Sophie Kargman | Query / 2020

first gay kiss

by Douglas Messerli

 

Ryan Farhoudi and Sophie Kargman (screenplay), Sophie Kargman (director) Query / 2020 [9 minutes]

US director Sophie Kargman’s charming short film Quey is a well done variation of what I believe is a mistaken hypothesis: that we are all basically born bisexual but that family, social, and general cultural forces quickly begin to define the direction our sexuality will take, and that if they’d only experiment a little straights would discover that they might as easily fall in love with their best “bro” and gay men might find that neighbor girl to be a lot fun in bed.

     When I was coming out, this seemed like a wonderful solution to the pulls I was feeling, paralleling my other political, religious, and social rebellions, and allowing me to group them as being part of a larger exploration of personal possibilities. But over the years, I’ve become increasingly convinced that being gay is not a “choice”—as David Antin once rather offensively attempted to categorize it to Howard and me—but something I carried with me from birth. Most gay men recognize, ultimately, that “choice” had utterly nothing to do with their sexuality; and as numerous writers, filmmakers, and others have argued, if it were a matter a choice, how can anyone imagine that most young gay men and lesbians would have sought out such a difficult and painful way to express their sexual interests. Despite my psychological desires to be bisexual, in fact, I have discerned that I have utterly no sexual interest in women other than to recognize their beauty (when it’s deserved); I have never even had sex with the other major gender of my species.

       Nonetheless, it’s still nice, once and a while, to imagine that all we might need to do, as Sophie Kargman proffers, in order to bed our favorite straight boy is to get him to experiment.

       That’s what Jay (Justice Smith) seems to be arguing, that his friend Alex’s (Graham Patrick Martin) sexual orientation had a great deal to do with his familial upbringing, the conditioning that his parent’s determined for him. Alex, on the other hand, is skeptical, arguing that “I just think my penis pointed in a specific direction, and I followed.”

       They continue their discussions on a morning run—in the midst of which, quite explicable, they encounter actor Armie Hammer running in the opposite direction—and at the pool.

       Both boys have girlfriends, and Alex is particularly interested in women with large tits. Later on, as they together play a computer gay (“Mortal Combat”), Jay continues his argument, reminding his roommate that “Back in the day in like Ancient Greece…they didn’t associate sexual relations with binary labels. So Spartan warriors would like straight up bang each other before they went into battles.” Obviously Jay has been reading not full informative texts, but he has a point, and eventually after tiring of this kind of dialogue, Alex becomes convinced and challenges him to a kiss off.

       At first, Jay attempts to get out of it, suggesting that since he has a girlfriend, to do so would be cheating on her. Alex disagrees. But two, claims Jay, Alex is not his man type. That hurts, Alex jocularly admits. And finally, so Jay continues, they’ve been best friends such age 11. But finally, after arguing all day and given the fact they’re both nearing drunkenness, they determine to try it out.

 

     After many more moments of indecision, they finally take the leap, locking lips a little longer that first boy kissing usually is expressed. Jay’s phone rings, his girlfriend on the line with a problem she needs to talk about. But strangely Jay allays her worries and promises to talk further her the next day, getting off the line as quickly as he can. He sits down across the backgammon game from Alex and, soon after, asks “You want to go again?”

      There’s a lovely comic mania about this, as you imagine them trying a kiss out again, and again, and just to make sure, possibly taking it even further. Obviously, they thoroughly enjoyed their first kiss.

       But kissing, as we well known, does not turn a boy gay, nor can another gay boy truly convince a straight boy to turn his life around and trot off with him to another sexual world for the rest of his life. Experimenting is one thing, defining one’s life sexually is quite another issue and not at all subject to a comic one-liner.

 

Los Angeles, April 9, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (April 2024).