Michael Saul | Go-Go Reject / 2010

lightweights

by Douglas Messerli

 

Heath Daniels (screenplay), Michael Saul (director) Go-Go Reject / 2010 [20 minutes]

 

I’ve now seen Michael J. Saul’s short film Go-Go Reject 3 times, and each time it reminds me of the October 1990 Saturday Night Live skit with Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley, Chippendales. The major differences, obviously, are that the lead character of this short film, Daniel Ferguson (Heath Daniels), has the opposite problem of Farley, he’s too skinny. And Daniel is trying out for a gay audience as opposed to a faithful flock of mostly heterosexual women.

     Daniel and a friend Matthew (Matthew Bridges), attending the Los Angeles gay Akbar one evening, notice that although all the go-go boys are pretty to look at, very few of them can dance. Daniel’s friend suggests that he should get up there himself and dance since he’s far better than of these boys. But then both agree that the current group were probably chosen for a number of other assets, namely their larger and more defined body parts.

      Yet Daniel feels inspired by the suggestion and soon after he announces to his fellow Yogurt World employee Becky that he’s going to be a go-go dancer. Her response is perfect: “Oh, that’s fascinating because I’ve always imagined you slithering on a dirty stage whoring yourself to old grey-haired men. If you need money bad, I can loan you some.”

      Daniel asks Becky what she wanted to be on career day in high school, she responding a dental hygienist. “Then why aren’t you one,” he inquires, she responding, “Who the fuck aspires to be a dental hygienist? I just told them what they wanted to hear.” Becky argues she still doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life: “Why do you think I’m dishing up yogurt to soccer moms and homosexuals?”

       Daniel wanted to be Jennifer Beals in Flash Dance, which pretty much establishes the level of this nice dumb kid’s imagination as he becomes determined to live out his dreams, going from one gay club to another as he tries out for what really amounts to showing off his ass and cock, neither of with which Daniel is well-endowed. Being nobody’s fantasy haunts this twink.

       Daniel tries working out in a health club but how do you build muscles out of skin and bones? But there he does run into Cesar (Korken Alexander), a dancer at the Glory Hole, from where Daniel has already been fired. Cesar befriends him, offering up the names of other managers at gay clubs.

       Soon Daniel and Cesar are taking long runs together, kissing in the park, and basically getting it on, which should be more than enough to calm Daniel’s dancing ego. But Daniel keeps trying, even after one of the owners, Mr. Mojo (Drew Droege), calls him “an emaciated, tapeworm infected midget.”

       Finally, Daniel gets an idea to host his own show, gathering up a space, music, a choreographer, etc. he forms a new go-go unit titled “The Lightweights,” advertising not just on the street but inviting all the club dance managers who have rejected him as well. Is it a hit? The director and his cast, making no comments, ask the audience to judge.

       This charmingly empty-headed career fantasy is not for cynics like Becky or probably even me, but I noticed Becky selling tickets at the door, and I—as I already told you—have seen it in triplicate.

 

Los Angeles, June 19, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (June 2023).