Thijs Verhoeven | Ruben / 2012

gay films for straight kids

by Douglas Messerli

 

Hans Arendshorst (screenplay), Thijs Verhoeven (director) Ruben / 2012 [14 minutes]

 

The Dutch film Ruben represents yet another sad situation of high school bullying, made to help students, presumably, develop empathy for boys like Ruben (Erick Brons), who mildly walks through the school halls without even bothering to verbally speak up for himself as his peers mock him and eventually, when they actually photograph him kissing a boy he’s hooked up on the internet, beat him. At least, in this instance, his parents eventually show some sympathy.

    Do such educational films really help or just exacerbate the situation, perhaps even providing the bullies with a few new tactics and reaffirming their notions that being queer is definitely something to feel depressed about?

    There have been a number of gay movies where the young boys have used their verbal dexterity to turn the tables, so to speak; but of course, not all or even most 16- or 17-year old gay boys attempting to come to terms with their sexuality have yet discovered a language with which to define what they feel, let alone defend themselves against such bullying tactics, which evidently are something learned by straight boys at home or taught at school by an errant coach. Although I later learned that my father was a homophobe, he never taught me, I thank him, to hate anyone different from myself.

      Even though I am certainly now a man of language who can more than stand up against any queer taunts—something fortunately I experienced seldom in grade or high school, since simply being different was hard enough—I am sure that as a kid I would have had no way to logically defend myself or even stand my ground. I was called a “homo” a few times, but I didn’t really know what a homosexual was; just something I certainly didn’t want to become.

     The real problem here, that seldom gets talked about, is that given the atmosphere of youthful hostility against being different, it is also hard for any other being like you to want to chance a relationship. Although Ruben meets a perfectly nice boy is his age, Mike (Karim El Kadi), with whom he might have shared his fears, rid himself of loneliness, and even begin to learn how to love, he isn’t given a chance to develop the friendship without further abuse. In my day, gay boys his age could not even imagine that anyone else their age might also be having similar difficulties regarding sexuality; today the internet making it far easily to reach out and find that there are others.

    Yet, as this short film reveals, that is often not enough since if both boys feel the pressure to keep below the radar, they lose out all those years on what their straight peers practice nearly every day: how to find someone compatible and how to engage in social and sexual relationships with others. Queer kids lose out during all those years as they lay in wait to escape to different worlds where they might begin that process; but they’ve missed out on one of the most important things about being young, learning how to fall in love and how survive the inevitable skirmishes and breakups.

    If straight kids may fall into the trap of thinking they have found their perfect other too young in their lives, discovering years later that perhaps marrying their high school sweet hearts delimited their experiences and choices in a life-time companion, gay kids must start four to six years after all the others while facing a much smaller pool of possible mates.

    If sex seems of inordinate importance for many young gay men in their early 20s, it is in part because they’ve never been able to experience it in their teens. I needed a year in New York with a new sex partner nearly every night just to get the joy of sex out of my system.

     No “educational” films that I’ve seen are really aimed at queer kids. They’re mostly just a pitch to heterosexual girls and boys to tread easy with us weirdos because, “after all, we’re really no different from them.” But we are different. In this case Ruben is forced to care for his sister because the parents can’t afford a babysitter. And while that may help him to be a good father later in his life, he will never have a chance to learn how to be a good lover.

    What bullies do is not just scare budding gay boys from walking down the halls of high schools and gymnasiums throughout the world, they temporarily steal these boys’ (and girls’) lives away from them, putting everything on hold for a time “when things get better.” Actually, things won’t be better if you don’t learn even how to go out on a date, become thrilled over the presence of another human being, and maybe even try out a sweet kiss or a good fuck. Jumping into the gay bar scene in college or a large urban center is bit like tossing a newcomer into a room of seasoned whores and saying, go to it kid. Go to what?  

    Maybe that explains why today in so many gay films the knowledgeable “out” gay boys are already seeking husbands to hook up with, as if marrying, now that it’s legal, was the natural course of things. It seems to me that instead of another gay narrative for straight kids we ought to be thinking of educational films for gay girls and boys, and, in particular, for bisexual guys who have to learn how to find that rare individual who is truly open-minded about all kinds of sexual possibilities.

     That said, Ruben is not a bad movie, but is simply a sad one. The poor boy in this film simply must put his life on hold, even if those intolerant trolls of the hallways should one day decide to leave him alone. When they describe him as a loser, they don’t know how much they’ve contributed to that fact.

 

Los Angeles, December 6, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2025).