J. C. Oliva | Sissy Frenchfry / 2005

 refusing to get real

by Douglas Messerli

 

Joe Brouillette (screenplay), J. C. Oliva (director) Sissy Frenchfry / 2005 [28 minutes]

 

Paralleling, in many respects, Alexander Payne’s Election (1999), Sissy Frenchfry (Steven Mayhew) represents the status quo at West Beach High, where even the most outlandishly fem boys such as Sissy and his transvestite girlfriend Dana Aquino (Justin Dabuet), this year’s Prom Queen, another openly gay couple who decide to get married, and the Frenchfry cheerleaders who ineffectually cheer on their always losing team demonstrate the new normal.

     Enter this film’s version of Election’s Tracy Flick in the form of the retro heteronormal Bodey McDodey (Ross Thomas). He convinces even the reluctant Georgia Peach (Laurie Meghan Phelps) to consider opening up her legs and mouth, whispers hopes of winning into Coach Bob’s (Richard Augustine) ear, and tosses around the promises of large sums of money his father will award to the school to Principal Principle (Leslie Jordan) if only he agrees to return the school to proper heterosexual normativity by outlawing the lesbian cheerleaders and pulling away several of the prime positions in school affairs that Sissy Frenchfry currently holds.

     Even more importantly, Bodey decides to run as Student President against the popular, friendly, and quintessentially cute, smiling Frenchfry.

       Now I know that there is currently a revisionist view about Alexander Payne’s portrayal of Tracy Flick, who is now recognized as a sort of off-the-road feminist attempting to challenge the old boy sexual network, which includes the teacher Dave Novotny who has groomed Tracy (Resse Witherspoon) as a sexual object, his friend Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick), and their supported student body challenger Paul Metzler, the dim-witted but highly likeable football player. But I still find Tracy totally unlikeable, all too normatively smart, and utterly predictable (despite the fact that in the updated vision we might get of her in the forthcoming Election sequel). 

     And so too is Bodey totally despicable, despite his somewhat refreshing attempts to renormalize the world of totally correct thinking Frenchfry and his fryettes represent—enough so to make even the usual bullied figure such as the gay boy Sissy turn violent and provide his new competitor with a bullying-like slug in the jaw.

      Of course, everyone turns against Frenchfry and is convinced that perhaps finally West Beach High might receive a needed building do-over—promised from Dodey’s daddy—and actually win a football game!

      Bodey’s speech, filled with Trump-like promises, might actually get him elected! But never fear, Sissy returns with guns loaded, or rather cameras running, as he reveals Dodey’s sexual goings on, his serpent-like hisses into Coach Bob’s ear, and his promises of his Daddy’s money to Principal Principle, which we soon discover, is the result of crooked dealings which will get him arrested. Sissy admits that he even he was tempted to violence as well as ignoring the advice of his best friends. So, we now see, how easily the right can put its foot back in the doorway. Fortunately, director J. C. Oliva and his writer Joe Brouillette’s vision of that reality is easily redeemed as Sissy turns on his smile, greets each student like an old-hat politician, and wins his fourth year as Student President. 

     It’s hard to imagine that the director and the writer of this truly silly fantasy would, just three years later, would produce the truly dark and moving portrait of the incestual love of two brothers in his memorable 2008 film, Brotherly. That, based on a real event, might even wipe the silly smile off Frenchfry’s face.

 

Los Angeles, November 2, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (November 2023).