Romain Roellet | Jean est tombé amoureux (Jean Fell in Love) / 2022

the terror of showering with a gay man

by Douglas Messerli

 

Romain Roellet (screenwriter and director) Jean est tombé amoureux (Jean Fell in Love) / 2022 [20 minutes]

 

Gay films about sports figures, alas, tend to repeat one another and are highly predictable. One of the star performers falls in love or, at least has some hankering for another guy on or off the team. The danger, of course, is that his team mates will discover his sexuality, mock and berate him and inevitably ban him from sports. All he has worked for most of his life will have gone for naught.

    And, of course, if discovered, he is certain to be bullied and threatened, with his teammates terrorized of sharing the same locker room and showering with him, even though they have spent years doing the same thing without even suspecting anything.

     Either he gradually converts them to his point of view or he leaves, realizing that love is far more important that playing on a team that is not really there for him in the end.

     A great part of these films generally are devoted to the athlete hiding the facts from his teammates, but in 20-30 minutes, the usual run-time of these short works, he can’t hide his sexuality for long, and eventually he has to come out to his colleagues for better or worse.

      Almost all of these standard tropes occur in the likeable French short, directed by Romain Roellet, Jean Fell in Love.

      Love comes quickly for Jean (Simon Rérolle). Playing against a rival ruby team, he’s tackled   by a young Arab player, Ayoub (Tristan Zanchi) who is new to the team and with whose beauty he’s immediately taken, the other player returning the glance.

      The shared eye contact between the two is so apparent that even Jean’s teammates notice it, warning him about the “Arab’s” queer intentions, Jean refusing to play along or even imagine “doing something about it,” as one of the toughs on his team argues should be his normal response.

       Jean, in fact, is so taken with Ayoub that soon after his shower he hooks up with fellow rugby layer at a tent bazaar, sharing a beer, several of his teammates rushing over immediately to separate the two. Yet somehow the young men make plans to meet the next day after practice.

       In the woods together, they get to know one another and before either of them even knows what’s happening, they kiss. Of course, his most homophobic teammate just happens to be passing at that moment, and in only a few days all his fellow teammates know about his homosexuality, not at all pleased with the situation, which ends in a slugging fest, Jean losing the struggle with a cut and black eye.

 

   One of the major issues in all such gay locker-room tales is the terror the straight boys seem to feel about simply sharing a shower with a homosexual, fearing suddenly that his eyes will be constantly trained on them, while perfectly willing previously to share their nakedness. It always strikes me as somehow being highly perverse that their bodies were safe in a non-sexual situation but suddenly when even a glimmer of sexuality is possible, all fears and doubts about the body come into play; are they afraid that they will be attractive to the gay eye or will be somehow be rejected? And if they convince they will naturally be attractive, are they afraid of the gaze or their own reactions to it? Might they get erections just imagining that they are being watched by a man who admires what he sees?

      As usual in such situations, Jean is cold to Ayoub when they meet up again and suggests he will not give up the game just in order to sustain their budding relationship.

      Returning to the locker room for a rematch with Ayoub’s team, he encounters his teammates who have since discussed the “problem.” Knowing they need Jean’s talent in order to win the game, they explain that they’re willing to ignore the fact that he’s queer if he remains discreet. But when he grabs one of their cellphones, he discovers that they have already been mocking him on-line to others in the community, and he finally decides he’s had enough and he bolts, his fellow “friends” running after him in terror, knowing that without him they are sure to lose the game.

      Jean finally turns on the one who has reported him to the others, accusing him of being queer himself, suggesting that his girlfriend is only a myth. The player gets so furious he goes into a near frenzy, players from both teams struggling to hold him off, as Jean escapes and reunites with Ayoub, kissing him long and hard in front of everyone, admitting to Ayoub that he was right: these men are not truly his “friends.”

     There is clearly nothing new here, and the story ends in a kind moralizing manner that offers no hope of change and even suggests that the only way to deal with such bullying behavior is to return the abuse with more its kind—surely not a valid solution for homophobia.

      The only thing this short has truly going for it are its actors, particularly Rérolle and Zanchi, who do make a highly appealing couple; and in general, the acting is excellent and believable. Now Roellet simply needs to get a better screenwriter.

 

Los Angeles, April 5, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (April 2024).