Cristian Sitjas | Catboy / 2023

catwalk sex

by Douglas Messerli

 

Cristian Sitjas (screenwriter and director) Catboy / 2023 [31 minutes]

 

If you ever for a moment imagined that black, Hispanic, and other cultures involved in performing ballroom drag and voguing “walks” as made famous in the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning and several other films, books, and media representations is separate from the sexual, the Spanish director Cristian Sitjas’s 2023 Catboy will certainly set you straight—or perhaps I should say veer you off the racists’, heteronormative path you may have been following with your absurd presumptions.

    Catboy begins as a fairly normal short film in which a young black boy of mixed race is scrolling through the messages left on his dating app, quickly growing depressed in how many of the other scrollers have banned blacks, Asians, sissy-boys, thin fem boys, transsexuals, and numerous others from being of any interest to them. Our young hero, Marc (Panterino) might be said to fit any number of these racistly “banned” categories which suddenly seem to be shouting out to him as headlines that deny his very existence, most certainly if he was hoping to meet up with anyone with the intention of enjoying sex.

    At the last minute Marc receives a message from his transsexual friend Cacao (Cacao Diaz) who is about to strut down the walk in the ballroom that night and commands his presence.

    Marc attends, hiding out in a hoodie as his gloriously dressed and flamboyant friend not only does the catwalk but wins a trophy.

     When she perceives that Marc is down and out, she pastes a few glitter flakes under his eyes and checks out his cellphone, discovering the heart of his misery. Forcefully, she demands that he enter the Catboy Sex Siren category that very night, knowing that with his smooth sinuous moves he’s sure to be a winner and, of nothing else, showing off his body in front of such a receptive audience, seeking out the just those differences that even the gay world has rejected, he will surely be lifted out of his funk.

    Cacao doesn’t suggest, she insists he go on, and digging into her carrying bag, she, like every transsexual I’ve ever encountered the movies, has just the right costume for him to wear for the performance.

     His category is announced, and first up is Leo (Javier des León), from the House of Fire, dressed up with the wings of an angel. After a strut or two down the catwalk, Leo gets a look at his competition and Marc witnesses Leo’s appreciation and approval, as the movie counts down the moment from 10 seconds to zero, at only 8.5 minutes into the film, turns into something that no one might have expected.

     Whether it be a pure fantasy of Marc or Leo or a kind of preview of what really happens after the contest, the film can’t wait as for the next 19 minutes it morphs into what can only be described as a very artful, but anatomically revealing of gay sex including what is clearly a real-time, live depiction of fellatio, ass-licking, and anal intercourse along with several variations of positions. Better than almost any gay porn movie I’ve seen for a long while, this little gem brings together these two beautiful men, white and black, for a hot session that include the transmission of sweat and semen as if it were truly a lusciously colored Visconti or Borowczyk movie.

     It returns, as expected to Marc’s sensuous trot down the walk with Leo trailing behind almost as the ghost of love to encourage his amateur actions. This night, Marc wins a trophy, and presumably the special gift of a good fuck.

    This short movie can be said to represent a piece of filmmaking that, depending upon the viewpoint of the various attendees will be said to be half empty or half full, or in some rare cases, like my own way of seeing it, fully present with what is at the heart of any LGBTQ cinematic depiction. Is it really a porno film dressed up with some of the décor of a voguing film or is it a film about alternative expressions of LGBTQ sexuality that gets distracted by the attraction of its two catboy competitors? I’d argue that it’s neither, but a true expression of what the central character is really seeking in his strut down the catwalk. Only this film doesn’t pretend but gives its all, a pretty boy dance and the award that dance is truly seeking: a glorious sexual encounter, just as pretty to watch, if not more, to what the foreplay advertises. But then most of us in the good ‘ole USA have difficulty perceiving sex as a performance, let alone a performance of art.

 

Los Angeles, November 26, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2025).