Love is strange (trailer, Video Sunday)

Being gay is rated "R"

There's a charming movie coming out called Love is Strange, where John Lithgow and Alfred Molina are partners of 40 years.  Upon marrying, Molina's character is fired from his job as a music teacher for a Catholic school and they lose their home.  They have to split, temporarily, and couch surf with family and friends.

It's by all accounts very charming, with no sex or nudity.  (See the trailer on Video Sunday on this blog, on Sunday 31st.)

But it's rated "R".

The MPAA movie ratings are supposed to provide information on a movie's content, so parents can decide whether or not it's suitable for their children. 

But what kind of information are they really providing? And what are they assuming we want to protect our children from? 

On Friday, "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" will be released in a wide number of theaters. It features nudity, sexual situations and substance abuse. Every woman in it is a stripper, a prostitute or a murderer. There is violence and graphic gore,...It is rated R. 

That day, "Jersey Shore Massacre" also reaches theaters. It features nudity, sexual situations, substance abuse and ethnic and racial slurs. There is violence and graphic gore....It is rated R. 

Also opening is "Love Is Strange." There is no nudity. There are no sexual situations. The drug or alcohol material mostly consists of adults having wine with dinner, or cocktails at a bar. There is no violence or gore. There are several scenes of men kissing, and two scenes of a gay couple sleeping together, fully clothed, in bed. It is rated R. 

If there's an equivalence among these three films, and their equal unsuitability for anyone under 17, it's lost on me — and, I suspect, on anyone but the censors at the MPAA. 

Not only is there nothing violent in "Love Is Strange," there's not even anything explicit. It is about as mild and mainstream a portrayal of gay life as you can imagine. Ben, played by John Lithgow, is a 71-year-old retiree. George, played by Alfred Molina, is a music teacher at a Catholic school. In the film, they have been together for nearly 40 years (until, in a unfair and sudden reversal of fortune, they lose their apartment).

It's a simple human story. And it is very hard to imagine that — if it starred, say, Robert Duvall and Jane Fonda as a similar long-time couple suddenly facing homelessness — it would be lumped in with movies crammed full of queasily stylish sexism and sickening torture porn.
.....
This is a gentle, if often heartbreaking story about two loving men in a long-time committed relationship. What on earth is in it that so horrifies the MPAA?
I'm sorry. I think I just answered my own question.

Film trailer: with every heartbeat (video Sunday)

This looks like a good one.  From Sweden, an award-winning romance:

Trailer WITH EVERY HEARTBEAT (Kyss mig) 2011 from LEBOX PRODUKTION on Vimeo.

Stonewall Uprising (video Sunday)

Now playing. From the NY Times review,

It is a sad indication of the marginalization of homosexuality in the late 1960s that media coverage of the Stonewall riots was mostly after the fact. And even then it was cursory and often condescending....

As one rioter remembers: “All of a sudden the police faced something they had never seen before. Gay people were never supposed to be threats to police officers. They were supposed to be weak men, limp-wristed, not able to do anything. And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them.” It was the first stirring of what came to be known as gay pride.

“This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no,” Mr. Truscott recalls. “And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble.”

We saw it Friday night. HIGHLY recommended.

The film, 8, The Mormon Proposition, opens today (video)

From the NY Times review:

The documentary is really two films roughly stitched together. The first two-thirds tells the history of Proposition 8; the final third is a wrenching exploration of the effects on gay Mormons of the church’s strict taboo on homosexuality. We meet gay teenagers who were exiled from their families and are told about a rash of suicides at Brigham Young University. The reason Utah’s suicide rate is the highest of any state, the movie suggests, is the Mormon church’s absolute rejection of homosexuality, which one church elder calls “contrary to God’s plan.” Chris Buttars, a proudly homophobic Utah state senator, compared male coupling to bestiality. The movie shows the depth of religion-based loathing of homosexuality, like that of abortion, to be primal.

In the meantime the struggle to repeal Proposition 8 is under way.

Anti-GLBT politicians in the closet: Outrage

Someone I know online is coming out right now, and it is a painful, scary, liberating process. During her cautious opening of the closet door, there has been a lot of discussion on her blog about the decisions we make to be in, or out, of the closet.

While I will testify that being open and out is a relief, I also recognize that not everyone has a job or family or safety situation that allows it. And I respect that people have to make their own judgment about when they can finally be honest about who they are. So I would never "out" someone publicly, only encourage them to make the move when they feel safe enough to do it.

With one exception. The one class of people for whom I have no compunction about outing would be the hypocrites who use the closet to cover their own gayness while they attack and abuse their GLBT brothers and sisters.

Have you seen the movie Outrage yet? This film exposes supposedly gay politicians who have significant anti-gay voting records.



I just learned of this film, which a lot of you probably know about, from the Advocate's web site, which described the self-censorship of the press. Many reporters will not repeat the names mentioned in the film, which has led to a whole sideline of discussion about Newspaper policies. The LA Times didn't hesitate, however, in their interview with the director, Kirby Dick.

The LATimes also reviewed the film, here, finishing with a sentimental note,

While the anger of "Outrage" is to be expected, the surprise of the film is how much sadness you take away as well, the sadness of people who feel compelled to pretend to be what they are not. Both McGreevey and his ex-wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, interviewed separately, talk eloquently about the kind of chaos this kind of deception causes. And then there is activist Elizabeth Birch, who says, "I've had members of Congress crying in my arms because they didn't know how to come out." It's a significant moment in a significant film.

I'm sorry, I really don't work up a lot of sympathy for these guys. They sold themselves for power, which requires lies and deflecting suspicions. (How many of them are married to women, living the lie?) I suspect they are resentful and angry at the healthy, out gay men they see. They are so deeply, deeply invested into the closeted life that they can't afford to admit they are mistaken, and that they have made a hideously wrong choice. One could have sympathy for that, if they weren't so often working against the rights of the GLBT community. Is this to "prove" their straight-ness, or simply striking out in anger to hurt the people who have something they can't?

They would be fine, if they were willing to acknowledge the lies and give up the power. But it's so seductive to be one of the elect, isn't it? And so scary to step out of the closet. Regardless, it's using their power to attack the community that makes me lose all sympathy for them, and want to "out" them.