GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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Queer
As Folk C1TV, 1999 Directors: Screenplay: Starring: Aiden Gillan, Craig Kelly, Charlie Hunnam. Denise Black, Andy Devine, Carla Henry, Antony Cotton, Jason Merrells Unrated, (8) 40 minute episodes
Common Ground Showtime Video, 2000 Director: Donna Dietch Screenplay: Starring: Brittany Murphy, Jason Priestly, Margot Kidder, Mimi Rogers, Brian Kerwin, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Steven Webber, Eric Stolz, Andrew Airlie, James Legros, Ed Asner, Harvey Fierstein Unrated, running time: NA |
Cathode
Queers
When it comes to sexual matters, British television is far more permissive than American TV. Anyone who grew up watching Monty Python's Flying Circus on PBS knows this. Ditto for Masterpiece Theatre's I, Claudius, which featured nudity and a few sneak peaks at Roman orgies. Knowing this still didn't prepare me for Queer as Folk, a completely refreshing and no-holds-barred look at gay life that was aired on England's Channel 4 last year. Queer As Folk takes place in, and around, the gay club scene in Manchester. Its eight episodes focus on three young gay men. Stuart, played by Aiden Gillen, is a party boy whose main priority is his "shag" for the evening. Craig Kelly plays his best friend, Vince, a fervent Dr. Who devotee who lives in Stuart's shadow. Both men are just months away from turning 30 while Nathan, played by Charlie Hunnam, is 15 and ventures into a gay bar for the first time. He goes home with Stuart and is heartbroken later to discover that he was nothing more than just "another shag."
Surrounding these men is a colorful assortment of friends who provide myriad subplots. A lesbian couple named Romy and Lisa use Stuart's sperm to have a baby. Stuart calls the baby "the most expensive wank [he] ever had" and spends little to no time with his son. Vince's mother hangs out at the clubs and lets Nathan stay at her place until he sorts out his problems at home. She also befriends Nathan's mother, and tries to help the distraught woman to understand her son. Stuart is the series' most complex character. While seemingly a total jerk, he occasionally tries to do good. An attempt to bring his young trick back home to his family backfires when Nathan's father sees them together. When a married client goes pubbing with him, and then plans to party for a few more days rather than go home, Stuart asks him if he's ready to abandon his family and then talks him into going home. In one of the best scenes, a friend dies of an overdose and Stuart and Vince sneak into his apartment to clear out his porn before the man's mother comes to pack up his things.
American television, even on premium cable stations, has yet to display the same boldness as England's Channel 4. A case in point is the recent Showtime original movie, Common Ground. While the movie is admirable by American TV standards, it almost seemed anti-climatic after seeing Queer as Folk. |
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Common Ground is a trilogy of gay-themed screenplays directed by lesbian filmmaker Donna Dietch, (Desert Hearts), and written by three noted gay playwrights: Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel, Terrence McNally and Harvey Fierstein. Each takes place in the fictional small town of Homer, Connecticut during three different decades. Each story is narrated by the man who raises the flag at the War Memorial on the Town Commons. The strongest segment is the first, A Friend of Dorothy, penned by Vogel. A young woman named Dorothy, played by Brittany Murphy, comes home from the military in 1954 but remains vague about her reasons for leaving the service. The truth comes out when she applies for a job at the school and the principal asks to see her discharge papers. He orders her to leave when he discovers her Section 8 discharge for "sexual perversion." Dorothy's mother calls her a degenerate and throws her out of the house. She is shunned by everyone in town and eventually leaves for Greenwich Village on the advice of Janet, a sympathetic woman (and closeted lesbian) who runs the town's diner. [Reviewer's note, 2007: Perhaps I was unaware when this was written in 2000, but Janet is played by Desert Hearts' Helen Shaver]
The concluding segment, Andy and Amos, is Harvey Fierstein's comic look at the town's first gay wedding in present day. Andy and Amos, played by Andrew Airlie and James Legros, have been together for over 15 years and plan to have a public ceremony. Amos' stubborn father, played by Ed Asner, is leading a protest of veterans who object to the marriage taking place on the grounds of the War Memorial. He winds up bonding with his son when he realizes that he is actually having cold feet on his wedding day just like he once did. Fierstein's contribution to Common Ground is the most saccharine of the three. Vogel's A Friend of Dorothy features the sharpest writing. Her vivid ironies include Dorothy's mother screaming that she will "not have filth and perversion in [her] home" and then sitting down to watch the McCarthy hearings on television. The richest scenes involve Dorothy telling Janet about her experiences in the Navy. A very butch commanding officer, played by Mimi Rogers, orders her charges to report any lesbianism to her immediately. Dorothy meets a sensitive officer named Billy, played by Jason Priestly, who calls himself "a friend of Dorothy." This is code for homosexual and he takes Dorothy to a gay bar.
