New Gay DVDs for a New Year
By Chris Carpenter
Gay and bisexual men long have used “butch” and “straight-acting” to judge the perceived masculinity, or lack thereof, of other men and their own masculinity. Such terms have provoked debate within the LGBT community; however, not everyone uses those terms…at least, not to mean the same things.
The Butch Factor, released by Wolfe Video, delves into this ongoing struggle to identify what makes one more or less of “a man.” Filmmaker Christopher Hines scoured the United States for examples of men who represent the masculine end of the gay spectrum. He found police officers, rodeo cowboys, actors and athletes who define themselves as more straight-acting and less effeminate than other gay men. They aren’t all anti-femme, and their masculinity seems natural rather than an act.
Hines also interviewed a handful of less-masculine gay men for perspective and balance. For them, their effeminate characteristics are innate and not something they consciously adopted. As one of them notes, no man would want more feminine traits if we truly had a choice in the matter.
The Butch Factor ultimately reveals that long-standing social mores and gender stereotypes are more to blame for the prevailing desire for more masculine traits in a partner, even among gay men. While the movie doesn’t settle many arguments, it is an interesting exploration of this enduring debate.
Pennsylvania-based Breaking Glass Pictures recently debuted two films on DVD through its QC (Queer Culture) Cinema subsidiary. The first, Lucky Bastard, is by out writer-director Everett Lewis of The Natural History of Parking Lots and FAQs fame.
It tells the story of Rusty (Patrick Tatten), a successful Los Angeles-based house restorer who after a few hours of sex inexplicably falls in love with a gorgeous, but dysfunctional, hustler named Denny (Dale Dymkoski of Law & Order: SVU). Rusty has a devoted, equally successful boyfriend but apparently can’t resist shirtless, meth addicts who hang out in liquor stores.
The usually reliable Lewis falters here as the result of under-developed characters, so-so acting and too much sympathy for his screwed-up protagonists. Sure, many of us have been attracted to someone we tried to “fix,” only to learn how impossible it is. Once you’ve been there and done that, it’s hard to feel anything but disdain for the likes of Rusty and Denny.
QC Cinema’s other DVD release, End of Love, isn’t exactly a feel-good movie, but it is more artistically accomplished than Lucky Bastard. The film was an official selection at Outfest 2009 in Los Angeles and was well received at several other international film festivals.
Chinese filmmaker Simon Chung (Innocent) follows the exploits of Ming (Lee-Chi Kin), a 22-year-old Hong Kong man who falls fairly eagerly into drugs and prostitution. Once arrested, Ming is sentenced to the New Life Center, a Christian reform camp whose less-than-subtle director tells Ming upon his arrival, “Everyone who passes through that door is a new being in Christ.”
It doesn’t take long for Ming to hear the siren’s lure of temptation, both toward forbidden cigarettes and forbidden love with his sponsor, Keung (Guthrie Yip). The seemingly straight Keung later invites Ming to live with him and his girlfriend following Ming’s release from the camp. Needless to say, trouble ensues.
Like Lucky Bastard, End of Love focuses on characters with addictions and co-dependency. Chung, however, resists rewarding his unhealthy subjects with awesome sex and immediate, soulful connections. Ming, Keung and other characters are more believable precisely because they aren’t model-gorgeous.