The big China story this
week is Google blowing the whistle on cyberspying and censorship. This is of
personal interest to me because I chat online with a gay Chinese man in Chengdu
every week, and there are subjects he doesn’t know about, and things he doesn’t
have access to.
Once I found myself cutting and pasting the sentences from a
censored story into the chat window so he would know what I was writing about.
But of course, this was risky business and he made it clear he didn’t want me
to do that in the future — our conversation is simply about gay life in the US,
since in Chengdu it isn’t anywhere near as open as it seems to be in Beijing,
where this week, what is billed as an officially sanctioned male beauty pageant (you can see a video of these shirtless young men here). I suspect my friend in Chengdu can't get to this video link however.
Late Breaking Development That Should Be No Surprise: Police Shut Down The Pageant — Full Story Here.
That's a sea change from
just a few years back when homosexuality was a criminal offense. Bu then, in a
country where a one child policy and the preference for male children has led
to a male/female ratio that makes it hard for a straight guy to find a wife,
taking the pressure off gay men from marrying as cover just might help a
little. In fact, it also helps take some pressure off the regime, since a
country with several million frustrated young men has got to feel like a powder
keg no matter who is in power.
I have no idea what's
behind the ruling Communist Party easing up on things in Beijing, but it's
still not easy if you're in the provinces. And I’m not just talking Chengdu.
Mongolia for example. If
you're in NYC this month, stop by the LGBT Center on 13th Street — in the lobby
there is an amazing exhibit documenting the lives of LGBT Mongolians living in
the capital city of Ulaanbaatar.
Beyond the Blue Sky,
created and produced by Brandt Miller, includes amazing portrait photography by
Miller and Mareike Günsche and a film by Miller and Sean Devaney.
The photographs are
intense and dramatic. While some of the men in these photos are shirtless, each of the subjects’ faces covered by a khadag — a
ceremonial scarf made of a sacred blue cloth representing the eternal sky and
used at funerals to wrap the head of the deceased.
Each photo is accompanied
with an oral history — a life story of each subject, transcribed by Miller
— that captures the universal longing all lgbt people feel, that all
people feel: the need for love and intimacy that is not merely recognized, but
celebrated.
Miller, who was in
Mongolia on a Fulbright Fellowship, was a co-founder of the first LGBT Center
in Ulaanbaatar.
The exhibit will be on
view at the NYC LGBT Center on 13th Street through April. If you go
there regularly as I do, take some time to stop and see it all. If you don’t go
to the Center, consider stopping in. There are so many groups that meet there,
and social services provided, it can be easy to overlook the fact that the
Center is indeed a central arts resource for the community too.
Here is a video interview with Miller, followed by the video documentary made with Sean Devaney:
I remember my first trip to the Bodhi Tree bookstore in L.A. — I spent an hour sitting cross-legged on the floor reading Bodhi Leaves, the thin chap books printed by the Buddhist Publication Society. I left that day with two shopping bags worth of books that I couldn't find anywhere in New York City. Even Weiser's the venerable occult book shop and publisher in NYC didn't have the titles I found at Bodhi Tree.
Of course, business is off because many of the books sold there are now available at most Barnes and Noble stores. And if you can't find it brick and mortar, it's always found online. In fact, one of my favorite little chap books from BPS is now available free online, along with dozens of other Bodhi Leaves at the BPS website.
While I am happy that the information is more easily found by those who seek it, I will miss the community aspect of the store, where conversation with the owners and staff was always a doorway to a new discovery — and a heartfelt connection happening in the moment. And I am happy for the owners, who, faced with declining sales find that the property sale will provide for them now that they are in their 70s. Still, I find myself wondering about the future of the book community. And the future of browsing — since so many of my discoveries came from browsing titles and sitting cross-legged on a floor in a bookstore.
Then again, as one teacher of mine once said — you already have the tools, now you have to use them. So I guess I should be spending more time sitting cross-legged on the floor without a book. Watching phenomena as they arise and pass away.
Imagine a movie about two men who live in an extremely
homophobic, yet highly male-identified community. These two men are deeply
involved in their community — a group that gives them an identity, a place in
the world, a way to understand everything. Yet these men find themselves so
powerfully attracted to each other that they are willing to risk their
position, their friends, family, their deepest beliefs and even their lives to
be together. Have you seen this movie before? Yes and no.
