Guy Shalem | Gaysharktank.com / 2010

lost in space

by Douglas Messerli

 

Dennis Hensley (screenplay), Guy Shalem (director) Gaysharktank.com / 2010 [14 minutes]

 

On the new interactive website which allows strangers via webcam to meet up, Brian tries his luck. The first six or seven images to popup, which include a man in drag, a female couple seeking a

gift of sperm, a buff bare chest, a black man, and others are immediately sent into limbo. But he does give a “thumbs up” to a Roly-poly sort of ordinary man—Brian being also nothing great to look at—named Frank.

     When Frank suggests he’s versatile and into “nipple play,” however, Brian backs off, suggesting he’s not really yet ready to hook up, but is just testing out the site. In fact, Brian is not really sure he’s gay having only had an “incident” with his brother “Calvin,” after he touched his face.

    And just as suddenly the red-headed woman in drag is now in control of our viewing screen, knocking out person after person from view. She even encounters Brian’s wife trying to find out to where he might have disappeared. She spends the longest time with four guys on screen together.

     But when she begins to explain that she’s “looking for a long-term relationship and I’m dressed in drag because I’m sick and tired of dating guys when they discover I’m into drag quickly leave me,” the boys begin, one by one to drift off.

     This is after all a parody, in the manner of Saturday Night Live, so we might forgive this short film for featuring a black man peering into the house behind the man he has on-line to check out what he perceives as expensive artwork. He also insists that he’s not gay, but having been institutionalized he still has sex with men, but, he repeats, he’s not gay. Since the man with the paintings has a child, he quickly cuts the other discussant off.

     Brian, back on the screen, now hooks up with Salim, a bebopping Pakistani in the manner of Steve Martin’s “wild and crazy guy.” As Brian responds when Salim tells him he’s from Pakistan, “So you’re foreign!”

     The cheerful Gabriel Blow, ready to sing Cole Porter’s “Gabriel blow your horn,” is quickly blocked by a man who declares he’s depressed.

     Brian is now on line with our man with art and a kid, as he attempts to convince Brian to think of something like a long-term relationship with a child.

     The four guys are now on line with a transgender woman, who describes her newly constructed

 vagina as “toddler-new.”

    Salim also meets up with the four boys, delighted to see so many possibilities all at once. But when they begin to talk about his sweater as looking like it’s from Transylvania he begins to call them “bitch.” 

     And in the very next frame Brian’s wife, still searching, meets up with the foursome.

     Brian in communication with our drag queen is confused. “So you’re mainly a woman, right?” “No I’m a drag queen. I dress up in drag to entertain people.” Brian’s finally interested if she can keep her wig on along with the outfit and maybe tuck between the legs “we might be able to work our way up to a point that when your penis comes out, I could….” Goodbye Brian.

      Brian’s wife encounters the drag queen and a man about to show his penis.

      And immediately after Salim encounters the same guy with his Vaseline dispenser.

      A man with a teenage boy sucking a lollipop on his lap meets up with the foursome. Frank meets up with Brian’s wife. A black man with politics on his mind speaks momentarily to the man with the boy on his lap.

      Our drag queen meets up with Frank, immediately recognizing that they both have it difficult. “No one wants to date a drag queen and no one wants to date a ‘fatty.’” Frank argues that no one actually says that, reminding the drag queen that she can take her wig off, but he can’t remove his extra fifty pounds. “Well,” she interrupts, “you can if you….” “I come from a family of big people,” he insists. Her argument, “Honey, you’re fat. You got to stop eating.” “When I grew up, I didn’t get a ‘Have a nice day at school, honey,’ I got a chocolate cake.” And so it goes.

      Brian finally meets up his, Virginia, his wife. “Where are you?” she asks. “I’m home,” he insists. “I was in the garage working and next thing you know, this happened.” Virginia begins to cry.

    Slowly all of them begin to realize that there is no one out there that they truly feel good about. But then Frank meets up with the Broadway-singing Gabriel. Brian is back with Salim, even if his wife is now lurking in the background.

      The actors in this silly but sometimes quite funny parody of the 2010 website Chatroulette.com (I just checked; it still exists) are Geoffrey Arend, Lucas Bane, William Belli, Jordon Black, Alex Boling, Dan Bucatinsky, David Burtka, Drew Droege, Brian Gattas, Stephen Guarino, Brian Huskey (as Brian), Tony Johnson, Tar Karsian (as Brian’s wife), Clinton Leupp, Michael Medico, Tamara Mello, Brian Palermo, Sam Pancake, Jack Plotnick, Jai Rodriguez, Michael Serrato, and Roberta Valderrama.

 

Los Angeles, September 22, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2024).