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wen-kexing-apologist · 6 months

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Bengiyo Queer Cinema Syllabus

For those who are not aware, I have decided to run the gauntlet of @bengiyo’s Queer Cinema Syllabus and have officially started Unit 3: Faith and Religion. The films in Unit 3 are: But I’m a Cheerleader (2000), Prayers for Bobby (2009), Latter Days (2003), Blackbird (2014), The Wise Kids (2011), Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party (2015)

Today I will be writing about

Latter Days (2003) dir. C. Jay Cox

[Run Time: 1:48 , Available: tubi, youtube premium, amazon but you have to get a free trial to something else…I tried watching it…somewhere else but they were updating the movie so I caved and went to tubi, Lang: English]

Summary: Latter Days is a 2003 American romantic comedy-drama film about a gay relationship between a closeted Mormon missionary and his openly gay neighbor. (from wiki)

Cast: * Wes Ramsey as Christian Markelli * Steve Sandvoss as Elder Aaron Davis

___

Content Warnings because I don't really write about those parts of the movie here: this film gets to a dark place, it includes self harm/a suicide attempt, homophobia, medical torture, and a story about being left to die by a parent. Alright, so after sufficiently crying my eyes out binging Eternal Yesterday, I decided there was enough time in the evening to knock out another film from the syllabus. Today’s film was (partially) about Mormons and Mormonism. My own personal understanding of Mormonism does not extend too far beyond The Book of Mormon: The Musical. Which gave me some impression that homosexuality is a sin, but only if acted upon.

Which, is gonna suck for our poor dear Elder Davis, when he and three other Elders roll in to Los Angeles and in to a house across from our beloved booty shorts wearing waiter. The movie seems pretty low budget, and it’s from 2003 so there are some, what I would call cheesy camera effects happening at the beginning, but I still enjoyed the way the world seemed sped up and disorienting when Mr. Mormon lands in Los Angeles from his home in Idaho.

I love our introduction to Christian as an unapologetically queer, slutty man and not only that, but Christian has his sex life together. He remembers who he has slept with, and when, and takes fucking notes and everything. Like, he’s truly impressive.

gif from @bl-bam-beyond

Aaron and Christian make eye contact as every love at first sight story is wont to do, and then realize later they are neighbors. At which point a lot of decently subtle things start to happen. Aaron starts sitting outside to study his scripture in hopes of running in to Christian, Aaron and Christian talk about his mission trip, we get to see the four Elders interact, etc. and these subtler moments were aspects of this film that I deeply appreciated.

Do not get me wrong, this film is absolutely critical of the Mormon church, (there is a scene near the end of the film where Elder Davis is getting excommunicated from the church for being a homosexual), but there are a lot of quite parts they do not say out loud around the intentional isolation that The Church of Latter Day Saints creates by sending their boys on missions trips in the first place.

This film does not, in my opinion, explicitly discuss or state that mission trips really seem to be less to recruit new members and more to make sure their younger members don’t go running off to join the rest of society. The Elders are not allowed to see their family for two years, their families are not allowed to see them, they are not allowed to listen to music, to watch television, all the Elders in that location live together in one house, they share a room so there is no privacy, they go knocking door to door to try to spread the word only to have the doors slammed repeatedly in their face. These tactics exist to make these boys homesick, to make the outer world seem hostile, to bring the Mormon roommates closer together when the outsiders push them away. But the implication is there.

I have to share the quote that comes with this gif: "You're gonna come in to my house and tell me God hates homosexuals?" || "And the French!"

And actually, the thing I appreciate the most about this commentary is the fact that the Elders are aware of this, and that they are allowed to be young men. I loved that one Elder was talking to Aaron about how mission trips were designed to be difficult, and that you can tell he is generally disinterested in spreading The Word. This Elder views his mission trip as the last major hoop he has to jump through before he can marry his girlfriend and “finally nail her”. Horniness fuels his motivation to get through this mission.

These “Elders” (and I put quotes here not to strip them of their titles but to point out the irony) are nineteen or twenty years old. They are fucking gross. Their apartment is decorated like boys live there, with bean bag chairs and all, and they fart on each other, and wrestle, and bite their bedframes to try to stop themselves from jerking off. Hell, when they first move in, Christian mistakes them for a frat house. They are homophobic, and throw slurs around, but they look incredulous at the mere thought of consuming alcohol.

