the gay romantic
by Douglas Messerli
Benjamin Morgan (screenwriter and director) Meet
Joe Gay / 2000 [25 minutes]
Director Benjamin Morgan would like to make a
gay romantic fairy tale, but, at 27 the longest relationship he’s ever had
lasted only 3 months. So why hasn’t he found his Prince? Why has he failed on
gay relationships? And why this interest in gay fairy tales?
Toggling back and forth with the fairy tale he’s attempting to film and
the questions he asks of himself along the way, Morgan tries to get to the
heart of his romantic failures.
In
search of answers Morgan revisits his past boyfriend, Kevin, who he strangely
asks to talk about their relationship when that was what he most complained
about Morgan in the first place. “Everything was a big talk. Can we talk? There
was this constant need for reassurance.” On his part Morgan remembers that
Kevin wouldn’t describe them as “dating”; they were simply “spending time
together.” He couldn’t even call him his boyfriend.
They’ve now become good friends, but Kevin is also brutally honest,
remembering their sex as being only “okay,” not great, but just “okay.” The
honesty and opening-up eventually hurts Morgan’s still fragile ego.
So
Morgan goes to his wise friend Richard to see if he might help with some of his
problems. Richard thinks one of the problems is perhaps that Morgan uses a lot
of “products,” meaning make-up and facial creams (not “tools” or “toys”). We
have already noticed that the director had applied a dark tanning color on the
lower part of the face while seeming to forgot the top. In any event, Richard
feels that perhaps that gets in the way, that Morgan is sort of looking at
himself over his shoulder, so to speak, trying to be someone he physically is
not.
Morgan, accordingly, shows his make-up artist and audience his
“routine.” As someone who washes his face and combs his hair at most, it does
appear to me to be quite ludicrous, Morgan himself suggesting he recognizes of
the absurdity of it all. “But I do it anyway,” he adds as if that explains his
obsession to use makeup in the manner of that I always thought absurd—even of
women, but particularly with regard to men.
He
goes home to see his parents because they have what he believes is fairy tale
romance, every day each of them trying to make the other happy. In fact, they
appear to be a truly loving couple. His mother suggests his expectations are
far too high and, although her son believes
himself to be receptive, he truly isn’t. And
both parents seem to suggest that there are parts of him that simply haven’t
matured yet.
Even Morgan agrees that he may be trapped in adolescence, reiterating
why most of his audience quickly discerned, that anyone at 27 who still
believes in fairy tales has some growing up to do.
In
order to see if he can get some of his “adolescent funkiness” out of himself,
he decides to throw a gay slumber party, which seems to be the most adolescent
of all his interests in the film up to that point.
Together they discuss gay behavior, commenting on how many gay men in
their late 30s are still going out every night and doing drugs as if they were
in their 20s, with a friend commenting that today’s gay boys openly break out
of adolescence in their late 30s when they began to think about relationships.
In the streets of West Hollywood, he gets reconfirmation of these views.
Many of the young men came out relatively late, one at age 24, another
30-some-year-old admits he didn’t come out until two years ago, while a
40-some-year-old laughs, suggesting he never came out of “it,” that he’s the
biggest kid he knows. Obviously, the very problem of coming to terms with one’s
own sexuality late, delayed by the cultural and social pressures to remain
heterosexual, themselves impose delayed adolescent problems. There’s so much catching
up to do, as one young man complains.
Suddenly I recalled my own youth, remembering that many of peers married
right after school and others even during their last year having impregnated
their girlfriends. By the time that I came out at age 20 they already had
four-year-old children, while I still needed a least three more years of wildly
enjoying my sexuality that I had just finally uncovered, and probably would
have remained in the exploratory mode much longer hadn’t someone like Howard,
my 53-year-long husband, who I knew so closely shared my intellectual, moral,
and cultural values that I couldn’t dare to let him out of my life. I did find
the right person, if not a “romantic prince.”
Almost all the young men he interviewed felt they were still “catching
up” on those lost years of not being able to except the sexual desires one
felt.
