Last winter my friend Lynn and I represented HIV Edmonton at a screening of what we now know to be an irresponsible and homophobic film—Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher, directed by David Sabatino. Unfortunately, no one at HIV Edmonton had seen the film prior to agreeing to be involved in the director-attended screening and group discussion. We have subsequently learned to never do that again. The film is about Loonie Frisbee, a gifted young preacher and closeted gay man who was continually let down by his community leaders and who died of complicaations related to AIDS in 1993.
Within the first 20 minutes of the so-called documentary it was obvious what we were watching was neither journalism nor art but propaganda. Lynn and I watched the film with rapidly beating hearts and clenched fists, both of us hoping that everyone else was also realizing how lacking in rigor and potentially damaging the film was.
As the lights rose, we waited for the first comment from the audience. Our hearts sunk as the hip-looking middle-aged woman started the group discussion with a “thank-you” to the director.
The film, she said, helped her clarify the idea that you could hate the sin and love the sinner. Her comment was greeted with applause. Someone in the audience compared homosexuality with her own personal struggle to lose weight. Both, she said, had to do with self-restraint. I sat there knowing I did not consider myself a sinner.
Lynn and I looked at each other. My face was flush with emotion; her limbs were spastic with action. As Lynn does in situations where there is an opportunity for a good discussion, she whipped out her notebook and started scribbling.
As she wrote I listened to what other people had to say as well as to the director’s response. As it became clear that Lynn and I were in the minority with our dislike of the film, I knew that I would have to leave the comfort of silence and use my voice.
I raised my hand, the director acknowledged me, and I asked, “Is it your opinion that homosexuality is a sin?”
After skirting around the question by proving examples of how liberal he was as exemplified by his love of rock music, he responded. “Yes.”
I was crest fallen, not because of his beliefs, but because, as confirmed by his response, he abused the documentary form to express his beliefs. He had not created a balanced, well-research film but instead a tool to rationalize close-mindedness.
As the discussion continued with more sin and sinner talk I noticed people turning around in their seats, cranking their necks to look at me. Most faces were consciously blank, while some were wrought with imploring eyes that seemed as frustrated as Lynn and I were.
The most upsetting thing about the film and the resulting discussion, aside from the assumed belief that Loonie’s contracting of AIDS was a result of his homosexuality, was that the scope of the conversation didn’t allow for Gays and Christians to be one in the same—and, if they were, then certainly Christianity suffered.
As someone who has been baptized, attended church and believes in a God of some sort, I was becoming increasingly frustrated. After Lynn eloquently went through the basics of HIV, including the different methods of infection, I raised my hand again.
“Listen,” I said, “I am gay and I go to Church”.
With my comment the energy in the room changed. The lady to my left became visibly uncomfortable, more faces turned back to look at me; some of them were smiling, some were shocked.
After she took a moment to collect herself the lady beside me raised her hand and said through deep breaths “ I am so confused.” “I don’t know what to do.” “I don’t know what is right.” “I have never known someone gay before”.
I looked at her; the bubble I had been living in had also just been popped because I had never met anyone who had never met anyone gay before. I offered her a tissue someone had passed me.
Sitting there, with the lady being comforted by people around her, questions now being politely worded for my benefit, I began to feel that gayness was more than just sexual, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. I saw how gayness is also political.
In the past I had held my sexual orientation close to my chest as if it was something belonging only to me. I lived my life with the belief that it was better to get wet first, make waves later. The experience in the auditorium that night and the wise and wonderful words from Lynn in her car after the film helped me to see that, although it was a convient distinction, it wasn’t realistic. Gay is not something that can be corralled like water into a man-made pond. For me, gay is a river that is part of my fluid identity. I am many things in every moment, including gay
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