Cameron Thrower | Accidentally Gay / 2001

case dismissed

by Douglas Messerli

 

Bick Brown and Cameron Thrower (screenplay), Cameron Thrower (director) Accidentally Gay / 2001 [8 minutes]

 

Two male roommates (Brandon Massey and Martin Balama), who’ve been out to the bar the night before wake up in bed together. At first, as the well-honed adage goes: “They can’t remember a thing,” but gradually they do begin to recall having been very drunk, watching a film together (Nick Cassavetes’ The Notebook) and, yes, having sex. “Martin’s” ass hurts.

    “Let’s just forget we’re gay,” “Brandon” insists. But thoughts keep returning. Both the pleasure and the pain keep coming back in brief flashes. What’s even worse is that suddenly there’s a knock on their door.  “Brandon” cautions “Martin”: “don’t act gay or stay anything that they might think you were blowing me last night,” to which the offended roommate answers, “What the fuck? Who was face-fucking who last night, bitch?” “You see what I mean,” shouts Brandon: “That sounds gay!”

      It turns out to really be some version of a “gay cop,” their next-door gay neighbor, who’s not only gifted with gaydar, but has heard it all, so he claims, through the paper-thin walls.

      Being good straight boys at heart, they deny everything, although he quickly responds—particularly given their memory of Cosmos, Mojitos, and a movie with Ryan Gosling before their claim of pulling off the girls’ panties—“Boy that closet’s getting crowded.”

 

      He leaves with them imagining that they convinced him, even if they haven’t yet been able to convince themselves.

      If Thrower and Brown had left it there, with both the boys and their audience in doubt, the short film might have become far come interesting, permitting a whole host of other issues to be explored.

      Alas, the film sticks a pin into its little balloon of comic hysteria as a woman suddenly appears from the kitchen, ready to serve up breakfast. That’s not to say, of course, that “Brandon” didn’t still play “Brokeback Mountain” to “Martin’s” ass, but now they can easily explain it all as part of a heterosexual threesome, any gay activity occurring, as the title suggests, only by accident.

      I am sure straight boys actually do this from time to time, one of boys exploring his male friend’s body while the other is engaged with a female’s vagina, explaining it away as being the only receptacle available in which to put his horny instrument. The only problem is that he can’t put the incident to rest the next day when, as “Martin” complains, it still hurts in the ass.

     Although, all film sources list the date of this film as 2001, some suspicion arises about that date, particularly since the Cassavetes film it mentions (and shows outtakes from), The Notebook, wasn’t released until 2004. Some filming of the work had been done as early as 2001 however and perhaps the director had connections with the original director Martin Campbell.

 

Los Angeles, May 21, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2024).