And there are other problems. Most young gay men don’t date in high
school, or at least seriously date. Accordingly, the appropriate behavior of
meeting and getting to know another person has never been learned. Indeed, I
think if one might carefully explore the subject, we would discover that gay
men don’t at all behave with each other on their first meetings the way
heterosexual couples do. There is far more honesty perhaps, but also a deeper
sense of insecurity since the rules of gender dominance and behavior has little
sway in gay world, except at its extremes.
What Morgan also notices (the year being 2000 when this film was made)
is that younger boys of 17 and 18 were forming easy gay relationships that
didn’t seem possible to his own generation. He interviews a couple of boys he
taught in his summer film program who began just as “best friends” and quickly
fell into a natural, loving relationship that was not readily possible for
those who would not come to terms with their sexuality for several years in the
future. When asked where they see themselves in 10 or 20 years, these young
teenagers describe themselves still being together, almost unthinkable for
those entered the scene 5 or 10 years beyond their current ages.
Back at the slumber party Morgan and his friends also discuss the fact
that as gay men they have no parameters, no definitions that help define or
demand rules and structures to their relationships. Gay men generally do not
begin a relationship by looking to raise children together, or even imagining a
family. Moreover, almost all of them do not know other gay men in their later
30s and they almost all agree that know no older person in a relationship. They
have no one to speak to who might advise them or stand as models to a permanent
relationship.
What doesn’t get discussed, moreover, is that these men have a much
smaller pool in which to seek out others than do heterosexuals. The number of
gay urban individuals is tiny compared with the heterosexual world, even in
cities as large as Los Angeles. And one quickly gets to know most of the
bar-going individuals available of one’s own age group.
Joe Gay (Nicholas Downs), the Cinderella-like figure who begin Morgan’s
fantasy romance, has a hard time in even climbing onto the Prince Charming’s
(Joe Domenico) horse.
Morgan finally visits an older gay couple who have been together for 41
years. They explain how they met, a kind of fairy tale story of its own. And
for Morgan, the couple are living his fairy tale.
His “wise” friend Richard suggests that gay men have to get used to the
possibility that they may never meet anyone who wants a permanent relationship
with them. And there is a way to accept that by realizing that living alone
also has its advantages. It’s certainly better than cursing one’s life because
it didn’t turn out as you expected.
The older gay couple admit to the world I know so well: they fight
endlessly, describing themselves as “The Bickersons”—which clearly dates them,
given that “The Bickersons” was a popular radio show beginning on NBC in 1946,
and continuing of CBS until 1951, starring Don Ameche and Frances Langford, who
argued throughout each show. Even though the elderly gay couple claim they
still kiss good night before going to bed and kiss each other each morning,
there are still sometimes, suggests one of them, that you want to take a frying
pan and knock the other over the head.
Morgan admits that he has never bothered to imagine what happens after
his Prince Charming and Joe Gay get home and settle down for the night. He
admits that he had cast his friend Kevin as Prince Charming, but the role Kevin
wanted to play was just “Kevin.” Morgan had tried to make him a “boyfriend”
more than attempting to get to know him as a friend.
Perhaps, Morgan ponders, he’s simply not cut out for a relationship. To
be 27 years old and never yet been in love, particularly when he considers
himself such a “romantic” says something about him. The myth, perhaps, has
become more important than the reality, the idea taking prominence over the
experience.
The thing that almost all of Morgan’s slumber party friends most fear is
to be old and alone. But what they aren’t taking into account is that even if
they met Prince Charming and lives a long full life of happiness, the same
ending is a likely possibility.
All of those of older age or in relationships in this film, suggest
Morgan stop trying to find someone with whom to have a relationship, to relax,
open himself up to pleasure, enjoy another person, have sex, hang out, and let
happen what will happen.
But even after all of that, the director of this work cannot let go of
his concept of Prince Charming. Although he hoped that the film might provide
an epiphany, it didn’t anymore than his daily scanning of his world reveals the
perfect person. He cannot that quickly give up his adolescent myth, which like
his daily make-up routine, he knows is absurd but cannot cease.
Los Angeles, June 24, 2023
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (June
2023).
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