film

I live a pretty free life and I have had the privilege to have grown up in, and lived in places that do not (generally) suffer from extreme hatred, sexism, or discrimination. Sure, I have experienced sexism and witnessed it, but on the whole my life experience has been pretty hate-adverse.

So you might wonder why this post is relevant today or in the year 2022 nearly 2023. Well, in the last few weeks I have observed and experienced so much hatred in a place I never expected. I can neither hold it back, nor deny speaking out any longer. Why do I witness homophobia in my country? I am baffled and confused, and have found myself in situations that require me to stop, pull 180s and be dumbfounded.

I live in a country that has been one of the forefront leaders in LGBTQIA+ rights over the last 30 year period. Marriage is legal, laws against discrimination exist and are generally enforced, and it is even possible to adopt. Yet, why do I see and hear so much homophobia, especially from the 15-30 year old generation? Let me explain how and where…

I went to see a film, in fact one of the funniest and most true films I have seen in awhile. I could relate, I could laugh, I could cry, and all in one movie. One of the first mainstream gay films with a predominantly LGBTQIA+ cast, Bros is everything I wanted to see, everything I wanted to criticise, everything I wanted to wish for, and yet I’m left shaking my head not by the film, but by patrons in the cinema and in my community.

As you can see by the advertisement poster, it is obviously two men touching each others behinds. The trailers are not shy about it being a romantic comedy about a gay couple. In fact, the byline of the film is:

Bobby is a neurotic podcast host who’s happy to go on Tinder dates and content not to have a serious relationship. That all changes when he meets Aaron, an equally detached lawyer who likes to play the field. Repeatedly drawn to each other, both men begin to show their vulnerable sides as their undeniable attraction turns into something resembling a commitment.

Google

And yet, when the rather small theatre room in a rather large (probably the largest in my country) cinema starts to fill, my heart warmed a bit and at the same time broke. Here is a run down of what I witnessed:

1. Firstly a few 14-16 year old boys enter. They seem curious and excited; yay for open minded kids!
2. Then a couple enters. They are chatting away and I’m left wondering how the man will react. He was giving extreme straight-bro energy.
3. Then comes in some older men and women – nothing to note and all seem happy and ready.
4. Then a group of three teenage girls enter, all on their Snapchats, not paying attention to each other, taking each others photos and screaming out stuff like “delete it – fuuuuck” and so on – I wondered and thought, interesting.
5. Then a family with kids came in – I thought wow cool, neat that the whole family will see the film.

The stage is set, and nothing could prepare me for what I witnessed. I was having a great time with my friend. We were laughing every five minutes, getting all the jokes an innuendos and shade, and literally loving the film. It was after the first ten minutes that I started hearing the comments. The girls next to me said “euwww” and “gross” and kept taking photos of the movie and Snapping, clearly not paying attention or understanding half of what was going on. Important to note at this point that the subtitles were alright, albeit a bit awkward with the slang.

Then the family leaves rather discretely. And it hit me – this is the first time I have ever seen someone leave a cinema film during a screening. Then, seemingly the boys started going to the toilet, then a bunch more boys arrived and watched, came and went, and I thought “what is going on?”. We laughed some more, then the girls next to us had enough and muttered under their breaths as they left – good riddance I thought. And then the boys left a few minutes later, right when we were at the climax of the films plot. Needless to say, I was just confused.

Then I looked over to the couple, and the über straight guy was giggling and looking rather awkward, meanwhile his girlfriend was keeled over laughing her ass off. I was happy to see that us in the corner were not the only ones loving it and making it known. I just couldn’t shake the shock that there were so much homophobic behaviour (especially from the young girls).

It was at this point that I remembered walking through the mall, and seeing two men holding hands. A regular type guy saw it, and as they passed, pulled a 180 with a disgusted look, and just stared at them. I was walking behind, and caught glimpse of it, and then turned to gawk at him for his own behaviour. Meanwhile everyone else is just going about their business, phew, the masses are unbothered. Was it that shocking to see, given the widespread acceptance and seeming tolerance?

