Mike Buonaiuto | Homecoming / 2012 [political advertisement]

gay heroes and husbands

by Douglas Messerli

 

Mike Buonaiuto (director) Homecoming / 2012 [1.40 minutes] [political advertisement]

 

In 2012 a same-sex couple British same-sex couple Conor Marron and James Lattimore created a campaign for the British Coalition for Equal Marriage in order to petition for support of civil marriages for gay couples.

     The organization was created, in part, as a response to the Coalition for Marriage, a Christian group campaigning against same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom. And they purposely created a website to mimic the look and style of the Coalition for Marriage, partially as a spoof.

     In April of that year director Mike Buonaiuto created a 1-minute, 40-second ad that begins with a plane load of soldiers returning home.

     One of the first off down the plane stair ramp is a young man who spots his wife and daughter, the wife running up to the ramp to hug and kiss her man, with the soldier next to him congratulating his buddy with a brief pat on the shoulder before he too looks for his loved one, quickly spotting who an extraordinarily handsome man just as joyful in seeing his love return home safe and sound.

    They too come together to hug a kiss, the camera hovering over them for a much longer time than, I would guess, that any advertisement had ever spent on two males in a clinch.

 

      Indeed, the camera focuses on the couple so long that we almost begin to wonder if they might not plan to make love right there in the open in front of the others. And indeed, they almost do, as the soldier pulls out a right, gets down on one knee and proposes on the spot, placing the ring on his lover’s finger.

 

       The two men kiss as the words appear across their image, “All men can be heroes.”

 

         After a few seconds, they pull away, beaming with the joy of their reunion and the idea of marriage. Another image appears soon after, across which is written the phrase: “All men can be husbands.”

 

     The campaign was so successful that then Prime Minister spoke out against same-sex marriage, attributing it to being the “Conservative” viewpoint. His speech itself used in a later audio ad for the Coalition for Equal Marriage. On July 2013 same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales, with the first same-sex marriages taking place on March 29, 2014. In February 2014, through the Marriage and Civil Partnership, Scotland also allowed same-gender marriage. Northern Ireland approved a bill in 2019.

 

Los Angeles, May 13, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2024).