McNally's contribution is well done but the basic plotline, minus a few moments permissible only on cable, could easily have also been an ABC Afterschool Special. Fierstein's segment is mostly comic in the vein of his Torch Song Trilogy. Amos complains to his father that he's "a gay man in a heterosexual world and it doesn't matter anymore!" When his father points to the handful of veterans and Catholics protesting, Amos shouts "If that's all the outrage they can muster then this is embarrassing." Fierstein can still deliver a good laugh. When the father quotes Leviticus, Amos points out that Leviticus also states that eating shellfish and pork is an abomination. "According to your Bible," he says, "the road to Hell is paved with bacon. So I'll make a deal with you. You take the sausage out of your mouth and I'll take the sausage out of mine." A comparison between Queer as Folk and Common Ground may be unfair as the stories they tell are very different ones. But the approach taken in each clearly illuminates the differences between American and British television. The American TV movie is chock full of big-name stars, the British series is filled with unknowns. The Brits cast according to talent rather than box office draw. The lack of familiar faces allows viewers to put themselves into the characters, while one cannot watch Common Ground without recognizing someone in almost every role. While this may help draw viewers, it's symptomatic of how American producers insist on names to "legitimize" their projects.
It's a good bet, considering the names involved, that Common Ground will be released on video. At presstime there was no release date announced yet. Queer as Folk is not currently available on video in the U.S., but a British import is available for rent at Mondo Video, 1109 Elmwood Avenue. A two hour sequel just finished airing in Great Britain and Mondo also plans to carry this tape when it is released sometime in March. Also, filming begins in May for an American remake that will be aired on Showtime. It will be interesting to see how much the original script is butchered to make it more "acceptable" to American viewers.
See
also: More on Britain's
Channel 4: More on Terrence
McNally: More On Brian
Kerwin and Harvey Fierstein: More On Steven
Weber: More On Jason
Priestly: More On Helen
Shaver and Donna Dietch: |
Much
of the series revolves around Stuart's shenanigans as he has sex with
almost every good looking gay man in Manchester. In contrast, each man
that Vince brings home is a disaster. Equal time is also given to Nathan's
coming out issues both at school and at home. Despite a supportive mother,
Nathan runs away from home rather than face his bigoted father. While
dealing with Stuart's rejection, he loses his innocence and even turns
the tables on his first shag a few times. Nathan is not an angst-ridden
suicidal gay teen-ager. Out and proud, he mocks his schoolmates to his
best friend Donna: "They're just kids. They're just talking. I'm
doing it!" 
But
his relationship with Vince is the crux of the series. Because they were
friends since boyhood, Stuart is oblivious to Vince's true feelings for
him. Queer As Folk has all
the intrigues of a late night soap opera but it's all set in the queerest
of millieus. The writing is very sharp and drama queens will love all
the snappy lines. Queer As Folk
is the brainchild of writer Russell T. Davies. In an online interview,
he expressed his disgust with cute, cuddy and/or victimized gays and decided
to just write a story that told it like it is. Making no apologies for
presenting excesses on the party circuit,
Queer As Folk is filled with loose sex, drugs and "morality"
that would send the Rev. Fred Phelps into a rubber room. The series was
embraced by its gay audience and sparked outrage amongst conservatives.
It even offended a few gays who were concerned over the series' depiction
of loose behavior. 
The
biggest bone of contention was Stuart shagging Nathan in the very first
episode while the camera lingers over their nude bodies. Sex is common
on British TV, but "R-rated" gay sex is still a new phenomenon.
Was it irresponsible for the filmmakers to make the first sex scene one
that involved a minor? Maybe. Do such things sometimes happen in real
life, and is this scene important to the overall story? Yes. Queer
As Folk makes Will and Grace look like Ozzie
and Harriet. There is no effort made to make its characters more acceptable
to conservative straights. 
The
70s segment, M. Roberts, was written by 
The
defining moment occurs when Dorothy's CO, wearing an evening dress, enters
the bar. Shortly after, the bar is raided and Dorothy is ordered by her
superiors to name names. She remembers seeing her CO but says nothing.
Her CO expels her from the service. Now... was her CO checking out the
bar for enlisted men and women? Or is she a closeted gay who, like Roy
Cohn, mercilessly persecutes her own? Like Vogel's play, How I Learned
To Drive, nothing is black and white and the ambiguities raised elevate
the story above the mundane. 
A
worthy theme that runs through the three stories is the responsibility
of the current generation to "stand up and be counted" to make
things easier for those that will follow. Janet gives Dorothy money to
go to Grenwich Village because an older woman once helped her on the condition
that she would someday aid another "promising young woman."
She passes the torch to Dorothy, who leaves Homer, Connecticut and never
returns. The 70s French teacher is afraid to jeopardize his position at
the school but, after Toby is beaten, he comes out to his class and subsequently
loses his job. He regains it, never becomes principal, but stays in Homer
and lives openly with his lover. At Andy and Amos' wedding, Amos proclaims
his debt to the gays who came before and acknowledges that "it's
up to us to do our very best to carry the next generation to where they
need to be."
But
the biggest difference between the two can be summed up by the advertising
slogan for Queer as Folk: "No
Victims. No Martyrs. No Role Models." Common
Ground creates sympathy for victims, pleads for tolerance,
and relies on speeches to drive the point home. Queer
as Folk does none of these things. It just presents a story
for our entertainment without concerning itself with issues. And that,
perhaps more than anything else, makes Queer
as Folk one of the most groundbreaking and honest portrayals
of queer life to ever hit the airwaves.