The first time Aaron is faced with the potential to give in to his gay thoughts, he tells Christian he hasn’t done anything. When Christian says it doesn’t have to mean anything and Aaron says “yes it does”, he asks “my first time can just be a little fun for you?” like Aaron was fully planning on having sex with Christian. I like that Aaron, as a young man is going 0 to 100 with the physical intimacy.

I often have difficulty with romance stories in movie formats because I have to push past how quickly two characters fall in love. Which is the case here that Christian is confessing his love for Aaron after they have interacted like…five times total. But, I appreciate the ways they show us that Christian and Aarong would be good for each other. We see them being absolute nerds, saying movie quotes to each other. I love that we know Aaron is going to break the rules and eventually give in to Christian, just based on the fact that he gives Christian his first name. Which he is not supposed to use when he’s on his mission trip.

gif from @bl-bam-beyond

I am not a religious person, so I don’t usually pay attention to whether or not a film that critics religion is going to take a hard atheistic turn or not. But I actually thought it was compassionate, kind, and in keeping with the nature of like, religion as spirituality, versus religion as control and fear tactic. I like that all these little coincidences happened, that Christian saw Aaron through his taxi cab window, that Aaron talked to and comforted Lila (Christians’ boss) when she was having a bad day and she gave him her card and told him to come to her restaurant for a free meal, that when Christian is looking for Aaron his random doodles end up being the phone number he needs to call, that Julie in stealing entries from Christian’s diary for her song allowed Aaron to hear it in the facility his parents put him in and return to LA, and that Aaron and Christian were reunited because Aaron cashed in on that free meal from Lila.

And so too with the man Christian meets who is dying of AIDS, how he touches him and only sees snow. How he chalks that up to Christian being a blank person, shallow. The same way that Aaron has described Christian “there is nothing, nothing about you, Christian that isn’t skin deep”. And how we see Christian recoil from the touch, from the words ‘snow’ (and we will come to find out later, why that is the case).

Like these can all be coincidences, or they could be chalked up to fate, or a higher power, or whatever you want. Latter Days does not reject the idea of religion, it leaves room for a religious, higher power explanation to exist. Aaron and Aaron’s faith, the way he views the world, the importance that his values hold to him do still impact Christian. I don’t know how much he believes in God, but when Aaron calls him shallow, he takes that to heart, he really thinks about it, he realizes that what has been drawing him to Aaron is the depth, the conversations, they aren’t just gonna fuck.

Not that I think monogamy needs to happen, or that Christian needs to have calmed down the sluttiness. Just, that in a film about religion and its intersections with sexuality, when you are going to be critical of a Church that has done very very real harm. That there is a mutual exchange here. Christian gets more depth as a result of meeting Aaron and Aaron (eventually) gets freedom as a result of meeting Christian.

BL Side Note

I also need to say, since this syllabus is technically supposed to act as a lead up to BLs, that Latter Days has the sponge bath trope! Aaron wipes down Christian’s body with a washcloth after he faints from seeing blood. The sexual tension rises between Aaron and Christian, until they are about a fraction of a second away from kissing, and Aaron bails.

For/By/About

Gay Trifecta.

The director of Latter Days, C. Jay Cox is a gay man and a (former) fifth generation Mormon.

This film did not hit me in the emotional place where I would normally say the films I rate as For The Queers go. But, this is a deeply personal film for the screen writer and Director who is gay and therefore it feels like it should be for gays. And, in addition I feel like they were enough casual references to things that don’t get full explanations that would read and be understood by a queer audience but maybe not by a straight audience. I think there are dimensional portrayals of the queer characters and they don’t succumb to stereotypes, and for those reasons I would categorize it as being for us.

Favorite Moment

The post-sex conversation that Aaron and Christian have, where Aaron asks if Christian has ever had the experience of being cut off from everything, and we finally get some more of Christian’s backstory. Now, like I said above, there are some understated aspects of this film that I do think are really smart. Aaron calls Christian shallow at one point, and my first thought was “oh honey, you are wrong” because of how Christian spoke to Aaron earlier on in the movie about being desperate to get away from home. Sure, Christian is generally now, emotionally reserved and has some growing to do. But, Aaron vastly underestimates the weight behind a gay man saying that he left home and never looked back. Because Aaron had a good relationship to his family (before he came out).

