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Re: Can you tell us more?
Posted by Chuck on 2026-May-4 10:49:05, MondayIn reply to Can you tell us more? posted by Nightlight on 2026-May-2 09:39:21, Saturday
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Well, i know a smattering. Maybe i can assist you (and others) to think this stuff (and such guys) thru better, i dunno. And, HEY, maybe you can even steal it and rewrite it into your own article,,,, Let's not fool ourselves: we're dealing with a subject that, due to its being made taboo, is ALREADY something i for one get shaky about as *i* try to merely intellectually defend it publicly (sometimes). Same with when i used to use a public photo copier to copy my BL comix zine. Shakin up a storm!! (In the context of a LIFETIME of silenting myself!) So there's that. Then there's a guy who's trying to make an powerful impression with the nifty film crew that's looking for something to "chew on". But his inclination towards teenagers is made to appear as tho he's talking about toddlers (as shown on the film's cover). And so on and so forth. All ageist and other cammo'd manipulations going on in the film. And certainly not enough demystification!! (To be fair, the producer asked me to help him edit the film, but i declined, thinking at the time it was 'his art', not mine.) He also flaunts the typicalized idea (that most non-queer men have internalized) that we settler people have:
So then here comes a man who doesn't readily fit into that expectation. He's got a flock of honking geese(!), lots of flowers growing, and a lovely country home space, full of life and good energy, for one! (Oh So Weird thing #1.) Then how he gets depicted in the film, seemingly oblivious (in his seeming being hypnotized by the camera) to how the dead trees in the backdrop are being used to frame Leyland as Totally Nuts. There's also no comparison with other groups that people might readily identify with and thus more easily bridge with MEN WHO ARE DIFFERENT, having considered such. Like, which groups? Any group that's been oppressed and has some imagery to use in a film! Then there was the producer/director of the film. He pushed those depicted to do something special or be more dramatic. i know, because, spoiler alert, *i* was in that film. That was a big deal for the producer: To have, if i recall accurately, some "action". And, yes, it was i whom decided to do that by taking my bullhorn and haranguing NBC TV for a good while. All to fulfill the film director's stated needs. (That we took off before NBC could send down a P.R.person proves it; i would have stayed and confronted them! But they didn't want to push buttons Too Hard!) I did that instead of going over to a playground like the film's producer wanted me to do (Film me taking possibly heavy shit from knee-jerking parents? No thanks!), i went with the idea to do the NBC action. So that's probably another reason why Leyland came off as such a ..whatever. Note that His flirtatious comments were made in front of a film crew and all the hulabaloo that comes with that. That's what i think. He was being STRONG, in his mind. This was his way of trying to be "radical", i suspect. To take a LEADING position in the Fight! i don't recall him making flirtatious comments towards any actual dudes (kids) in the film. That was only afterwards, when he returned to the film crew and sharing as enthusiastically as a teen girl might. And then exposing the Taboo-ized in such a blatant way as to discuss an illegal act was deeply unsettling all by itself. So imagine a Black man wedding a white woman in the early 1960s (Say, a Sidney Poitier in "Guess Who's Coming For Dinner"). If you can remember from those days (not me, but i watch documentaries), you can remember how INSANE that notion APPEARED TO BE back then, for MOST N.Americans. Inundated with racism (both subtle AND open), whites would automatically think of the Black Man as Other, a BRUTE, wild and taboo. And imagine all sorts of things in his smiles and 'leer', etc. No doubt QUICKLY LABELING him with the era's KNEE-JERK JUDGEMENT. Not understanding. In the context of such history, we begin to recognize the pattern repeating! Naw, that 'strange' naked man was me (And that's "Mister Strange" to you!). And we artists DO tend to come off as "strange" to the mundane stuck; those whom have become SO estranged from their OWN humanity that they seem to enjoy taking petty joy in VENTING out their own frustrations thru scapegoats. My idea at the time was to try to present myself in a "spiritually nude" way; a way that the intuitive-oriented (i.e. moms watching) might more likely identify with. (i recognized that those wearing stuffy "dress" clothes and "ties" would not be identified with, even seen as patriarchal; that sort of dress sought to reach lawmakers and such professional implementers of policy, as author Charlotte Ryan would say.) But certainly not stuffy old backwards types who Fear The Strange, and try to make everyone wear Leashes (er, "ties") and so on and so forth!! Is that your design upon me? (You DO come off as some sort of shrink, and certainly not a full ally..)  "Nothing is more central to the maintenance of social order than the regulatory mechanisms employed to control and socialize our children."--Ronald Boostom |
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