GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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Fish Out Of Water First
Run Features, Director/Screenplay: Starring; Unrated, 60 minutes |
Lost
In Translation
There can never be enough documentaries to address this subject. Fish Out Of Water, directed by Ky Dickens, explores the dangerous consequences of interpreting the Bible too literally. Throughout history, passages in the Bible have been used to justify slavery and segregation, and to deny the rights of women. Now it is being used to condone institutionalized homophobia. What's an Inquisition without a victim, right? |
 But
what does the Bible really say about homosexuality? Yes, the Book
of Leviticus does state that a man shall not lay with another man
for it is an abomination, but another verse in the same chapter calls for
the execution of children who curse their parents. Eating shellfish is also
a definite no-no, as is wearing clothes woven from two different fabrics,
and men touching their wives when they're menstruating. It would seem to
be a no-brainer that much of what is written in the Bible was meant for
another time vastly different from today. It is also a given that many pious
church officials and their flocks pick and choose the passages of the Bible
that they want to follow in much the same way that the Bush administration
cherry-picked the intel that justified the war in Iraq. There are over 6000
passages in the Bible and only seven remotely refer to homosexuality.
Fish Out Of Water employs numerous
theologians - all of them straight I might add - who place these controversial
passages into the context of their times. |
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Because these seven Biblical passages are often used as the basis for standards of morality and legislation, Dickens argues that it is necessary to discover exactly what these verses say and determine the context in which they were written. The meat of the movie is the section in which these ancient passages are broken down by various theologians. These passages are:
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It is these scholarly moments that stood out the most for me. This is a pretty good primer on the subject but, truth be told, it barely scratches the surface. For starters, Fish Out Of Water is only an hour long and it feels very rushed - like a Reader's Digest Condensed Book with much of the nuance removed. I have no doubt that many people will learn much from this film but this reviewer has a few issues with the way that the material is presented. |
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 A
good part of the film, especially its autobiographical interludes and Biblical
stories, is animated. These crude cartoon sequences might make the film
more accessible to some viewers but the cutesy tone irritates after awhile.
The animation makes the Bible passages look even sillier than they
are - this was probably the director's intention and I have no problem with
that. This approach provides a good giggle now and then, but it also impacts
the ability to take the film seriously as academia. The more traditional
sequences utilize talking heads, news footage and clips from those old hysteria-inducing
instructional films (think "Duck and Cover") that once were used to brainwashed
schoolchildren. |
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 Fish
Out Of Water
preaches to the choir but, in an effort to at least appear impartial,
the director includes interview footage with two dissenters to represent
the other side. One of them is the Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro
Baptist Church (as he takes a few minutes off from picketing funerals).
Phelps - who I have always thought was separated at birth from the evil
preacher in the Poltergeist movies - uses such colorful metaphors
as "Hellbound beasts" to describe the LGBT community. I'd like to point
out that Phelps reveals himself to be anti-Semitic as well as homophobic
when he says "I don't know how you got that way you dirty lowdown sneaking
criminal Jew but you better stop it if you want to get to Heaven."
When juxtaposed against the more scholarly talking heads, no one with a
brain could possibly take this man seriously. He comes across as a bigoted
buffoon, and can almost be considered the film's comic relief. |
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 The
many experts employed by the film all emphasize that Saint Paul, who wrote
a good chunk of the New Testament, never conceived of loving and nurturing
relationships between two men or two women (but would have been very familiar
with issues of the day like "temple prostitution.") His teachings have
to be read in the context of their time; Paul also disapproved of women
being ministers. As far as Jesus' teachings go, he never
spoke out against homosexuality. He was always on the side of the marginalized;
Jesus went around restoring people to the community and many modern church
leaders are throwing people out of the community instead. Many of
those interviewed explain that some pastors are so concerned with unity,
and keeping the flock together, that they will remain silent about the moral
issues of our times, such as the war in Iraq or gay marriage. Some pastors
have been silenced for their pro-gay views while others received death threats.
Others courageously take a stand and so there are many uplifting glimpses
of gay weddings scattered throughout the film. |
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See also: |
Our
guide is filmmaker Ky Dickens. She tells us that, while attending Vanderbilt
University, a conservative Bible Belt school, she came out during her
senior year. Instead of being accepted by her sorority sisters, she was
told that she was going to Hell. Tired of feeling "like a fish out of
water," she consulted numerous ministers and theologians. They all agreed
that the Bible has been grossly misinterpreted and, from these experts,
she learned more about theology, Biblical language translation and Jesus'
teachings in three weeks than she had learned in 12 years of Sunday School.
Their scholarship is juxtaposed with stories told by gay and lesbian youth
about the ways in which they have tried to reconcile their faith when
faced with the rampant forces of religious discrimination. Most admit
that they're clueless about what the Bible really says about being
gay and have always just believed what they were told.
Most
of this was not new territory to me (see also the more comprehensive 2008
documentary 
The
Sodom and Gomorrah story is retold in great detail. The actual sin of
Sodom is never mentioned in the tale itself but readers are able to gleam
from other Bible passages that the sin was not homosexuality;
it was the refusal to help strangers. For one of the experts consulted
in the film, the real sin of the story is when Lot offers his
two virgin daughters to be gang-raped by the men of Sodom who gather outside
his home. This same theologian provides the film's funniest moment when
she recounts the end of the story - about how Lot's two daughters got
their father drunk and then had incestuous sex with him while he was passed
out so that they could become pregnant - and then says "And that
story is used to condemn homosexuality???" 
Fish
Out Of Water
is an obvious labor of love. I would have liked its tone to be a bit more
serious but its light touch might actually help it find more of an audience.
I have my quibbles, but its message is an important one. If Fish
Out Of Water helps even one parent leap beyond selective
church teachings to accept his or her gay child, or one legislator stop
voting against gay rights, then the film has achieved its purpose.