If the monologue wasn’t multiple paragraphs I would probably put the whole speech as my favorite quote. But, fundamentally what makes this scene for me is that Christian is telling Aaron this, while they are both naked in bed. Aaron has just had sex for the first time, and there is just this level of casual inclusion of nudity. I am generally an advocate for increasing the inclusion of non-sexual nudity on screen. I feel like people tend to spend a lot more causal time naked than they do sexual time naked, and I think Latter Days did a really phenomenal job of shifting between sexual nudity and casual nudity in the same setting, with the same characters, at the same time.

When Aaron and Christian first enter the airport hotel, they are shedding their clothing with the intention of having sex. The scene is charged with sexual tension, shirts and pants are coming off as fast as they can, every movement brings them closer to the bed. But after they are done, Aaron, still naked, slides across Christian’s naked body to grab a watch off the floor, and Christian holds his leg so he won’t slide off the bed. It’s just comfortable. When Christian is talking to Aaron about his experience of being left in a snowstorm by his father, they are nude because they are being laid bare. I don’t know if I can describe it properly, but I just love that this really important conversation, where Aaron is learning that Christian understands far far better than Aaron ever could have thought about what you risk losing when you are queer, happens with literally everything out in the open.

Favorite Quote

“It’s early November, the same as now, and there's this storm rolling in. My dad was so determined that sissy boy was going to kill something. Snow came at us from all sides. The air, the sky, the ground they all became the same and horrible screaming white and I thought ‘we’re gonna be OK, right?” And then I saw my father’s eyes and they were that same white…and that’s when he did it.” “He did what?” “Ran.”

This quote comes from part of the monologue I mentioned in my Favorite Scene.

Score

8/10

Latter Days is an 8/10 for me for a few reasons, the acting was not always the best, it was clear they did not have either the time or the budget for perfection. There were stutters that read far more like actors forgetting their lines than they did like natural pauses. I also was not thrilled with the death fake out. Like, I am very much glad we did not see Aaron self-harm, and that some of the other torture he went through gets dampened a bit by dream sequence shenanigans. I figured that they were not actually going to kill Aaron off, but they do spend quite a lot of time letting the audience think he is dead, and I am not super appreciative of that.

#queer cinema syllabus #bengiyo queer cinema syllabus #latter days #latter days (2003)#unit 3 #unit 3: faith and religion

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autistictojisuzuharafan11 · 2 months

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Rebuild or original series eva 03? (Design specifically)

this is a hard one okay…

I like the og bc it was fuckin scary and badass but i love the rebuilds Eva 03 bc I like the red in it and when it got possess by the 9th Angel it was not that terrifying but I did like the blue core on the plug and the two more arms I’m pissed that it was wasted on a okay movie

btw I made something but I give up at the end

LOOK AT THE DESIGN AND THE TRACKSUIT THEY HAVE THE SAME GRAY

btw og

#neon genesis evangelion #nge #evangelion #toji suzuhara #Eva 03 #Eva 3 #unit 03 #unit 3 #Bardiel #anon ask

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doulingosakura · 3 months

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As of Jan 2024: Section 1 Rookie Vocab

Unit 3 🌸

Part 1: Talk about countries

Part 2: ask for directions

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Unit 3: pt 1 Talk about countries

America : amerika : アメリカ

England/Britain : igirisu : イギリス

Brazil : burajiru : ブラジル

Canada : kanada : カナダ

Japan : nihon : にほん

American : amerikajin : アメリカじん

British : igirisujin : イギリスじん

Brazilian : burajirujin : ブラジルじん

Canadian : kanadajin : カナダじん

Japanese : nihonjin : にほんじん

Big : ookii : おおきい

Small : chiisai : ちいさい

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Unit 2: pt 2 ask for directions

Hotel : hoteru : ホテル

Train station : eki : えき

Bus stop : basutei : バスてい

University : daigaku : だいがく

Convenience store : konbini : コンビ二

Department store : depato : デパ―ト

Here : koko : ここ

There : soko : そこ

Where : doko: どこ

#duolingo #duolingo japan #duolingo japanese #duolingo vocab #easy japanese #langblr #unit 3 #section 1

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portlandnet · 1 year

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Basic Triage

Volunteer Support Function 09: Basic Triage Portland NET Video 09-03 2022.12.10

#trainingvideo #triage #Unit 3 #Tom11 #VSF08 #Vimeo

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mo79zz · 14 days

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Magazine Workshop

During this workshop we were asked to create a magazine based around parkour in Morocco. We were provided with images and an article of text and had to create the grids and guides for it to place in the images and text to design the magazine and ensure everything aligns.

