David Weissman | 976 / 1987

body and soul

by Douglas Messerli

 

David Weissman (screenwriter and director) 976 / 1987

 

This film, as it describes itself, is a “cheap” 2-minute movie—with the best unpaid actors in town. As in many a serious documentary of the day about homosexuals, the short begins with a serious-looking, well-dressed man (Leland Moss) describing himself as a homosexual. We might expect a confession or yet another explanation of what being a homosexual is all about. He instead complains that in “these horrible times”—the first AIDS films had appeared only 3 years earlier— that he’s having difficulty finding a good place for sexual companionship taking us quickly into Saturday Night Live territory.

 

    “I tried 976-FUCK and 976-SUCK and they were fun for a while, but something was missing. It was touching my body but not my soul.”

     In this short “pitch,” however, Michael has a new solution: 976-DISH, he explains, holding up a sign so you won’t forget it.

    In these last days of the telephone, Michael rings up the gold-plated icon of 1980s primary mode of communication, on the other end of which is an exaggerated drag queen (Lulu) ready to share the newest dirt about anyone and everyone. She begins with a rather tame slam: “Can you believe Tammy’s new hairdo? I tell you that doo was a don’t. Her hair was dyed. It died last week.”

     But she quickly moves on to hotter stuff, far too juicy to tell on camera. We simply watch the joyful laughs and table-top wiggles of a totally satisfied customer in this homosexual consumer.

 

     After reminding us that “If you’re tired of talking dirty and just want to talk dirt, call 976-DISH,” our guide to the signs off.

      This is definitely old-school gay comedy, representing a day when raunchy gossip provided one of the steady confections of queer camaraderie within the gay community with hair, clothes, and sexual excess replacing the far less titillating news of moral sins, and social and cultural infractions whispered by small-town zealots.

 

Los Angeles, May 4, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2024).