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Antigay sentiment co-exists with film festival
By STEVE PERSALL
Published September 23, 2005
Joseph Cook picked an interesting year to serve as program director of the Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
The lineup of movies available to Cook and a selection committee for the 16th annual gay cinema showcase is one reason. What happened outside theaters since last year's festival ended is another.
One year ago, President Bush hadn't been re-elected on a wave of conservative Christian support - including antigay sentiment - that pundits generally underestimated. One year ago, Commissioner Ronda Storms hadn't used that social shift to push a resolution preventing Hillsborough County government from supporting gay pride events such as the film festival.
What a difference a year of intolerance makes.
Two weeks before this year's film festival, Cook insisted he isn't concerned about the social climate outside Tampa Theatre and Old Hyde Park's Sunrise Cinemas, where films will be shown Oct. 6-16. Booking 88 films from 17 countries and arranging special guests offer enough problems.
The last thing on Cook's mind is what closed minds will think of his choices.
"That was never a thought, never an option," Cook said. "I was never concerned about whether any of these films might upset the local population. I always considered what's the most interesting stuff. What's the most innovative stuff? What films have something to say?
"I think in terms of pleasing an audience. Worrying about bringing picketers? I haven't thought of that at all."
However, at least one potentially controversial aspect of recent festivals has been soft-pedaled. Over the past few years, at least one program was dedicated to gay and lesbian youth outreach, with films and discussion panels focused on coping with peer or parental oppression, as well as sexual abuse. Cook's consultations with the programming committee led to dropping such programs from the lineup.
"We were asking: "Should we do a youth program, or do they want to see (the movies) everybody else wants to see, anyway?' " Cook said. "I looked back at the numbers for those youth programs, and the attendance wasn't that great."
Festival programs were approaching the final draft stage when that decision was made.
"We took it out in the editing process," Cook said. "My co-editors and I felt someone out there could be upset by that. One person said: "What are we doing here? Are we trying to recruit children?' That isn't the case at all. We don't want that perception.
"We just need to market to (teenagers) through gay-straight alliances in high schools. Just tell them here are some films you might enjoy; come together as a group and join us."
All this year's festival films are unrated by the Motion Picture Association of America. Cook guessed that the films suggested for teenagers, including the comedies The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green and Adam & Steve, plus the post-9/11 drama WTC View, would be PG-13 if presented to the MPAA.
"It isn't like Joseph needs to program stuff that's really controversial," said Scott Taylor, festival public relations director. "Here's the thing: Living our lives as gay people is controversial in this culture we're living in. What we do on a daily basis is political. Just living our lives is a political statement on a day-to-day basis.
"The very idea of having a film festival devoted to gay and lesbian themes as a human experience is, in and of itself, controversial."
Cook and Taylor were initially concerned that the conservative upsurge would make it tougher to find volunteers and donors for the festival.
"I think the opposite is true," Cook said. "More people are willing to support, to stand up for their community. They know we bring something to the table for the gay community."
Evidence of that support is found in festival accounting, where some donations are larger than previous years. For the first time, the festival has a presenting partner, Simons & Leoni Home Loans, footing major bills. One anonymous patron donated $25,000, and a recent fundraising party at the Florida Aquarium (co-sponsored by the St. Petersburg Times) raised nearly $20,000, according to Taylor.
"A lot of people have stepped up," he said.
That includes Cook, an adjunct professor of sociology, sexuality, popular culture and cinema at the University of Tampa, the University of South Florida and Hillsborough Community College. He dabbled in art house film programming in Louisville, Ky., before moving to Tampa, where former program director Margaret Murray spurred his interest in doing the same for the festival.
"She was the first person who got me involved and kind of inspired me," Cook said. "She instilled within me the importance of more challenging filmmaking being shown, more international films, more documentaries that we probably wouldn't get to see except in this venue.
"What's the use of showing films that will end up at multiplexes in six months, or everybody's going to get to see in some way or another? There's so much gay media now and so much access. You can find gay characters on TV with ease. They're all over the place, but they're the same character."
Sameness can also be a problem in gay and lesbian cinema. Themes are constantly repeated, to the point that Cook purposely avoided a few topics while digging deep for fresh approaches to others.
"We don't really have the stereotypical coming-out stories this year," Cook said. "I don't know if I saw anything fitting that mold or not. If I did, it wasn't very good."
Last year's hot topics were same-sex marriage and legal benefits, profiled in a number of documentaries at the festival. Cook found many more on the festival circuit this year, but none made the list.
"None of them had anything new to say," Cook said. "We've done that, and I think we're done with that. "But there are some documentaries and narrative films about homosexual experiences that are outside the typical boundaries of what's assumed to be a normal relationship.
"The trend I'm seeing is like a postmodern approach to queer experience, more like stretching the boundaries of general assumptions about gay and lesbian life."
In that vein, Cook cited Karen Everett's Women in Love - the centerpiece of the lesbian short films program "Reel Hot Women" - and Life in a Box, a gay romance with a country music twang.
"Both (films) depict polyamorous situations or polyfidelity, where a couple becomes a trio and how that works out or doesn't work out," Cook said. "Those are films that say there's a difference between commitment and monogamy; they're not necessarily the same thing."
Another of Cook's favorite selections is Fish Can't Fly, a documentary by Sarasota resident Tom Murray, who'll attend the closing day screening.
"It's a response to religious oppression," Cook said, "folks who have gone through conversion therapy (in) Christian schools where they were being converted from homosexuality back to heterosexual. Of course it didn't work for any of them, and now they're trying to balance their homosexuality and Christianity, trying to be happy with both."
Of course, the festival lineup has a lighter side, with nearly a half-dozen comedies. But perhaps it's a sign of the times that Cook couldn't find more at festivals from San Francisco to Miami.
"The overall trend at gay and lesbian film festivals is that there's not a lot of comedy out there," he said. "It's a smaller portion this year of what's actually available. "But films don't have to leave you with some sense of foreboding: "Oh, life is totally s - - - - -, let's go slit our wrists now.' But certain films make us feel that way. There's one, maybe two, films (in this year's lineup) that do that."
Cook identified those films as the Florida premiere of the sadomasochism/AIDS drama A Year Without Love ("Definitely interesting, but this guy's not living a pleasant life") and the southeastern U.S. premiere of Good Boys, dealing with two male prostitutes in Tel Aviv. "But even that one has kind of a nice resolution," Cook said.
"The sense I get (from the gay community) is that the level of programming this year is a little different than it has been in the past. Maybe some things have been missing, but now they're here."
And those closed conservative minds can get used to it.
- Steve Persall can be reached at 727 893-8365 and persall@sptimes.com Check his blog at www.sptimes.com./blogs/film
ON THE WEB
For more information on films, events and tickets for the 16th annual Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, check the Web site at www.pridefilmfest.com
[Last modified September 22, 2005, 09:32:02]
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