My design did need a minor improvement as when it was printed, the text was too big so I had to shrink it and add some more to fill the new space.

Before & After

I really really like how my magazine flows and I think the use of a contents page was a fun idea. It would have been nice to create a front cover too but I definitely would have spent too much time on it. The font I used was Brother 1816 and it is quite a clean but blocky font. I think this fits the target audience and with the way I laid out the title page and titles it gives gives me a skate magazine feel. I like the addition of funky shaped images and how I used tinted boxes to highlight text.

It was interesting to see everyones different designs during the pin up crit at the end. It was good to challenge myself to remember how to set up a modular grid, baseline grid and page numbers after the indesign refresher last week, I remembered it almost instantly so I will be ready to set up my magazine and process book for this terms projects. Overall this was a really enjoyable workshop and I got into the swing of it quite quick and stuck with all my original page layouts as I liked them so much. This task got me very excited to begin laying out my process book and magazine.

#visualcommunication #induction #workshop #workshops/inductions #year 1 #level 4 #unit 3

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coffeecatcraze · 3 months

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Charlie missing the literal trail of angel blood and discarded Exorcist uniform because she's so focused on helping an injured person is actually so adorable. The clues about Vaggie's identity were right there, and she didn't even notice because her priority was helping someone she's never even seen before.

It's safe to assume this isn't the first time Charlie's gone out after an extermination to try and help injured demons, but it is probably the first time someone has actually appreciated her kindness. She looks genuinely surprised when Vaggie replies to her unsolicited help with a smile. Charlie always tries so hard for everyone around her, and this might be the first time someone has thanked her for it. And Vaggie? She was just maimed by a comrade for showing mercy, and left in Hell by her boss to suffer for the rest of eternity. That's two people she knew and likely trusted turning on her without a second thought. Then this complete stranger shows up and presents her with an unsolicited act of kindness, no questions asked. When Charlie first goes to bandage her eye, she tenses up like she's expecting to have to fight to defend herself, but it turns out this demon has just been running around looking for people she can help.

Charlie's kindness has always been replied to with dismissal at best; Vaggie showed kindness and was immediately punished for it. These are two kindhearted women who give everything they have to the people they love and don't ask for anything in return. The basis of their meeting was that they see each other's kindness and respond to it with their own. Charlie came into the alley looking for someone to help, and she didn't hesitate to put a bandage over where Vaggie's eye just got gouged out; Vaggie, instead of brushing Charlie's good deeds aside like everyone else in Hell, smiled at her with probably the first show of genuine gratitude she's ever been given; in response to that unusual gesture of appreciation, Charlie immediately decided to keep helping her (and had a very distinct flash of bi panic over this nice and very pretty girl with a cute smile); and they fell in love.

Their relationship was built on that very first moment. Charlie trusted Vaggie with everything, loved and supported her unconditionally, and didn't keep any secrets; Vaggie kept one huge secret for fear of losing and hurting Charlie, and to compensate for that disparity of honesty, devoted her whole self to protecting Charlie and turning her dreams into reality, no matter the cost to herself. The absolute love and devotion between these two is something so precious and beautiful, and we don't talk about that enough. <3

#hazbin hotel #charlie morningstar #vaggie #chaggie #i love them so much #<3 #chaggie shippers unite! <3

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viscommblogs · 11 months

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June 5th - process book

My process book ended up being quite unsuccessful due to having to remake/retype and make half of it as Adobe lost a huge chunk of work in the middle leaving me with no time to perfect bind so I had to find an alternative way - using a hole punch to bring it all together a few main issues :

margins too small for this kind of binding

accidentally hole punching the wrong side of a page

not having final designs of my customisation pages in there

Next time I for sure need to leave more time for myself to make my process book with my other final designs already complete. Given the if it wasn't the weekend I could've produced something of a much better standard

