the ideal man
by Douglas Messerli
Adam Baran (screenwriter and
director) Love and Deaf / 2004, 2005 general release [8 minutes]
Adam Baran’s eight minute Love
and Deaf is, unfortunately, one of too many LGBTQ short films based on a
two line gag, this beginning with a question: “What do you do with a Chatty
Cathy?”—the camp phrase for a partner who just can’t stop yakking based on the
blonde haired, blue-eyed Caucasian doll born into the Mattel Toy Company family
in 1959, who lived a mere six years in the arms of young girls throughout the
US.
Joe (Rich Delia) is a cute gay man who has difficulty ending his
sentences even while his lover Brad (Brett Hemmerling) is performing fellatio.
So fed up with the constant discussions of invitations, previous boyfriends—who
obviously suffered his previous bouts of logorrhea—and whatever passes through
his lover’s head, Brad determines to leave Joe in the very first moments of
this work, frustrated that even while he attempts to describe the problem to
the boy he thought he loved, Joe pushes back with further regrets and
explanations, promising to stop talking. He later says to himself, “I don’t
talk so much. If anything I don’t talk enough.” Enough said.
When he observes that the man in the next stall is signaling with his
finger through the open glory hole, our talkative babe-in-the-woods, not
missing a verbal beat, responds “Hey there. Something you need?” The appearance
of lips and tongue planted up against the hole doesn’t quiet him as he asks, “Are
you sure?” The finger signals him on. But even then his tongue finds no pause,
“All right, I’m sending it your way,” as he finally unzips his pants and places
the penis into the hole for which was created.
To his surprise and, perhaps for the first time in his life, the sex is
so very perfect that the can only groan in pleasure. “Wow,” he declares, “that
was amazing! Seriously man I’ve had blow-jobs before but that was incredible.
That was the best blow-job I’ve ever had!”
The next line is this little film’s reward: “Hey, you wanna go out some
time or do you just do bathrooms?”
Only silence greets him. But finally a
small card is pushed through the hole—drumroll for the second line of the
skit—“Dear Sir, I am deaf. Thank you for everything. Have a nice day.”
At the very instant that Joe reads the
message, the stranger bolts out of the bathroom, Joe in pursuit. He chases down
a park path and eventually runs into an entire group of handsome young men
gathered in two rows, a tour guide on their side who tells Joe as he signs,
“Wherever you were, you made everyone wait. Next time please be quicker.” The
camera pans to one of the group whose tea-shirt reads “Queers without Ears.”
The impatient tour guide speaks and signs yet again: “Are you coming or aren’t
you?”
Our flabbergasted hero pauses, looks
again at the group, and smiles, joining in their tour recognizing the
red-cheeked handsome boy as his bathroom friend. Speechless for the first time
in his life, Joe takes the hand of his new boyfriend and walks off with the
others in perfect bliss.
This trifle might be the perfect match
for a double-billing with Robert Fiesco’s short David of the same year,
which features a gay boy who can hear but cannot speak.
Los Angeles, February 19, 2021
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog
(February 2021).
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