The Intellectual Homosexual

Welcome to “The Intellectual Homosexual,” this Portland maverick’s answer to Dan Savage’s “Savage Love,” a haven for all queers who think with their brains as well as their *cough* *cough* - and for the enlightened breeders who love them. My name is Tony LeTigre and I will be your colorful, irreverent, occasionally scandalous host. I intend this to be a place where we can intelligently discuss responses to various media, especially film, music and literature, but also politics and possibly even religion, much though I tend to loathe these last two. And although I’m good-naturedly setting myself up in opposition to Savage - with his constant unrelenting focus on carnal matters - I don’t really mean that sexuality has no place in this column. What fun is being gay without sex? But at the same time, I often lament the lack of intellectuals in my day to day life, and sometimes grow annoyed at the narrow-minded fixation on sex, sex, sex that I see in the gay community. I am a pop culture geek, bibliophile and film critic in addition to being a homo, and I believe it’s vital to nourish your brain as well as your horny little body.

Now, then. I want to write a little about Brideshead Revisited, which I saw - and was very moved by - yesterday, but first a shout-out for Bruce LaBruce, who will be in Portland, Oregon (my beloved hometown) on the 26th. I just read a piece about it in our local queer paper Just Out (which I have written for extensively in the past) and am super psyched about the screening of LaBruce’s movie Otto; or Up with the Dead, which sounds like a delightfully unconventional take on the zombie film. Its protagonist, Otto, is “a nonconformist with an eating disorder who doesn’t like to eat human flesh and is sensitive and intelligent. He also happens to be gay.” LaBruce says his intention with the film was “to lure in straight horror geeks on the promise of a zombie movie and then torture them with a tender gay love story.”

Doesn’t that sound nice?

Now, about Brideshead Revisited, the new film version of the Evelyn Waugh novel directed by Julian Jarrold. For whatever reason, the entire theater was full of old people, as if the nursing home had let out right into the theater. That was disconcerting, but neither that nor my pagan indifference to matters of Catholicism and apostasy prevented me from loving this beautiful, sad, dignified film. It’s set in a magnificent ancestral home in WWII era England and deals with an aristocratic family, which is why it lures in the Merchant Ivory crowd I’m sure (the people who adored the 11-part PBS mini series from 1981), but I don’t really care about setting - a story can be set in a grungy squat in D.C. or in a rich peoples’ mansion in Chelsea - as long as it tells a story that compels me, I’ll sing its praises. And this one got to me big time. The acting is superb all the way around: Emma Thompson as the unyielding Catholic matriarch of the family; Michael Gambon as her estranged, excommunicated husband who surrenders to absolution on his deathbed; Matthew Goode as the pivotal character who insinuates his way into this august clan even as his intentions remain curiously opaque. But most of all I want - no, I NEED - to talk about Ben Whishaw, who plays Sebastian Flyte, the doomed, alcoholic pink sheep of the family.

I became a fan of Whishaw’s after seeing Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, but after Brideshead, I am in love with him. The warmth, dignity and charisma with which he imbues this damaged but beautiful character - a character I can relate to more than any I’ve seen in film in a long time - just makes me want to write him a personal letter thanking him for the quality of this performance. It is possible to regret that we have yet another representation of a doomed homosexual - a figure that always seems to suffer a tragic ending - and to look forward to times in the near future when that may not be the case. But Whishaw’s Sebastian, although ultimately damaged beyond repair by his mother’s blind determination to control his destiny, escapes at the end to find some measure of happiness, living with a wounded soldier in Morocco. It may be too little, too late, but the final shot of Sebastian - eyes closed in what appears to be resolute contentment, with tawny sunlight bathing him in warmth, even as his doom seems near at hand - is among the most poignant I’ve seen in a long time. It is a beautiful performance by a beautiful man.

So, do yourself a favor and see this movie while it’s still on the big screen. Until we meet again…

Love,

the Tiger

Trackback URI | Comments RSS