Two new movies explore this rapidly growing new cinema
motif. Because while this paradigm could well describe the plot of Brokeback Mountain,
it also describes one movie that takes place in an enclave of ultra-orthodox
Jews in Jerusalem and a second that follows a relationship that unfolds between
to members of a band of neo-Nazis in Denmark.
Yes, where the ultra-orthodox Jews and neo-Nazis find common
ground is in hatred of queer people. So oddly enough in the last year we saw
two movies released that tell stories as parallel as the photographs of couples
in these such outwardly different groups.
The Brotherhood, which won the top prize at last year’s Rome
Film Festival, follows the story of Lars and Jimmy, two young, angry and
rootless young men in Denmark whose passionate hatred of immigrants (and gay
men — the film begins with a disturbingly real gay bashing scene) turns to
passion for each other. Eyes Wide Open, which can be seen in New York City at
the Jewish Film Festival on January 19th at the Manhattan JCC, tells
the story of Aaron and Ezri, two ultra-orthodox Jewish men caught in the
claustrophobic world of the Haredi in Israel. The parallels between the stories
are unsettling, but at this point should not be a surprise.
These parallels are simply be the sign that there is a
pattern to this kind of story that, like the films of an earlier generation,
will be revealed as a kind of forbidden romance motif. And of course, the
father of this new generation of gay forbidden romance films is Ang Lee’s
Brokeback Mountain, which also takes place in the male-dominated community of
cowboys.
Like Brokeback, in both of these films one man is the
experienced initiator — the Tempter template if you will. And like Brokeback,
they follow a very similar trajectory. In some ways, all these films are like
Harlequin Romances in their strict adherence to a form. Of course, you know a
Harlequin Romance, with all its twists and turns will end happily. But
following the Brokeback pattern (and considering the communities these stories
take place in) I won’t be spoiling anything to tell you not to expect a happy
ending in either of these films.
This is not to say the movies aren’t good. Both of them are
quite good in fact. And this isn’t to suggest you won’t be surprised or left
with questions at the end of both these movies — because the endings are not
quite as clear as all that. They are both well worth seeing, and you’ll have
the chance to see Eyes Wide Open (which was an Official Selection at Cannes) in
New York this month.
Another reason to see Eyes Wide Open is Ran Danker, the
Israeli pop star who plays Ezri, a homeless youth who has been expelled from
his yeshiva for obvious reasons. He has a hit song in Israel called “I am Fire”
and I believe it. Yes, he plays the tempter Ezri in Eyes Wide Open, a young man
expelled from his yeshiva and cut off by his former fellow student and lover.
Ezri, sleeping on the streets, is taken in by Aaron, a
30-something butcher who has a longing in his life that he feels is connected
to the fact that he couldn’t devote his life to Torah study. Ezri shows him
that this longing is for something else.
The beauty of this movie is that it shows both the goodness
of the orthodox community and its dark side without judgment. We meet the
hooligans of the “Purity Police” who are nothing but Taliban with tzitzit. We
feel an increasing hostility, claustrophobia and danger as a community that was
once embracing and filled with caring and charity turns on one of its own.
For those who aren’t familiar with the intense male bonding
in orthodox communities, this movie captures the spiritual intimacy between men
that can be the result of this bonding. And who doesn’t long for spiritual
intimacy, gay or straight?
Unlike the Brokeback template, when Aaron and Ezri’s
relationship begins, Aaron is already married with several children. His wife’s
pain in this situation is played exquisitely by Ravit Rozen.
The relationship between the men does not survive this
pressure cooker environment — but the ending is more ambiguous in what becomes
of Aaron. And will inspire conversations as to the intent of the filmmaker and
its ultimate meaning.
In The Brotherhood, Lars is an outsider — a young man
whose military career is shut down because as an officer he is accused of
sexually harassing his subordinates, he finds himself shut out of the male
community he joined. Rootless, and angry, he turns to a neo-Nazi group, where
he meets Jimmy. Another interesting parallel between the films is that the
ostensibly straight man discovers his passion for the other in the water —
Aaron and Ezri at the mikvah, a ritual bath, and Lars and Jimmy in the ocean. Both
films capture all the fear, tentativeness, shame, vulnerability and passion
that can be so much part of a first male/male relationship.
Lars knows he is gay — and joins the neo-Nazis anyway, and
tests the limits by talking about Ernst Röhm, the homosexual leader of Hitler’s
Brownshirts, and who was murdered by the Nazis in a party purge. He openly
courts disaster. This is also true of the couple in Eyes Wide Open, though of
course, not by praising Nazis.