#unit 3

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cosmicdjeanette · 1 year

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Mortality and the Fear of the Unknown: A Personal Reflection on Death and Anxiety

My first and only brush with death was in 2018. While driving my siblings and I on our way to school one morning, my Mom’s 2010 Toyota Corolla was hit by a Honda Accord. I don’t remember how the accident even took place, all that I remember was that one moment I was sitting in the front seat of my Mom’s car, dreading a Math test that I had to take at school later that day while listening to Drake and the next moment I was waking up in a hospital room with a broken arm. Thankfully, everyone in the car survived with very few injuries but I remember laying in the hospital bed thinking to myself how terrible it would’ve been if I, my siblings, or my Mother died in that car accident, and with that thought came this nauseating feeling that reminded me of my own personal mortality.

This feeling arose again during a trip that my family had taken to Ghana to go and visit my Aunt. My Aunt had been quite sick for a while but because of the lack of resources available to Ghanaian doctors, they struggled to figure out what was wrong with her. I remember seeing her for the first time during that trip, the sclera of her eyes were a dark yellow and she was nothing but skin and bones. I distinctly remember thinking to myself “ How is it possible for a person to be that skinny and still alive?”. That day, my Aunt and I talked for hours about any imaginable subject; she asked me about life in America, how I was doing in school, and what I wanted to do as a career in the future. I asked her if she enjoyed living in Ghana, if she wanted to go back to her job as a pharmacist, and if she would ever visit America. She promised me that she would but unfortunately, she never got the chance to. The next day, my Mom received a phone call from my Grandmother but she was too busy cooking in the kitchen to go to the living room so she asked me to grab her phone and pick up the call. I picked up the call, heard my Grandmother wailing and screaming, and immediately knew what had occurred. I broke it to my Mother that her twin sister had died and I watched as the light inside her eyes quickly faded away.

That very next day, I sat with the adults as the planning and preparation of her funeral began and again, I felt that nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach which I now know is called death anxiety. During unit three, I learned that being conscious of your own mortality after witnessing or being close to death and feeling that intense fear of the dying process is actually a common thing that most people feel which made me feel less odd about experiencing it. Reading the “Psychology Today” article about the phenomenon helped me to understand that watching someone you love pass away or having a brush with death can break through the defense mechanism that we have about our own mortality.

Learning this helped me to realize that having anxiety about death is something that everyone experiences and that it’s all a part of the human condition. I wish that I knew more about death anxiety during these two moments where I experienced it because it would have helped me to realize that it’s not odd to feel anxious about the possibility of death. Nowadays, instead of remembering my Aunt as she was while she was sick, I choose to remember her as the intelligent, hilarious and caring person that she was before as it is my way of keeping her alive. I would like to end this reflection with a quote by Canadian writer, Jonathan Auxier, “Say not in grief he is no more, but live in thankfulness that he was.”

The image above is of my Mother's twin sister & my Aunt, Grace.

#Unit 3 #Death and Anxiety

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puppetmaster13u · 1 month

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Prompt 261

“So is no one going to talk about the eldritch space child or…”

“I mean, do you want to get between a child and Batman? I think the only one who could even get close right now is Superman…”

“No you’re right, I think- oh my god the eldritch space child is playing with batman’s bat-ears and he’s not doing anything about it what the fuck I thought only Robins could get away with that-”

#DCxDP #DPxDC #Prompts #Alfred is Clockwork #AndCW having adopted Danny means Danny gets to meet his new big brother from another timeline #Bruce (Once Alfred confirms) is absolutely attached within moments #Autistic bois unite & talk for hours about hyperfixations #Clark has had time to make an entire homemade pie at this point #No Danny isn’t ghost king nor is Clockwork Cronus #Bruce: I have only had a baby brother for 5 hours but if anything happens to him I will let my kids break all the rules & kill everyone her #Signal: Yeah definitely Alfred’s he glows like him and everything #The rest of the bats: Alfred does what now-#Danny with dozens of big star eyes to Bruce: How would you feel about sisters #Bruce holding 3 children & 1 young adult: I am big brother now #Alfred scathingly says that Someone in the family *cough Jazz cough* will at least finish college & get their degree #Sometimes CW enjoys turning off his future-vision and vibing as a mostly-mortal #And Gotham is an old war buddy of his (Yes Gotham is the city equivalent of an Ancient) from the [Redacted] era of the Realms #And xer son & daughter are adorable- Bludhaven & Arkham love the vigilantes lots

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anon-nee · 4 months

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" So, you can drag me through hell If it meant I could hold your hand,

I will follow you, 'cause I'm under your spell "

Do not copy, steal, repost, distribute or edit.

