terror of love
by Douglas Messerli
The most popular of all stories is the “coming
of age” work. We are all fascinated and destined—one might argue almost
structured by our DNA relating to the survival of our species—to be committed
to narrative structures that tell us about how a young person of 16-20 comes to
terms with the world, her or his gender, sexuality, cultural values, and the
significance of the surrounding world. Only such stories reveal whether or not
we will survive not only as a species, but also as individual cultures, families,
and smaller social units. If that moment when the young person near adulthood
is a challenging and engaging one with positive consequences, or if that sudden
encounter with a world larger than the self, family, and school peers is smooth
and pleasant we can be hopeful for a new generation of individuals; if we read
of severe trauma, perceive that a majority of individuals are faced with fear,
terror, or possible disintegration we might imagine that the next generation
will be facing difficulties which may infect the society as a whole.
Even when we are not reading such narratives for what they mean for our
children, adults often read them to compare their own memories of those very
moments they too abruptly were forced to come to terms with who they were and
what they believed, whether different or similar to their parents and families.
Have things over time become better or worse for young people at that age; or
is the story always basically the same?
In
truth, we must recognize, it can never be the same. For each being is original
in how they adapt and each individual is forced to adapt differently depending
upon the values and the openness or closed-mindedness of those around him or
her, whether we are talking about their local communities or—if they have gone
to college or moved away from where they were raised—the new communities in
which they must now attempt to integrate themselves. No matter how many points
of similarity we might find between our own lives, each story is inevitably a
different one—which also makes these tales, thousands of them in existence, so
utterly fascinating and maintains our interest in them.
And, of course, for any child who discovers that he or she no longer
shares his or her parents’ or communities’ religious beliefs, political views,
racial attitudes, or social customs, coming to terms with that fact will be far
more problematic than in the case where the individual simply acquiesces to the
status quo, even while realizing a myriad of subtle personal differences.
Indeed, it is to those big differences to which we generally look when engaging
in such literature. A story about a young person who grew up in a wonderfully
loving family whose child can find nothing major with which he or she disagrees
is not at all interesting if we are truly engaged in something beyond
self-confirmation. Generally, we look to see how a person of 16 to even 20
deals with the acceptance and expression of those differences in answering the
questions I expressed in the first paragraph. If our sons and daughters cannot
find it within themselves to accept the differences they feel within or cannot
find a way to tell others of what their personal values truly are, we might
naturally feel that something is wrong, that our children have been subject to
a too narrow-minded an emphatic upbringing and, even more importantly, a
single-mindedness of the broader culture.
And if our offspring cannot truly accept what they feel within
themselves or cannot tell others about those differences they likely will never
feel happy or be able to function in the society as a whole being for they will
have denied or canceled out that self simply by being unable to speak it. Even if every parent might wish that their
children grew up to share most of their own values, anyone with imagination
cannot believe that will be the case unless one has decided to raise automatons
instead of human beings.
How
we, as members of a larger society, might help these frightened individuals
come to terms with their own thoughts and emotions becomes a question which
always arises when reading several such narratives—which may also explain why
some people simply dislike this generally popular genre.
No
matter how accepted they may or may not be by their own parents or
schoolfriends, on the other hand, LGBTQ children, simply by definition of their
having been born as a minority in a generally heterosexual, gender-conforming
society must naturally face these “transitions” quite differently from everyone
else. While evaluating the same issues with regard to religion, race, politics,
and social customs as all of their friends, they must also deal with the question
of their sexuality that for their peers is taken for granted—another kink in
the already complicated series of knots to untie before they can comprehend who
they are.
Even more frightening, often for young people of this age the coming to
terms with sexuality immediately involves not just themselves but someone else,
another person to whom they have been attracted or with whom they have explored
sex who has helped them realize their own sexual difference. In coming to terms
with their own private story they are also, in other words, often telling the
story of someone else who may have greater or lesser confusion, fear, or even
terror of these issues with which they have come to terms.
If
straights have wondered, accordingly, why queer filmmakers and storytellers
write so many stories about “coming out”—the phrase generally used to describe
an LGBTQ individual’s coming to realize and finally accept sexual feelings
different from most of his or her friends—one need only imagine the complexity
of the situation for these young folk. As a sub-theme of the vast “coming of
age” narratives, the “coming out” tale or movie explains to the homosexual, bisexual,
transsexual, transgender, or simply questioning individual what it means to be
sexually different and the numerous consequences that may entail.
As
I have documented in these volumes of My Queer Cinema when artists first
begin to explore these subjects on film the typical “coming out” story not only
was required to be somewhat coded and dream-like since any film about sexuality
and all films about non-heterosexual behavior were outlawed, but was often filled
with images of guilt and a sense of hopelessness. The few filmmakers who dared
to express such feelings on celluloid—independent movie makers such as Curtis
Harrington, Kenneth Anger, Jacques Demy, Gregory J. Markopoulos, James
Broughton, and others—might have been described as dangerous to themselves and
the society since their films often ended in defeat and death. Is it any wonder
that that those others might have been able to properly “read” them they also
perceived that the films might have been (and often were) confiscated or
refused to be shown in public theaters? These pioneers were symbolically
opening up their own lives for others to inspect and evaluate.
By 1987 the young characters of British director Robert Tonge’s Two
of Us who struck out on their own seemed full of self-acceptance and
fearless about the adventures they might meet, and by the late 1990s the
“coming out” films such as Get Real and Edge of Seventeen (both
1998) which inaugurated the second wave of such US films, seemed like honest
appraisals of the difficulties their heroes had to meet while offering a far
more positive belief in acceptance and personally coming to terms with the
sexual differences than in the works of the earlier generation. Get Real
even attempted to speak of the consequences the hero’s self-acceptance had upon
others still unable to make the leap.
One might have imagined, accordingly, that by the next century, some 30
years after Stonewall, such a genre might even have seemed unnecessary, or at
least not of as great significance for the LGBTQ community.
But in fact, the genre has not only continued but as grown to be even
more popular. In story after story, we continue to read just how difficult it
is still for young 16-20 year-olds and even individuals who haven’t been able
come to terms with their sexuality until later in their lives to personally
face themselves, their peers, and, in particular, their families with the
truth.
A
pattern seems to have been set which no matter how openly accepted LGBTQ
individuals are by the society at large, and despite the embracement by many
countries of gay marriage and a feeling that such formerly sacred institutions
such as gay bars, homosexual sex clubs, and large gatherings of exclusively
LGBTQ individuals feel less relevant today than they once did, it is still
extraordinarily difficult for task many young people to fully accept their
sexuality.
For a long while now I have wanted understand why. Why do films such as
Danish director Christian Tafdrup’s Awakening (2008), German-Czech
director Marcus Schwenzel’s Brotherly Love (2009), Spanish director
Venci Kostov’s The Son (2012), and French director Olivier
Lallart’s Fag (2019)—all variations of “coming out” stories with
dark consequences and generally with sad endings—still exist? There seems to be
a disconnect between the general cultural view of the LGBTQ experience and the
feelings of youths still locked within smaller social units of family, school,
and antiquated sexual laws.
In this essay, accordingly, I explore, almost at random, six short films
from several different cultures that were released during the past years when I
have writing on queer cinema, 2014-2020, in order to further explore these
concerns.
Los Angeles, January 5, 2022
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema (January
2022).
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