Eric Rosen | Netuser / 2021

nightmare

by Douglas Messerli

 

Eric Rosen (screenwriter and director) Netuser / 2021 [15 minutes]

 

Although this short film by Eric Rosen was released in 2021, the film seems so current as to be uncanny, and is absolutely terrifying for those of us like me who write on political issues and are also gay and writing on LGBTQ+ issues. Where do are our rights to speak out and the need to delimit our public conversations meet-up. Is self-censorship worse in its cowardice than possibly endangering our lives and those of others.

    Although I have published on-line numerous analyses of our current failure of a president as well as daily posting essays from my on-going study of gay cinema, I have had to come to the realization that there are many wiser, more informed, and more capable writers than I with regard to politics, and I have backed off from writing my reactions to Trump’s everyday antics.

 

   But the character in this movie, Peter Sardovski (Denis O’Hare), published as Peter Sardovsky, has written at least two books about politics, focusing, in part, on the political ramifications of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King and well as another concerning gay politics and history: Perfect Union, The Act Up Revolution, and Radically Queer. He hosts a regular podcast. And, incidentally he is married to Jack (Claybourne Elder), the two of them raising a boy, Joey, now about 2 years of age.

     Peter has also just had a horrible nightmare wherein the first gay presidential candidate has just been assassinated, and unlike the other assassinations he has covered and lived through, instead of the startled and more unified country coming to a momentary standstill, no one seems to even be interested in pausing their daily activities in order to discover who has committed this horrible act. The dream suggests to him that we are so caught up in our internet and other daily activities that real politics no longer have any meaning. Because of our perceived differences and the disunion of our society we can no longer act up or even act out or shock and grief.

    He tells his dream to his loving partner Jack, as the latter also goes about caring for their son, snapping pictures of the crawling child for internet posting. In a sense, Peter’s terrible nightmare

falls on semi-deaf ears even in his own house.

    Peter determines to tell this dream in his daily podcast, but his assistant Jenny (Titiana Wechsler) argues that his crazy warning cannot be posted, first of all because it’s racist. The very idea of comparing some crazy, paranoid dream he’s had with the assassination of Martin Luther King is absurd, she argues. Moreover, she argues, does he really want to put this up there suggesting that such a gay presidential candidate might be killed. “Everyone things of it, we all thought that about Obama,” he comments. Jenny cannot also imagine that being a gay white man can possibly be conflated with concepts of civil rights—a viewpoint that also leads him on to want to post it, at least, on social media. Jenny also warns him against doing that, reminding him that it’s a “quick turn between provocative and cancel.” But such a principled and outspoken individual cannot resist it, and proceeds to do just that.

    Immediately, his world truly does become that of a paranoid; having already had death threats, Peter wanders the streets and subways wondering if people are reading his posting and connecting to him as a real person.

   It comes to fruition as he returns home to find his front door unlocked and his husband and son missing. They have escaped and gone into hiding at Jack’s sister’s apartment warning him not to use his phone.

    Peter has discovered that one of his acquaintances, perhaps even a dating-site friend has given out his telephone number, and by the time Peter arrives at Caroline’s (Johanna Day), his posting has been seen by more than a million viewers, as Caroline suggests, 1.7 million people that hate you. “It isn’t just your life,” she insists. “Look, these are really weird times. People are furious. Whoever did this, why do you think they would want to target you?” Caroline wisely warns that they both must rid of their phones. Jack argues that if he were trying to control the world, this is precisely what he would do. I would get people like us angry and scared so we couldn’t change anything.” Peter adds, “That’s what King said. If you want to prolong slavery, get slaves to turn on each other.”

     As Jack suggests, there are two Peter’s, the one he knows and the one on line, who is somebody else. Peter refuses to remain at Caroline’s place, returning “home” only to receive a message from Jack demanding that he immediately open up the news. It reads: “Candidate Assassinated.” There is a heavy pounding at Peter’s door before the film’s blackout.

 

Los Angeles, September 7, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2025).