there, and seen countless films where this is an issue as well. The whole first segment of the film could have been shortened by at least 20 minutes. Just about the time I was going to stop watching, the viper happened. Then the film got interesting.

Once I saw the viper’s open mouth coming at me, I turned the I-pad around and didn’t turn it back again until after I heard the shooting. I didn’t want bad dreams. I should have stopped there, then, but I kept watching and had the bad dreams anyway. The specific drug the main character was looking for was consumed. The action from then on was confusing, magical, mysterious and surreal. I’m always interested in how film makers decide to show surreality in films. Words in a book count on the reader’s imaginations to see something, but films must show that something and I don’t think that’s easy to accomplish. How do you show one’s body melding into another’s? How do you show teleporting? Viewers wonder what the heck is going on and try to make sense of what they see. I think a viewer just needs to suspend belief and not expect reality. “Okaaaay,” I can hear you saying as you watch. The main character gets what he wants in the end, or at least a version of it, a connection of sorts. And peace.

I had never read anything by William S. Burroughs, so I did some research. I could see that this film, like his other novels, is autobiographical to a great extent. I suggest you look him up before you watch the film so you’ll have more understanding as you watch. If you watch.

After I watched Queer, I turned to Will and Harper, a documentary about Will Ferrell’s writer friend from SNL days who had recently over a few years transitioned from a male into a female. Will had so many questions about why and how, and so they decided to take a trip across country and film what happened as Harper went to the towns she had visited before over the years as a male. She wondered if people would accept her the same way they had accepted the him she was before. Harper answered Will’s questions. Viewers meet her children and her sister and learn how they adjusted to the transition. Harper had questions and misgivings about herself and her femininity, worried about her hair and make up, for example. Finding someone to form a relationship with, for another. Whether or not she would change things “down below.” 

She showed us all a house she’d bought out in the middle of nowhere before her transition, a place she could go to and inside it be who she really felt she was. Of course, by this time, it had been vandalized.

What surprised me was how people reacted so kindly in some places, like Oklahoman, for example, where I expected they would be uninformed bigots full of nasty behavior. On the contrary, along the way many people shared stories about those in their family who were walking a similar path due to their diversity. However, Will and Harper mostly encountered bigotry and hatred in a big way only in Texas. Even Will’s fame couldn’t save them there from the ugly social media commentary and violent threats.  

Be glad if you’re a person who has been born into the right body because there are many who are not. Life is not kind to them in so many ways. We might suffer, yes, but not to the extent they do. I hate that people are forced to hide who they really are. I hate that some people are so stupid about science and biology that they don’t understand that gender is fluid, on a spectrum just the way autism is, but expect everyone to be binary, male or female. If you’ve been around a while and paying attention, you know this is not the case. 

An actual reality check for those who think ‘binary, bro, that’s how we roll’.

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What I loved about this film was that it showed most people are accepting, kind and caring; that some people have to be braver than others; and it showed the power of having a true friend in your life. I will always love Will Ferrell and his decent humanity after watching this film. I cried all the way through it, for one reason and another. Let me know how you do.