#bg3 #artists on tumblr #baldurs gate 3 #digital art #art #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #bg3 fanart #gale fanart #yes the caption is a bmth song so what #I'M NO LONGER NORMAL ABOUT HIM #bmth follow you my beloved #gale lovers unite

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totallynotcensorship · 2 days

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hi hello this is your reminder that google are hypocrites(and bds)

the lay offs were on the 18th this month, pretending to celebrate a native culture as you help the military that is actively ethnically cleansing them, and has been for years, is highly hypocritical and just an attempt to save face

in case someone forgot, google is on BDS' "pressure" list, which means it isn't necessary a 100% boycott but rather a target for pressuring and limiting your use of their services to push them towards cutting ties with israel

additional context on dabka:

it is a folk dance from levantine countries like lebanon, jordan, syria, and palestine. with possible origins in ancient phoenician and/or canaanite cultures

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wen-kexing-apologist · 6 months

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Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

Today I will be writing about

But I’m a Cheerleader (2000) dir. Jamie Babbit

[Run Time: 1:30 , Available: tubi, amazon, google play, apple play, Lang: English]

Summary: A cheerleading-obsessed teenager is sent to a strict summer camp when her parents suspect her of being a lesbian.

Cast: * Natasha Lyonne as Megan * Clea DuVall as Graham, Megan's love interest

Note: I watched the 2020 Director’s Cut

Hello, I have entered The Danger Zone. For the next two units I expect to be absolutely and utterly dashed upon the rocks as I start Unit 3: Faith and Religion, and eventually wash it down with Unit 4: Heartbreak Alley.

Ben is being nice by having the first film on the list be But I’m a Cheerleader, so at least we can ease our way in to the conversations around conversion therapy and religious trauma to the queer community with some dark humor and bright colors.

While I decided to embark on this syllabus project because my experience with queer media has been severely limited, there is at least one movie in Units 1-6 that I have seen before. For Unit 3, it is this one. I love this movie. I love this movie because for all that it is dark, for all the pain you see being carried by these queer teenagers, for all the harm that has and could be done to them throughout their time at True Directions, the film wastes absolutely no time highlighting the absolute absurdity of programs like this. What do you expect to happen when you put a bunch of horny, queer teenagers in a room together? But I’m a Cheerleader does a phenomenal job at maintaining the fact that queerness is inherent, it is not learned, it is not chosen.

And it does something else that I picked up on this watch through, that makes me appreciate it even more, which is that it kinda pokes fun at 12 step-programs.

I don’t know that I have really talked about this much on my tumblr, I know I have referenced it a couple times in like…comments and conversations with some of my mutuals on tumblr about my opinions on Alcoholics Anonymous. Before I dig in to it, I will preface that AA and NA works for who it works for, and that’s cool, but I have strong negative opinions on these 12-step programs as a harm reductionist because they hold abstinence as the ultimate goal of substance use recovery, they are super religious, and they generally espouse anti-harm reduction ideologies. So seeing True Directions have a five step program, where the first step is literally admitting you have a problem are a homosexual, and to see these steps be a) absolutely absurd, b) random, and c) ineffective made me so happy.

[OKAY WAIT REST OF POST ON PAUSE BRIEFLY SO THAT I CAN SHOUT ABOUT THE DIRECTOR OF THIS FILM AND THE FACT THAT AS I WAS RESEARCHING FOR THE FOR/BY/ABOUT SECTION, THE DIRECTOR, JAMIE BABBIT’S MOTHER RAN A TREATMENT PROGRAM FOR TEENAGERS WITH DRUG AND ALCOHOL PROBLEMS THAT WAS NAMED NEW DIRECTIONS, AND THAT IS WHAT TRUE DIRECTIONS WAS BASED ON. HAHAHA! That is the most succinct confirmation of my read on a piece of media I have ever had]

For real, this program did not work on a single one of the residents by the end of the film, and that is absolutely what needs to happen.