It got me all a thinking about gay topics in general, and noticing that in the last few years that I’ve lived here, people do still get a little bit uncomfortable when talking about, or being around LGBTQIA+ people or issues. On the whole, I imagine people are not homophobic, but the behaviour I see, and in particular the behaviour of men, certainly seems to say something different. Why is this still an issue in a modern, civil society? How could this reflect a large minority of my society? Do I truly live in such a loving bubble that I don’t regularly observe this fear or hatred?

Sure I understand that a huge percentage of the population is foreign-born, but I thought still that the attitudes were more gentle, more modern, or more adapted, especially in 2022. I guess being gay in theory is okay to these people, but when they end up seeing it, it becomes much more a problem and causes disgust.

At any rate, go see Bros. It’s freaking hilarious and will either confirm, or poke fun at every truth of the gay man existence.

I have found my film-twin.. It is embodied in the character of Blaine in the film Is it just me? and it’s disturbing. He’s a writer, he’s bitter, he’s sarcastic, he’s everything I’ve ever been (except for being a writer, and more attractive).

The film centres around Blaine, the writer, who’s looking for a boyfriend, but hasn’t had any luck at all, as nobody will give him the time of day. He bumps into a guy from Texas named Xander at a coffee shop, whom he coincidentally and unknowingly chats to on the internet. They call each other, and develop a strong “soul connection” as Blain puts it, and decide to meet.

Upon hanging up on the second 6 hour phone conversation, Blaine is sent Xander’s photo which was set to private, and he realizes who he’s talking to. Furthermore he discovers that he was accidentally logged into the account of his hot and sexual promiscuous go-go dancer roommate, Cameron.

Devastated by his misfortune, which appears normal, he begs Cameron to come on the blind date to set it straight. Unfortunately, Xander is enthralled by Cameron’s charm, but is confused as he seems completely different in real life. Blaine gets upset and tries to get a game plan together, but it doesn’t work, and in the mean time Cameron unknowingly invites Xander to see him dance at the go-go bar in Hollywood.

Xander goes to see Cameron acting as Blaine at the club, and as Blaine has a classic freak out as he’s trying to tell Xander the truth, he thinks Xander disappears and leaves. Xander gets drunk and goes home with Cameron, where nothing happens, but he ends up being sick and spending the night on the bathroom floor. Blaine thinks that they sleep together, and sends him into a downward spiral of self pity and unfortunate event that he calls his life.

As quote by Blaine in his article, he sums up the world quite effective:

Being average in a world of physical perfection is the worst kind of gay purgatory.

Running to his hag to wallow, they have a conversation centring around the situation:

The opinion that I have of myself is that I suck.

To which the hag responds:

Look at what you’ve created.
Work wise, you hide behind a pen name.
You date anonymously via the internet.
You won’t even go to a gay bar by yourself.
I mean have you ever initiated a conversation with someone in person?
Have you ever gone up to someone and said: “Hi, can I buy you a drink?”
I mean, really, is it just me or do you see a problem here?

Echoing the sentiments of everyone in the same situation, or those embittered by life and hating everything he responds in the most awesome way:

Maybe I’m afraid of putting it out there just in case no one wants it.

He puts the nail on the head. The rest of the film is for you to discover yourself, but ultimately it sums up my life.

• Series of unfortunate events
• Bitterness
• Hate towards humanity
• Hate towards gays
• Sarcasm
• Unbelievable situations
• Never achieving what they want
• Classic freak outs

This film is the embodiment of my being, and I’ve watched it no short of two dozen times. Can’t you see the parallels to my life?

