too long
I update this beginning at 11:59 on the 10th of December 2005. A lot has happened since my last entry, I had my first audition that my agent got me, for Full tilt Poker. Didn't get it or anything, but hey, first time is a big deal, and it felt pretty good regardless. Jon was here, interviewing for a job at Sony Imageworks, which he got because he's a fookin smart and talented bastard. They will essentially pay his way into settling in Los Angeles, which is ridiculous and amazing. So, much joy and excitement that way. Amber also visited, which was a delight as always. We hung out and had a grand old time. We also went to Fiesta Cantina with some other zeta alums and took part in the delicious 2 for 1 margarita happy hour. This was fine...except one of the alum was hitting on me all night...and at first I liked it and thought it was cute, it was that sort of play fighting you do to initiate flirting and such goings on. This however did not proceed as normal and the playful nastiness merely intensified, I would liken it to the little boy pulling the pigtail but instead of running, continuing to yank at it and then possibly kicking. It was unbearable and made me uncomfortable to the point that I abandoned the party for a time to visit with Dane, John, Miguel, and Albert who were nearby and whom I hadn't seen in a good long while. The annoying thing is I had found this guy cute at the beginning of the night and then he acted like I was a nasty bitch when his incessant cattiness didn't seem to be doing the trick. Ugh.
Today however I saw Brokeback Mountain. I will not write much plotwise because I believe you should enter a film without preconceptions, and so I had not read the short story from the New Yorker prior to seeing the film. It was positively indescribable. I had heard it was painfully sad, and I went in expecting a savage tearing at my emotions as with most gay movies, a la Boys Don't Cry. Brokeback was however not like that at all. It's true I left with an aching, but more significantly, for some reason I found the movie uplifting. It is set in a pre stonewall world, and a world in which the occurence of stonewall probably went unnoticed. It is conclusively not a gay movie. And that is perhaps its greatest strength. It exists completely outside the insidious structure of "gay life." It cuts to the historical idea of homosexuality, as that of love between men. Not primped up bleached hairless chihuahhuah boys, nor leather wearing bears. That's what makes it great. THEY ARE NOT THOSE THINGS, nor do they fall anywhere within that spectrum. Even within their complicated and restrictive lives, they find a way to make something work and yet not be defined by that.
Gay is not a word that enters the mind when watching this film, not in its current social context. And I am seriously reconsidering how much I want it, with all of its baggage and yokes of meaning, applied to me. I am beginning to feel that the stocks of gayness have become as much of a trap as the fictional closet we all try to burn behind us. I leave you with two quotes that have resounded with me in my life.
"You, Americans, you have the luxury of being "gay," I am a man who loves men, they are not one and the same." -A play about southeast asia.
"I didn't come out of my closet to be put in a box."-Christine M. A mantra to live by if ever I heard one.
Today however I saw Brokeback Mountain. I will not write much plotwise because I believe you should enter a film without preconceptions, and so I had not read the short story from the New Yorker prior to seeing the film. It was positively indescribable. I had heard it was painfully sad, and I went in expecting a savage tearing at my emotions as with most gay movies, a la Boys Don't Cry. Brokeback was however not like that at all. It's true I left with an aching, but more significantly, for some reason I found the movie uplifting. It is set in a pre stonewall world, and a world in which the occurence of stonewall probably went unnoticed. It is conclusively not a gay movie. And that is perhaps its greatest strength. It exists completely outside the insidious structure of "gay life." It cuts to the historical idea of homosexuality, as that of love between men. Not primped up bleached hairless chihuahhuah boys, nor leather wearing bears. That's what makes it great. THEY ARE NOT THOSE THINGS, nor do they fall anywhere within that spectrum. Even within their complicated and restrictive lives, they find a way to make something work and yet not be defined by that.
Gay is not a word that enters the mind when watching this film, not in its current social context. And I am seriously reconsidering how much I want it, with all of its baggage and yokes of meaning, applied to me. I am beginning to feel that the stocks of gayness have become as much of a trap as the fictional closet we all try to burn behind us. I leave you with two quotes that have resounded with me in my life.
"You, Americans, you have the luxury of being "gay," I am a man who loves men, they are not one and the same." -A play about southeast asia.
"I didn't come out of my closet to be put in a box."-Christine M. A mantra to live by if ever I heard one.
posted by Chris at 11:59 PM
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