Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Superbowl Exposed: The real reason they couldn't show a ManCrunch commercial...

Between the butt shots from below of the players, to the butt shots of the men in the Dockers Superbowl commercial, showing a spot for ManCrunch would expose just how truly homoerotic football is.

Sunday Morning Short Film: Yossi and Yasmin

This beautiful little Israeli film of remembered queer adolescent longing and desire is sweet and sad, filled with yearning that aches with with the mixture of love and sensuality.

I love the way it tells the story indirectly: what happenened to the young gay boy and his young lesbian friend with their respective love interests, and what happened after the kiss...is left to the imagination. That makes for a good discussion post film, and I'd love to know what you think...

Queering the Icon: Marilyn Monroe, Dean's Scotch and Yasumasa Morimura

The image of Marilyn Monroe standing above the subway grate as a gust a air blows her dress up high is an American cultural icon of the 20th Century. Nicholas Roeg's film, Insignificance, opens with the the filming of this famous scene in The Seven Year Itch re-imagined from the POV of the film crew — and the man under the grating who turned on the fan. Roeg's film, far from camp, is among other things a meditation on the prison of sexism: my favorite scene in that film is when Monroe, with the aid of toys bought at F.A.O Schwarz, explains the theory of relativity to its author, Albert Einstein.

In the ad below, this image is appropriated once again, in the service of selling Dean's Scotch:

Created by a team at Scholz & Friends NRW in Germany, their explanation, at Adsoftheworld.com notes that:

"Dean’s Whisky is especially mild. Which is why it appeals not only to rugged guys. The advertisement’s unusually humorous, feminine look and feel are designed to arouse the interest of a new target group and raise awareness of Dean’s Whisky above and beyond its loyal customer base."

Arouse the interest? Who is this new target base? Is this ad running at gay magazines in Germany? In women's fashion magazines? Inquiring minds want to know.

Scotch is one of the few hard liquors that retains an aura of masculine privilege. This might have the effect of undermining their image with the base customer. This isn't to say that I don't like the ad. I think it's hilarious and playful. The image of a man in a regimental kilt uniform is hardly fey. There is every possibility that the core consumer for this product is secure enough so that if they saw this ad they'd laugh. Then again, because this is a "mild" Scotch, it might not have very much of a base with the traditional Scotch drinker, so that an effort like this won't hurt.

I wonder what Marilyn would make of it though. Or what she'd make of the photographs of Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura. I first saw an exhibit of his self portraits at the Saatchi Gallery in London: images of the artist in drag as Marilyn, Audrey Hepburn, Garbo, Liza Minelli. You can see the photos on the gallery site, where the question is asked:

"Morimura is more than just art's most famous drag queen. Dealing with issues of cultural and sexual appropriation he is constantly exploring ideas of image consumption, identity and desire: Can Brigitte Bardot be as innocently flirtatious with angular Japanese features? Would Marilyn Monroe be as sexy if she was Japanese - and a man?"

Having lived in Japan where I both enjoyed and endured drag acts where these Western film icons were portrayed by Japanese men, I was less interested in the questions posed above than the questions around Japanese identity and the effect of Hollywood and American cultural dominance on the traditional Japanese sense of beauty. I am curious about what the reaction to images is in the debate/discussion about the feminization of Asian men in the West within the Asian and gay Asian communities.

Within the discussion of constructed femininity, Morimura throws a light on the minstrelsy of Marilyn; how her image was just as much a creation out of the fantasies of men as Thomas D. Rice's blackface Jumpin' Jim Crow was a creation out of the fantasies of white men in the 19th Century of black men. 

Good grief, I hope to God I am not turning into a queer theorist. Ewww.

ManCrunch and Millions of Dollars of Free Advertising

Hey, I'm a gay man in the ad business. A single man, seriously looking to find a partner to settle down with. So I like to think I know what online dating services are out there — and whether they're any good or not. Except that last week I learned about ManCrunch — without them spending a dime on media advertising. That doesn't mean they weren't on the airwaves, or all over the net.

As just about all gay men who pay attention to media representation know, ManCrunch submitted a TV spot to CBS for the SuperBowl. They had to know it wouldn't be accepted. I doubt they even had the budget to run the spot even though the company claims they offered a cash payment. But the attendant media firestorm around the submission and turn down got the spot play on websites and cable TV comedy shows nationally.

This is a brilliant strategy of playing the media. And Reuters nails it in a story about ManCrunch and GoDaddy. Now if there were only a brilliant strategy to find a guy online for something serious. And believe me, I'm not looking for someone who wants to watch the Super Bowl with me. Unless it's to fast forward to the advertising.

China, Sex & Censorship: Celebrating Gay Men in Beijing, Dealing with Discrimination in Ulaanbaatar

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 13^th 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:

 

'Behind the Blue Sky' - Short film from Ual Da on Vimeo.

'Beyond the Blue Sky' Interview with Brandt Miller from Ual Da on Vimeo.

Seeds of Gay Love Sprout Even In the Most Hostile Soil: A Review of the films "Eyes Wide Open" and "The Brotherhood"

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.

Trailers for both films follow...

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Under the stars...

The final frontier...

Is Facebook Going Amazon On Us? Social Networking, Homophobia, Advertising and Censorhip

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. 

How hot are Bertolli Oven Baked Meals? When two sexy men kiss, it's really hot.

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.

The Peggy Noonan Problem

In the Wall Street Journal, the woman who put pretty words in the mealy mouth of a man who ignored tens of thousands of Americans dying in the 1980s (she was Reagan's speechwriter for those who don't remember), Peggy Noonan, has just written: 

But increasingly people feel at the mercy of the Adam Lamberts, who of course view themselves, when criticized, as victims of prudery and closed-mindedness. America is not prudish or closed-minded, it is exhausted. It cannot be exaggerated, how much Americans feel besieged by the culture of their own country, and to what lengths they have to go to protect their children from it.

I am sorry Ms. Noonan if you feel besieged. I would agree that there is much in the media that is crass, disgusting and hateful. Like Glenn Beck's racism for example. I don't notice you wasting any ink on him. 

If you want to talk about feeling besieged, ask all the lgbt people who were victims of hate crimes this last year. 

Please, spare me your mock outrage. 

I don't disagree that we could use more civility. Start on your side of the fence please. Thank you, and excuse me.