James Nguyen | Beard the Lion / 2010

fear and violence

by Douglas Messerli

 

Chris S. Bryant, James Nguyen, and Cristian Quintero (screenplay), James Nguyen (director) Beard the Lion / 2010 [23 minutes]

 

Marshall (David Stanbra) and his younger brother Mouse (Jason Thomas) run a music shop in a conservative Orange County California community. This might not mean anything to most people, even liberals living within such a closed-off world except that Marshall is gay, in a relationship with Nicki (Louie Millican).

     The two brothers and their shop are faced endlessly with the homophobia of local punks such as Vinny (Travis Hammer) and his friend Todd (Hart Turner), who challenge the younger brother and the older through constant attempts to exchange products which they’ve sold and, after Todd observes Marshall and his boyfriend kiss one another in a local diner, scrawling across their shop wall “Die Filthy Faggots.”

     The brothers and Nicki might be fine except, we quickly learn, Marshall is himself a violent man, ready, with crowbar in hand, to meet up with the likely perpetuators, Vinny and Todd, only to be stopped by Mouse and Nicki, the latter of who threatens to leave Marshall if he goes through the door.

     Fortunately, Marshall backs down and, later, helps his brother Mouse wash off the graffiti.

   The tension between the violence of both the local homophobes and Marshall, in fact, is what compels this highly watchable short film.

     And we quickly realize that the shop is the center of their life as we observe the two brothers bedding down for the night in the store itself.

     At the local diner, Marshall is again taunted by Todd, who throws a wrapped condom onto his dinner plate, in reaction to which, despite Mouse’s attempt to control him, results in a child-like showdown, Marshall suggesting that Todd’s father might need the condom far more than he, especially when he fucked his son. Clearly the battle has now brewed to a full steaming kettle as the restaurateur throws them both out.

      Mouse leaves his brother in disgust over his brother’s violent reaction. It is clear that Marshall, coming out in the homophobic world of Orange County, has not resolved his own personal issues.

In a scene between the two brothers that needs far more elaboration to help us understand these two figures, we suddenly are told that Marshall has spent time in prison, and that his brother, for reasons undisclosed, but clearly related to some fears he has suffered, has given up playing the guitar, despite the fact that he continues to compose new music.

      We don’t fully know what has happened with regard to the brothers, but surely it involved other incidents of fear and violence, the two valences of this movie.

       In the very next scene, moreover, we move forward in the current violence of Vinny and Todd, who show up to the shop and threaten to beat up Mouse before they finally settle their score with Marshall. Mouse is so passive, however, that he is left alone. But the threat is there, and just as they are about to leave, Todd cannot resist slugging Mouse.

     Nicki, first to give aid to Mouse, determines to call the cops. But when Marshall returns he simply demands to know what happened. This time even Nicki’s attempt to stop his lover from going after the homophobic monsters ends with Marshall slugging him as well for his attempts to hold him back. The violence from both sides of the street is now the issue. Mouse, although wanting to succor Nicki, hurries off “after” his hot-headed brother in order to save him from the inevitable confrontation.

       Marshall beats Vinny as he pushes forward to find the abuser of his brother, Todd, Mouse following behind to witness his brother’s rush into self-destruction. But he is more than one step behind, following Marshall back to their shop, where he finds his brother comatose from the fight he’s evidently had with Todd. In his arms, Marshall dies.

    In a totally mindless anger, Mouse goes in search of Todd, finding him with Vinny, already packing to leave after what he’s done. This time the pacifist pulls out his brother’s gun, threatening the both of them, and finally pistol-whipping Todd, beating him apparently to death. He threatens beyond that to shoot him in the face, but Vinny assures him that it’s over, and Mouse throws down the gun, now apparently ready to be arrested for a murder of his brother’s murderer.

    Friends and family in this Orange County drama become like the figures in West Side Story, forced to join up in gangs to protect and revenge the love of their dear ones. Strangely, however, this is much more a story of a kind of incestual brotherly love than the homosexual relationship of Nicki and Marshall. The revenge and retribution fall on the head of the innocent, would-be pacifist Mouse rather than the truly violent villains. The hate he now shares is, after all, what happened to West Side Story’s Maria?

     The original phrase, “bearding the lion,” has in roots in the Bible story of David, who as a shepherd confronted a lion to whom he had lost a lamb, catching it by its beard and killing it. Hence it now means basically to “confront a danger or take a risk.”  

     But alas, in this case it seems merely to be an act of terrible revenge, albeit the revenge, strangely enough, of a straight boy attempting to protect his elder brother from homophobic hate.

     What we truly long to know is how these two boys grew up, who where their parents, and how did violence and hate so significantly embrace them that they could no longer escape it. Despite James Nguyen’s powerful portrayal of gay anger and homohysteria, we feel the need of a backstory, an explanation of how these two loving brothers have come to find themselves locked into the situation in which this film’s narrative begins.

 

Los Angeles, October 2, 2023

Reprinted My Green Integer (October 2023).