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May '98:
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Vol 1. No 8. May, 1998
EDITORIAL
About In and Out
One of these days I would like to go to the local movie house, watch a gay-themed movie, and leave feeling proud of who and what I am. I had thought such an experience awaited me at the recent showing of “In & Out”, a movie about a closeted gay teacher being outed by a famous Hollywood actor (and former student) during the Oscars. Instead, I left the movie house rather angry.
Why don’t we just call this movie what it is: the heterosexual world patting itself on the back for being so “understanding” of gay and lesbian realities. As most other gay-themed movies are.
If you’ve ever lived in small-town America you would know that gay teachers are not wanted, that being openly gay is a one way ticket to unemployment. Hysterical parents would have their kids tested for Aids - since you’re gay, you must have Aids, of course - and counsellors would probably be brought in to help the kids deal with their “trauma” of having had a gay teacher. You would not be named “Teacher of the Year” and your students - taught to be intensely homophobic from the day they were born - would not, as they do in this movie, come forward to support you.
Instead of calling this movie “comedy/drama” it should be called “complete fantasy”.
The jilted would-be wife of our closeted gay teacher turns in a stellar performance; her part is the only one that rings true. She displays the angst of having fallen in love with a gay man with fine form. But she doesn’t, of course, address the reasons why a gay man would feel the need to remain closeted, to “pretend” he’s heterosexual, the pressures put on him to get married and be “normal”. She is only concerned with herself, and with the unfairness of being left standing at the alter by a man who suddenly realises he cannot go through with the marriage.
In all of her intense self-pity, she never once stumbles upon the thought that she herself is partially responsible for her predicament, that if she had helped to create a society where gays and lesbians could live and breath and feel good about it, she would have never gotten into the situation she did.
And then there’s the ridiculous actor, who “outs” his teacher while accepting an Oscar on national television. He, of course, is never called to account for his part in this tragedy. Apparently, “outing” a closeted gay or lesbian person is just fine and dandy - no matter what sort of destruction it wreaks in the life of the outed person.
It’s hard to imagine that a place like Hollywood, filled to the brim with gays and lesbians and queers of all kinds, finds it so hard to churn out even one mainstream film that rings true. At least the world of prime time television has Ellen - and is it any wonder that it takes a woman to lead the way?
Go figure.
- Nick Wilde
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