It would have been easy to make a film about sex between men
and Nazis a sexploitation film — just putting the words Nazis and gay sex in
the same sentence creates a kinky quiver for some. But just as Tabakman, the director
of Eyes Wide Open, treats the orthodox with a sense of balance, Nicolo Donato
doesn’t go for cheap titillation here, but uses the subject for a deeper
exploration of the fear and desire that exists in masculine camaraderie.
It won’t be easy for reviewers to avoid sensationalizing the
subject matter of these films, regardless of how hard the directors have worked
to make deep statements about human nature, longing for God, longing to be part
of something larger than the self, longing for tenderness and vulnerability in
a world where expressing that need is dangerous. But it would be a disservice
to the filmmakers and their audience.
I had an odd sensation towards the end of Brotherhood that
was exactly like the feeling I had watching Birth of A Nation for the first
time in a theater. Griffith manipulates his audience so that it’s hard not feel
like cheering the Klan at the end of the film. And in Brotherhood, while you
won’t feel like cheering the Nazis, you will want to see Lars and Jimmy escape
the prison they’ve walked into eyes wide open to live happily ever after. The
cruel twist that prevents this happy ending will leave a gay audience gasping
in a whirlwind of confusing emotions. This is a powerful film.
Both films, as foreign productions, move at a speed that may
not be comfortable for American audiences more interested in characters
rendered in 3D but that have no more reality than the bytes on this screen. And
while not a display of modern computer graphics, both of these films are beautifully
shot. For those who are willing to experience difficult emotions these are
richly rewarding films that should be seen. Eyes Wide Open is about to open for
limited showings at two local NYC festivals. No telling yet if Brotherhood will
find a U.S. distributor when it plays at the Palm Springs Festival this month.
If it does, don’t miss it.
Gay activist and prolific author, Perry Brass, finds that his latest book, The Manly Art of Seduction, has been banned from advertising on Facebook. This is peculiar, since I've seen advertising for male "massage" therapists on Facebook who offer services that are not part of the licensing process. Not that I am in favor of FB posting those "massage" ads. If you're looking for that sort of think you know where to go. But Perry's book is not of that order. It's about how men connect with men — energetically, romantically, spiritually, physically, emotionally, sexually. And since you can buy it on the famously messed up for gay writers, Amazon, FB shouldn't have a problem with it. But they seem to, as noted here at Out In Jersey.
Meanwhile, if you're interested in learning some of these skills first hand, Perry's got a workshop in NYC on the 20th of this month at the Center. I imagine it will be a lot of fun — and enlightening on many levels.
If you saw the hilarious gender-twisting, smart-alecky Fagette, you'll recognize Katz — the performer in this video, and the mind behind the mischievously named Athens Boys Choir. Here though, after playing with gender roles and identity in Fagette, Katz is playing with Jewish identity, continuity, cultural connection and of course, gender. For me, it's a not as successful than Fagette, but then, how many gender-deviant, multi-media, spoken-word/homo-hop, roller-skate fantasy date music videos do you get to see? And out of that rather miniscule list, how many make you smile? So smile, and enjoy:
Elderplan is a supplemental Medicare plan that runs advertising in NYC — advertising that while fairly easy to follow for those eligible, displays a shocking insensitivity. If you've ever worked as a telemarketer — if you've ever had to take a job cold-calling people or taking 800 number calls — you know how hard it can be, and how employers try to keep you on your headset without a break, regardless of biological, physical or psychological needs. So when the spokesperson on this commercial, after delivering the sell, turns around to see one of the phone reps getting up, her response is "Hey, where are you going?"
And while this might convey to the target that they'll get through, there's no waiting on hold for a rep, it also conveys the messages that this employer — and Elderplan — has little care for the needs of its employees. Which leads one to question how they might really feel about thetheir customers when they're in need.
I have no idea what the copywriter, the agency or the client thought when they made this spot. But as both a copywriter — and a former telemarketing rep — I am offended. Pardon me, Elderplan, but your Shadow is showing.
Yep, in this TV commercial for Bertolli (running exclusively on Logo) there's a sexy kiss planted on the cheek of the "hero" of the spot. The fantasy sequence is fun, and the reality our hero comes back to is even better. Three cheers for Bertolli and Unilever. I know whose pasta I'm purchasing.
