Shaz Bennett | Alaska Is a Drag / 2012

northern stars

by Douglas Messerli

 

Shaz Bennett (screenwriter and director) Alaska Is a Drag / 2012 [14 minutes]

 

This 2012 short by Shaz Bennett now reads almost as a trailer for the director’s 2017 full feature of the same work.

     But there is something terribly charming about the abbreviated version simply because we have hardly any logical explanation for what happens. Why, for example does the newbie Alaska boy, Declan (Spencer Broschard) immediately take up with young black worker Leo (Martin L. Washington Jr.) who most nights plays out his fantasies at the local bar as a wannabe drag queen?

     Why is his former friend Kyle (Barret Lewis) so determined, other than his seeming endless flow of homophobia, to daily beat up his fellow worker? Can you really learn Bruce Lee-like kicks and judo maneuvers from watching TV?  

   In this short, nothing is truly answered. There is little attempt to explain anything other than why these two lost young men are trapped in a hostile Alaska: in both cases it is the fault of their daddies, determined to make quick money by working in the legendary Alaska fishing and canning industry—by the time they arrive having basically gone bust.

     This is a world that is perfect for dreams, the boys living isolated and hostile lives under the northern lights as if they were a glitter dance ball in a drag revue.

      Not much happens in this short version of Alaska Is a Drag except for the momentary wonderment of performer Washington and the cute, inexplicable awe of Broschard. But the two are good enough actors to convince you that something might possibly happen between these two boys even if Declan has never heard of Eartha Kitt and we have no idea whether or not he is even gay.

      The only flesh this film reveals is in the guts of the fish cut out in the cannery and the pounding thud of fists against bodies. In the end one has to wonder is it even worth being a “faggot” in such a relentless world of punishment? What’s love got to do with it? Or even sex for that matter?

 

Los Angeles, July 10, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2024).