I love that the kids sneak out to go to a gay bar, I love that when the kids fail the conversion therapy program they get taken in by survivors of True Directions and find safety in a queer-positive house, especially because (as we see with Megan) if the kids fail the program they do risk homelessness. Which is a very real and present threat to queer kids today, both conversion therapy and possible homelessness.

I like that Megan’s parents picked up on the fact she was queer before Megan herself did (shout out to vegetarianism, I literally wrote ‘vegetarian’ in my notes as an observed potential indicator lol) and find it is absolutely an intentional point that Megan would very possibly not have realized she was queer if her parents hadn’t sent her to conversion therapy, because it was not until a fellow queer was like “not all girls think about what you are thinking about when you look at girls”

And it always hurts my heart a little when I hear people say their parents make comments sometimes that are like “well, everyone thinks about kissing a girl sometimes” etc etc and are still existing under the belief that they are straight. Megan seemed completely oblivious to her own queerness until other people pointed it out, and her parents might have had the intended outcome of a “straight” child if they had just kept their mouths shut and minded their own goddamn business.

Not that we want Megan to be straight, but more just that the film itself feels like it does make a point of calling out the fact that putting your queer kid in a room with other queer kids is going to help them understand themselves better. It’s why cishets are so terrified of trans people, because the more visible trans and/or queer people are, the more people are able to question their own identities, and the more the white supremacist society we have built in the United States starts to become undermined by the degradation of a pillar of patriarchal heteronormativity, etc etc.

I love that on the boy’s side of True Directions all the little decorations of like…shop tools and soldiers look sexual. The soliders look like they are either getting fucked in the ass, or about to perform oral sex. The tools look like dicks, it’s very much indicative of the fact that even the adults who say they have been “cured” really have not been, because they are still creating scenery and teaching these boys how to be straight while subconsciously producing images of queerness.

I love that But I’m a Cheerleader is also able to challenge our own perceptions of queerness and heterosexuality. I love that it is Jan, who looks the most butch/masc of all the girls who is revealed to be heterosexual, and I think it is vitally important to see this not only as commentary around judging people based on appearance, but also can be used as a discussion point about the masculinization of women of color, and in addition the fact that all the girls are turned on watching Jan vacuum the floor, demonstrating that masculine women can be seen as hot/sexy.

Anyway, I love this movie a lot, I think the messaging is great, I think it can read a little more serious for a queer audience than a straight audience around the actual extent of the damage done to these characters during their time at True Directions, but I think there are all of these little things that make the funny moments funnier if you are queer.

For/By/About

For sure by and about queer people. Both the director, Jamie Babbit, and the screenwriter, Brian Wayne Peterson are queer. I will admit that for a bit during the film I struggled to decide whether or not this film was made for queer people, because in some regards I thought that perhaps the purpose of But I’m A Cheerleader was to show straight people how fucking stupid conversion therapy is. But, I have actually landed on The Gay Trifecta for this one.

Jamie Babbit stated that part of her inspiration for making this film was because she wanted more representation for fem lesbians in media, and that she decided to make it a romcom because of how media has historically treated lesbians (if you have read some of my other posts, we know I have talked about that history multiple times).

Favorite Moment

SEX SCENE! So, I am pretty certain that I watched But I’m A Cheerleader for the first time before 2020, and therefore I did not have access to the director’s cut. But, in 2020 Babbit released her own cut of the movie, which is 5 minutes longer and I think the only difference between the two films is the addition of a sex scene that had been cut out of the initial film. It is not a hardcore scene by any means, but it is absolutely gorgeous, and it has some very clever and important shots contained within it, the most memorable for me being the shot of the cross necklace Megan always wears as she is actively having sex with Graham.

Favorite Quote

“You are who you are, the only trick is not getting caught”

God is that just like a bullseye statement for queer people, especially the ones who have to stay closeted. Such a quick line, such an active acknowledgement of threat, because everyone that ended up at True Horizons either got caught or couldn’t hide.

Score

10/10

Next up, Prayers for Bobby, and uh, I have it on good authority that it may leave me looking like Graham in that gif directly above this sentence.

#queer cinema syllabus #bengiyo queer cinema syllabus #unit 3 #but i'm a cheerleader #natasha lyonne #clea duvall

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