After debating going to see this with friends, and being rejected all around as people don’t like thrillers, I decided to go to the cinema to do some stalking of someone at the concession stand, but also to see this film which oddly I really liked. It’s listed as a drama, but it’s clearly a thriller wannabe-horror film. It centres around a girl, Esther, who is adopted from a religious orphanage in a small remote town in New England. She comes from Russia, and integrates into the family well, seemingly a perfect little child, albeit weird with her oldish type of dressing, and the ribons that she always wears around her neck and wrists.

Everything bad seems to happen around Esther, and it soon is revealed that she’s a 33 year old Estonian mental-hospital escapee who cons families into adopting her, as she has a genetic disease making her look like a girl, and when the fathers of the famalies decline her sexual advances she turns on them.

All in all a great story line, a little bit gruesom, but for a child from hell film, I’m quite impressed. I liked the way that it was done. It has renewed my interest in Estonian culture, even though this film negatively protrays it. I think also the directors fudged a bit with the timezone differences. If it’s night time in the middle of winter in America, it’s not light outside in Estonia; duh!

So I’ve just watched a really funny and lovely film called The Curiousity of Chance, and I loved it. It’s different, it’s funny, it’s dramatic, and it even has glitter. And through watching this film I’ve become a new fan of the actor, Pieter Van Nieuwenhuyze, who plays “Hank Hudson” in the film. Unfortunately very little information can be found on the actor, except for some stage productions that he was in, but I presume he’s Flemsih, and if not Flemish than Dutch. I’m a lingust and can tell where a name comes from. “Nieuw” gives the Dutch aspect away, and as well as “Pieter” but the rest remains ambigious.

Being the creepster, yet classy, person I am. I did a google search for him, and low-and-behold I came across his Facebook profile; isn’t that hillarious? Anyways, I’m a true weirdo because I sent a fan-letter to him via Facebook. I don’t expect it to be read or responded to, but I still think it’s really nice and funny! The photo montage will follow at the end of this post, from the film, should any of you want to see whom I’m talking about.

Who can resist the dorkyness of it all? With a cute dutch accent, and a clueles aura, the character of Hank Hudson is embrased by the main character Chance Marquis, an excentric American student at an international high school in Belgium near Antwerp. As a transfer student, the hell begins.

Whilst doing things that the characters aren’t supposed to be doing, they stumble across a drag show; that’s right, here comes the glitter! And they go into the dressing room, it’s so great. Drama drama drama. But then, what happens, but the cluelessness is taken over by beautiful green eyes, and the fact that photos are leaked to the public of Chance in drag. This is all because Hank has a crush on the boyfriend of the football captin who’s been making Chance’s life a living hell.

Finally Twila, and company want to find out what happend to Chance, who’s been hiding out because of the leaked photos. They think he’s dead, and with her sarcastic tone, that often reminds me of myself, the film ends in a splurge of good tunes at the battle of the high school bands. I love the cheesyness! All ends well as everything ends as it should, and they have to “bone up on their Barry Manilow” for a gig that they have coming. Go team!

It just may happen that the star himself passes by this blog, and if so, then hello Pieter Please do leave a comment, as I’d love to have some record of contact with famous people!

I have an update about my cute little tama:

Name: Pojke
Gender: Male
Generation: 1 – Adult Stage I
Species: Mamatchi
Hungry: 4 / 4
Happy: 4 / 4
Training: 100%

Name: Pojke
Gender: Male
Generation: 1 – Adult Stuffed Animal Costume
Species: Nyatchi
Hungry: 4 / 4
Happy: 4 / 4
Training: 100%

He is growing so well and he is even potty trained so I don’t need to clean up his poop, so it’s all good.

Another beautiful day outside, and I’m so happy because I went out and spent some of it in the sun helping mom with the gardening because she’s about to fall over and die, while I can do things more efficiently.

Other than that, lots of chatting, lots of smiles, and lots of good things to look forward to, even a conversation with ‘Voldemort’ as some would say, even though R is not so excited about being written about in bloggs, who cares? I don’t think it’s any big deal because I don’t say anything important anyways.

I think I will watch a film, and then hop into bed.