Felipe Cabral | Aceito (I Do) / 2014

the problem of marriage

Felipe Cabral (screenwriter and director) Aceito (I Do) / 2014 [21 minutes]

 

While his lifeguard lover André (Jefferson Schroeder) is out at the beach playing a game of volleyball, Junior (played by the Brazilian director of the work, Felipe Cabral) is home gathering with a group of his friends who he quickly hides in the next room to pop out the moment when, after asking André to marry him, he responds “I do!”

      André returns, Junior hardly being able to control his excitement. After five years of love between the two he feels certain that it’s time for marriage, but the way he frames the question about their series of ups and downs, reassuring his friend that they have had more positive moments, etc, that André at first suspects he is attempting to suggest that the two break up.

    Startled by the turn of events, Junior reassures him that he loves him, even kneeling before his companion to pop the question.

      But André does not at all respond as he might have expected, first wondering if he’s just “kidding,” and then inquiring why, since they have such a wonderful relationship, is marriage necessary. He’s not sure that he wants to get married.      

    Junior argues that the LGBTQ community has fought so hard for it and now they can enjoy the rewards.

    “What dyke gave you that idea?” he challenges Junior, several lesbian friends listening in on his entire conversation from the next room. “These lesbians meet up and want to get married the next day.”

    Soon after Junior expresses an attitude that has received some heated discussion in the LGBTQ communities throughout the world who have suddenly found themselves in the position to marry like their heterosexual counterparts: “Marriage is just a bunch of paperwork that we grew up believing we need in order to be happy.” And from there he moves on gradually to a complete disquisition about hetero-normative behavior that gay men, having grown up in that dominant society, have learned to believe is necessary for their happiness as well, when in fact they often already have found their way to perfectly happy relationships.

       From Junior’s point of view, the community has fought so hard for it, why not take the advantage of their success and enjoy the fruits of what they have fought for, André arguing that he is happy for the choice, but it is not at necessary to make that choice in order to continue a good relationship.

       They are deadlocked in an unanswerable dilemma for a community that has so long been denied something, having found their own way around those roadblocks, that when finally given the opportunity to take advantage of the societal norm, they no longer feel the need for it.

     Is marriage simply a hetero-normative pattern that has destroyed so many straight relationships that it has become meaningless to gay men and women? It depends, of course, in how you perceive and define marriage. Having written a great deal about this subject, mostly in the positive on the side of marriage*—since I see it not as an institution but a societal announcement and joyful celebration of a couple’s love (my companion and I were together in a rather monogamous relationship for 45 years before we were married)—I also still have my doubts about its necessity, particularly given its governmental ordinations and restrictions, as well as its protections.     

 

    In this case, after much embarrassing “public” debate—Junior’s friends still listening in to the couple’s quirks and doubts through their entire discussion and André’s attempted effort at love-making—he finally gives in, agreeing and, after much further prompting, speaks the words “I do,” which brings the crowd of friends out from the other room with noisemakers and concerted efforts of celebration.

     That is truly too much for André, who now understandably feels a sense of betrayal after discovering that his friends have known about something that has not first been properly discussed in private. He storms out, the friends dribbling off as quickly as possible, leaving the previously joyful Junior alone in deep confusion and pain.

 

      Eventually, he wanders to the beach where he finds his lover, sitting down beside him. After a few moments, André breaks out in a chortle of absurd laughter, putting his hand around Junior’s head to stroke it in forgiveness, and leaning in to their obvious love. Junior still looks troubled, realizing what he has done, but soon cannot resist joining in the absurd gesture of laughter, a kind of violent release, which after all is how Henri Bergson has defined what is generally behind any laugh.

       The absurdity, in this case, goes even further, however, when the film’s credits reveal that “in May 2013, the National Council of Justice [in Brazil] published the Resolution 175 which requires all public registry offices to issue civil marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

       “Nevertheless, until the finishing date of this movie, there was no existing statute on the subject. In the Brazilian Constitution the word ‘marriage’ is designated, exclusively, for heterosexual unions.

       “We believe in equal rights, with equal terms. We accept love.”

       Although same-sex marriages are permitted in Brazil, even today (as of the date I write this) it is not yet legislatively designated within the constitutional rights of that country.

 

*See my pamphlet book essay, On Marriage: The Imagination of Being (Los Angeles, Magra Books, 2018)

 

Los Angeles, December 23, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (December 2022).