Stef Smith | Joy Boy / 2018

the queen

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jonny Hawkins and Stef Smith (screenplay), Stef Smith (director) Joy Boy / 2018 [9 minutes]

 

While his parents are busy chatting it up at a dinner party with their current pastor (Paul Capsis) and his wife, little Johnny Hawkins (the child version played by George Holahan-Cantwell) grows bored and wonders off. His mother, missing him, calls after him to know his whereabouts, using their pet name for him: Johnny Joy Boy. Their evangelical pastor mouths his usual cliches, “God has a plan, God has a plan.”

    Their “Joy Boy,” however, returns soon after in one of his mother’s blouses to sing, in memory of Marilyn Monroe’s infamous and embarrassing performance for John Kennedy’s 45th birthday celebration in 1962, her “Happy Birthday” song. He is utterly charming, Australian Cinematographer reviewer James Cunningham describing it as “one of the best performances of the entire festival.” Although, his mother (Alison Bell) giggles throughout, the others all look rather aghast, perhaps their pastor almost ready to choke on his words of God’s plans.

   In the very next scene, we see a group of young people singing with evangelical spirit, headed, quite surprisingly, by a grown up Johnny, now going under the name of Johnny Flash. He now speaks in almost double-talk, asking is congregants to repeat after him, “I am blessed to be a blessing.”

    But when he repeats the phrase, demanding his members repeat it with more enthusiasm, we hear the words, “I am blessed to be a filthy fucking faggot,” Johnny awakening from what appears to be a nightmare in tears.

     This is not the happy little boy of those years before. This time the performance is most clearly disingenuous. He pauses along at the ocean, considering his situation. But in the next scene we watching him kiss a young woman named Felicity (Stef Smith), evidently his girlfriend. She expresses her love, but it takes a few minutes for he can respond with the same statement.

      She expresses her love, but it takes a few minutes for he can respond with the same statement.

In he shower, with remnants of glitter on his neck and a rather large necklace, Johnny seems obviously to be suffering again, tortured by his dual performances in life.

     Soon after we see him at what appears to be a group conversion therapy session, where a terrible effeminate man tells that its impossible to be cured of the way he talks, but Pastor Roberts, he claims, has done such a good job of healing him from homosexuality, that he has change his orientation, despite the residue. God gave his voice and wrist, he proclaims, “but what he did not give me was lust and want of a man’s touch.” He asks them to close their eyes, asking them to lift their hands at the count of three if they still struggle with same-sex attraction. Johnny raises his hand.

     But during the wait, we have already seen Johnny, who has still been attending the clubs and having sex with other men, admits in prayer that he can no longer go on as he has been doing.

     And in the very next scene, we see a completely different Johnny at the beach, made up partially as a man in drag. A young girl sees him as a princess, and asks if he is one. He answers, with a smile, “No honey, I’m a queen!” He smiles in joy.

 

Los Angeles, November 2, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2026)