outness
by Douglas Messerli
Hard to imagine, three short films
of 2020 were titled Out, clear evidence, it seems to me, of the
remaining potency of the “coming out” second generation genre of films
beginning in 1998. The very variety of these three works, moreover, suggests
just how pliable and expressive this genre remains. The first of these and the
first I saw and reviewed, Irish
actor, writer, cinematographer and director Zac Goold’s Out is a truly
comic work that, as I suggest, might almost be a gay vaudeville routine, had
there been such an animal.
And finally, US-born Michael Blanchard’s Out, one of six short
films he made this year, is a true drama, with a strangely fortuitous twist,
allowing a least a ray of hope for the boys involved in this attempted outing.
The last of these, in fact, challenges the entire notion of the endlessly
described process as being an easy maneuver which all young men today should
engage for the sake of their relationships and future happiness. Although I
have written about far more tragic consequences, the ending of Blanchard’s film
is potent enough that we have to question whether sitting down to discuss the
issue with one’s parents is the right tactic to advocate in all cases.
Nonetheless, the three of works catalogue the ritual as scores of short
and longer films have done since the early days of LGBTQ cinema, even if the
early version of “coming out” films was generally far more ritualistically
proscribed and negatively expressed. At least today almost all families
everywhere know what it means to “come out,” even if the reactions to the event
radically vary. And quite obviously the “coming out” film, even in an age of
presumed general acceptance, is the most popular genre through which to
describe the LGBTQ experience, suggesting that the realization, the discovery,
or the revelation of one’s personal sexuality is still the central and most
important aspect of the LGBTQ experience.
Apparently, if in many Western countries homosexuality and bisexuality
have grown to be generally accepted modes of behavior, someone forgot to tell
the individuals who most suffer in their discoveries that they belong to those
very categories of behavior. And no matter how we may think of ourselves as
sophisticated about sexuality, the very idea of “outness” still desperately
matters and probably will as long as there are adolescents and closeted adults
who suddenly face the urges and meaning of their sexual desires.
And, of course, I should repeat the obvious: these three films with the
word as their title are not the only films of the many of this year that were
centered upon this subject.
Reprinted from My
Queer Cinema blog (July 2025).
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