beauty queen
by Douglas Messerli
Hannah Hilliard and Greg Logan (screenplay),
Hannah Hilliard (director) Franswa Sharl / 2009
[14 minutes]
Greg,
who is more comfortable singing and dancing, is a big disappointment. Even as a
pre-pubescent, he is apparently well on his way to facing difficulties in high
school sports, has no evident sexual inclination for girls, and might even
possibly have some gender confusion. His mother, Fran (Diana Glenn) dotes on
him, but Mal is endlessly disappointed and loses bet after bet with Mike Bishop
(Steve Le Marquand) on swimming races and similar sports challenges in which he
insists the boys engage.
Fortunately, the next event on their Fiji vacation is a beauty pageant
which he is sure that his daughter Kylie (Tiarnie Coupland) will win, even
though she is equally certain that Wendy will come in first, she perhaps in
second place.
Desperate to find something which might please his father, the cute
young blond boy decides he will enter the beauty pageant himself, and somewhat
as a joke makes a prank call to register his name in the contest, pretending to
be a French beauty, Franswa Sharl (François Charles).
Cassie, in love with Greg wants a kiss, but he will give it only if she
lends him her best bikini outfit to which she finally agrees. Catching the play
of their shadows against a canvas wall, the Logans suddenly have hope that
their son might after all be somewhat normal.
Suddenly a young girl come all the way from France is announced, and out
of nowhere appears a beautiful blonde, with a flower in her hair, dressed in a
stunning red bikini. Mal discovers Franswa is Greg only through his camera lens
and is ready immediately to put a stop to the nonsense, but Fran demands he
stay put.
In fact, the judge quickly announces Franswa as the winner and Bishop
pays off the bet, Mal proudly winning his very first of numerous bets on his
family members. How can he not be strangely proud of his lovely son? Cassie is
sure he won only because she loaned him her best bikini, and he admits it,
handing the floral crown over to her and thus pleasing everyone.
Through broad comic tropes, this colorful film hints at a great many
issues faced by young gay and possibly transsexual boys and their families
without bothering to really explore the deeper issues. Indeed, at 12-years-old
who’s to say Greg will actually grow up to be gay?
Of course, most any gay man remembers that at 12 years of age he already
began to know that somehow he might not fit in to family expectations.
Los Angeles, December 12, 2022
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (December
2022).
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