Douglas Messerli | Opening the Door [essay]

opening the door

by Douglas Messerli

 

It has long been an open secret in the LGBTQ world that not only are a lot of self-defined straight boys and girls far more interested in exploring gay sex than we might have imagined, but with the growing openness of gay sexuality, who are increasing eager to find out what same-sex relationships have to offer.

    While this might first seem a healthy societal transformation, there is also something vaguely distasteful and even slightly homophobic about the films that represent this, suggesting first of all that desiring gay sex is all just a matter of curiosity and the chance of discovering another friend who feels the same momentary interest, as if were a matter of simply adopting another viewpoint or akin to changing one’s wardrobe. For several young people in these films, it appears that being gay, moreover—in its expression of difference and in its continued parental and society resistance—comes close to representing something that is simply hip or just a “necessary” experiment before settling down into a heterosexual relationship.

 

    In some cases, however, it may also be the first stirrings of buried sexual desires which seem safter to explore with a good friend. I’ve already written about several works, most notably in my essay “How to Lose Your Best Friend” on four films—Dear Friend (2011), Anochecer (Nightfall) (2012), Prora (2012), Reel (2013), and Tomorrow (2014)—noting the difficulties and often the devastating consequences of treading upon close friendship with sexual desire.

      In these five roommate and best friend comedies, however, outwardly straight boys begin to talk about the possibility of not only exploring gay sex but possibly going beyond just a one-time experiment. In these works, spanning almost two decades, one or two of the friends or roommates hint that they’re ready to try out a kiss, a deep hug or, in the case of directors Adrià Llauró’s and Martin Chichovski’s works, the central characters might actually enjoy a quick sexual exchange of bodily fluids or even more.

       The other three works suggest, if nothing else, at least the possibility of one or perhaps boy boys going a bit further in the future or, at the very least, trying out more fully what the two have just begun.

        In all cases, if nothing else, the door to homosexual sex has been opened, whether or not both boys enter the space of possibility they’ve together moved toward.

        As with all such gatherings throughout these volumes, other appropriate titles surely exist which I haven’t yet encountered or seemed too distant in the past or future in relation to these to include. Such groups are not meant to be inclusive, but simply are meant to suggest the growing list of LGBTQ genres and subjects that are developing in this rapidly shifting forum of filmmaking.

       In this instance I have chosen six short films, a MAD TV skit from 2003, A Football Thing, directed by US director Bruce Leddy; Bucket List Night, directed by US filmmaker Justin Viar; the two episodes of Alirón and Alirón 2 (El Descanso) by Spanish director Adrià Llauró; North Macedonian director Martin Chichovski's I'm Not Gay; and another US director, Sophie Kargman’s Query.

Los Angeles, April 12, 2004