Jason Karman | Lions in Waiting / 2017

rookies

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jason Karman (screenplay and director) Lions in Waiting / 2017 [17 minutes]

 

The plot of Canadian director Jason Karman’s 2017 short, Lions in Waiting is so simple it’s hardly worth recounting. A young high school hockey player Ray (Taylor Kare) has just moved with his widowed mother to a new town, where as with all sports competitors he’s greeted by the team leaders with a great deal of suspicion, despite his excellent credentials from the school in Calgary which he’s just left.

     His proud mother (Valerie Sing Turner), having lost his father, almost clings to him with affection, cornering one of the fathers, Kirk (Andy Nez), of two champion players Peter (Derek Kesseler), captain of the team, and Shelby (Zac Bran). Embarrassed by her bragging Ray is even more abashed when she pulls out boxes wrapped cupcakes on account of his birthday.

     But Ray is sensitive in more ways than perhaps even his mother knows. He has arrived late to practice, for which he is reprimanded by the coach, for having been looking at cellphone photos of gay boys his age.

     Evidently, the new boys are forced to wear red sweaters instead of the white team shirts worn by the others, and from that evidence in the first scene there appears to be another boy that’s just joined the team as well, a new goalie, Jeff (Jason Lindner) whose name is never spoken in the film. 

     Back in the lockers the seasoned team players pull down the two “rookie” boys to the floor, rub their faces against it, and piss on them, checking out Ray’s cellphone in the process, the one who discovers it shouting out, “Oh my god, this kid’s got a habit.” Although they clearly sense that he may perhaps be gay, one whispering in his ear “hey pussy…you might actually like it,” the major cry is “This is what happens to “rooks,” boys, presumably mocking their status as new team members.

     Soon after, the coach (Bob Frazer) discovers the video someone took of the hazing episode has been posted on the internet and has gone viral. He’s furious since it’s not only against school rules, but makes the team look bad—although the major actor of the group, Shelby argues that it’s just part of the tradition and, more important, it was fun and funny. The boys who were hazed are not amused, and neither is the coach who suggests it’s not funny, it’s degrading. When Shelby admits that he posted it, he is suspended from the team.

     Now the pressure on Ray is even worse as his teammates purposely push, shove him to the ice, and basically try to injure him to test his determination.

      At home, Ray’s mother worries about her brooding son, reminding him that his playing hockey was something his father wanted, “the choice is yours, hon”—although we already have caught a glimpse of her pride in his playing the sport as well.

      It is no different when they play another team. At one point he is shoved so hard to the floor that it looks like he may not be able to stand and continue the game. But he does finally get up, the coach asking if he wants to sit out the rest of the game, Ray suggesting he’s fine and will remain on the floor.

      As the new round begins, the referee signals Ray to join in the first huddle, another of teammate’s having evidently fouled for moving before the whistle. Ray not only takes the puck under his control, but wins the game for his team.

      His mother, waiting for him outside the locker room wonders why he is so late. Obviously he was celebrating with the others. She is taking him to a celebration dinner, she announces, but he bows out telling her he has other plans.

   

     Those other plans evidently involve the other shy boy Jeff, the two planning a date, made evidently when Ray encountered his profile on one of the sites he frequents. They kiss each other deeply and drive off, Ray obviously having been able to overcome the bigotry of his teammates and bring out his friend with him.

      The film attempts, obviously, to relay a feel-good attitude toward young gay sportsmen, suggesting they too can overcome the homophobia of the locker room if they are tough enough and can attend to their game.

       The only problem is that Karman’s film seems muddled at times, and its values muddied. At several points the “abuse” that we perceive might simply be perceived simply as a testing of mettle of a new teammate, and even the locker room hazing is fairly mind, not truly involving violence in the traditional sense, but once more testing out the new boys to figure out how they might fit in with the team rapport.

      The fact that Ray is homosexual is obvious only if you catch a glimpse from a sideways glance at the picture on his cellphone and quickly can recognize it as an almost nude boy advertising himself one of the gay dating services. Ray is apparently still closeted, although it is clear that is loving mother might easily accept the truth about his sexuality. If he hasn’t told her, we can only wonder why.

      But there is no time, amidst the hockey floor activity to truly develop any of these characters deeply. If his teammates are aware that he is a “fag,” they never mock him for his sexuality or call him names, but seem to accept just as a “habit.”

      And we hardly imagine that Ray has made any remarkable breakthroughs in simply being able to score, the very reason why he probably was invited to join the team.

       We know so little about his friend, that we cannot guess that Ray’s acceptance has also encouraged his friend to succeed, as the film commentary suggests.

        We should be grateful, in fact, that the homophobia in this film is simply hinted at, and may, in fact, not exist at all, the boys simply going through the process that all closed societies do in deciding whether to permit entrance to new members.

        It would be interesting to have discovered what the director felt was so very significant about Ray and his teammates’ behavior that he needed to make a film of it. Even the coach recognizes that his response is based on the changes that schools have undergone and that in his day such a hazing incident would have gone unnoticed. He feels compelled to suspend the stupid braggart who seems to have no regret for his actions, but he doesn’t feel necessarily worried about it, and doesn’t react at all to the way Ray is treated rather brutally on the ice since that seems to be, in part, what the game of hockey is all about. Even he describes their race across the ice and full speed ending in a sudden halt as a “suicide skate,” presumably because an inexpert player might simply crash into the glass.

       And finally, the coach himself seems to be aware of the new boy’s sexuality. Catching him in the bathroom posing shirtless for a picture with his cellphone, he simply suggests he put away the phone and turn his attention to the game at hand. In this Canadian high school, at least virulent homophobia appears to be pretty much under control.

 

Los Angeles, November 13, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (November 2022).