square peg in a round hole
by Douglas Messerli
Hieu Tran (screenwriter and director) Squared
/ 2014 [15 minutes]
Tate (Yamil Jaiman) and Wally (Ethan Le
Phong) have been communicating via the internet for some when they finally meet
up at a local bookstore.
Both are high attractive young men, who obviously lust after each other
the moment they enter Tate’s apartment. Tate has medical degrees and Wally is
determined to soon finish his education, after a late start due to circumstances
out of his control as we later discover, with the intention of setting up an
apartment as nice as Tate’s. That’s the moment we first perceive that these
near-perfect young men—Tate also seems to be a wonderful cook, regularly serving
up an extra plate for which no one ever shows up—are more than a little
competitive of the old fashioned school concerned with masculine pride.
Finally, when they get down to bed time activities it turns out that
both men are tops! A disaster so gay films even today proclaim.
Frankly, I’ve never quite comprehended the whole top/bottom issue since
I just like sex and enjoyed both positions. I do understand that some men are
simply afraid of the anal pain and can never get beyond the first two or three “pains
in the butt.” But really the issue of where you put your body having something
to do with dominance and submission just makes no sense. Bottoming is truly every
bit as pleasurable as topping, and neither position has ever meant that I feel
more masculine than the other guy.
When Tate and Wally, on the other hand, discover
their predicament, they attempt to find various nonsensical solutions to demand
their topping rights: muscular definition, cock size, and finally a wrestling
competition which Wally wins. Eventually, of course, such ridiculously macho
and old-school heterosexually-learned values turn into what they truly are, a
kind of racist blur, in which Tate brings up the ridiculous trope that all Asians,
so he has heard, are bottoms.
But then, Tate has utterly no comprehension of Asian reality,
confounding Koreans with Japanese and not even imagining that Wally might be a
Vietnamese orphan who found a loving Texas family. Ultimately, when they
actually begin to really discuss the various backgrounds and childhood loves,
they find they have a lot in common and return to bed, if not for sex, at least
for a beautiful night’s sleep in one another’s arms.
Tate even rises early to fix a beautiful omelette, which again is sent
to the garbage when Wally, playing the standard “fuck ‘em and leave ‘em” role, gets
quickly dressed and hurries out the door.
He has, however, left his red good luck envelope, a common Asian custom,
for his newfound friend. And sure enough, Tate meets another young Asian man, Brad
(Kevin Tan) at the bus stop. As he moves in to help him play a new video game, we
can be assured that he will ask the essential question: top or bottom. And
perhaps this potato and rice combo will go home happily ever after.
But, no thank you, I’m tired of macho and racist stereotypes even when
they are meant to satirize the situation. In the end, these men seem so
superficial and dumb that as buff as both of them are, I wouldn’t even bother
to try to get to know them. And Hieu Tran’s film alas convinces me I’d have
stormed out long before it got to making bodily comparisons in order to
determine my worth.
My advice to Wally: “Honey, you want somebody
to fuck and after to share and slurp up your salmon and pasta, go pick up a girl.”
Los Angeles, January
2, 2026
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog
(January 2026).
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