I don't think I've ever seen a film this unequivocally hard to stomach in my life before, even worse than the 2004 race-bait film, "Crash." Simply referring to it as a feature film in and of itself is dubious. Really all it is, is an overwrought 2 hour length public service announcement designed as a circle jerk over the preconceived notions held by an increasingly petty breed of social activist who loves living in a bubble, hates having their views challenged, and would claim false victimhood in a world that in 2016, leans overwhelmingly in their favor, which makes it both grueling in running time and in subject matter.
It's clearly intended to be super edgy by challenging the way heterosexuals may look at "homophobia" by reversing the roles of oppressor/aggressor. All it reveals is an incredibly insulated concept of oppression held by its creators, one that relies on hyperbole, cliché, gross-out scenes, and everything caricatural surrounding bigotry that you can possibly think of, looking at the problem through an unrealistically magnified lens. It's as if they tried to cram an entire history of oppression into one little neighborhood, within the space of two hours.
Starting with the premise, a world that's completely homonormative where heterosexuals are oppressed and ostracized. As a concept, you could actually make something quite interesting out of that, but the problem is, we have to be given a REASON, and it has to make sense. This could have been a very developed sci-fi theme, or something of the sort, where humans are grown in test tubes, where there's an involved and developed backstory explaining how heterosexuality became redundant and was viewed as a force of antagonism. The problem is, the film makers had no interest in crafting a story with any sense or rationale to it. Literally all they seem to care about is propaganda.
The film is supposed to be an alternate universe that's always been homonormative and oppressive of heterosexuals since the time of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Julio," and us the audience, are supposed to take it for granted. As such, the film fails to address the real reasons behind bigotry, and instead presents homophobia as an either/or situation that can be easily flipflopped, when it can't. Let's really take a look at this though. Today, the average secular family has roughly 1.6 children. In a world that actively discourages heterosexual unions, calling them "breeders" as a pejorative, would such a world really be able to sustain its own population? More to the point, every single person alive would have to hate/despise their parents literally for giving birth to them. It's just dumb.
The film is pretty much one scene after another showcasing overt bigotry against heterosexuals, each scene more extreme than the last. That's ALL it is. The message is loud and clear. "Ha! You see what us homosexuals have to live with? Well now you know what it feels like, and doesn't that bother you tremendously?!" OK so they succeeded in bothering me. Touche, but not for the right reasons.
I'm bothered by how ridiculously tone deaf they are to the world they live in. Did anyone at my school get picked on or bullied for being gay, led alone beat up or murdered? NO. NONE. Literally never! At one point, within the wrong circle I made an offhand comment saying "I think two men having sex is disgusting," and for this comment I was ostracized, insulted, and shunned for the next little while until I formally revoked those words. That was the world almost 20 years ago. The world today is so overwhelmingly pro gay, that the over-the top scenes in this film are not even close to an accurate parallel AT ALL. In the city in which I live, all summer long people are flying rainbow flags from dawn to dusk, so I'm sorry to say, gays being oppressed in ANY societal context is not a reality I've ever known.
That being said, even in the fictional context here, it makes no sense. If heterosexuals in the film face so much hatred to the point of being beaten up, bullied, and killed, why are so many people "coming out of the closet," in the first place? The plot of the film is completely incoherent to the setting, for this reason. In such a society, EVERYONE would be in the closet. Likewise, the 50's were a "don't ask/don't tell" situation, and as a result you DIDN'T have a dramatic world of overt direct oppression/harassment like you do in this film.
The film is just SO over the top, SO self-indulgent that it reminds me of "Reefer Madness," but with one important difference: "Reefer Madness" is at least something we can all sit back and laugh at now. The film simply takes itself too seriously, and so do too many people who watched it, while it contains not a SINGLE hint of intentional humour or irony, despite the ridiculous plot elements. The scenes of bullying would be bad in ANY film, regardless of the subject, because of how clichéd and forced they are. Of course, because the film tackles the gay issue, it's presented with awards and accolades, but honestly, if this was a film that dealt simply with bullying, simple bullying, the majority of people would be canning it for the same reasons that I am.
I'm all for having the discussion about bigotry and oppression, and if that's what they wanted to do, it would have been a much more productive conversation if it was evoked through satire. Of course that's not what these filmmakers are about, not unity or mutual understanding, and certainly not about spreading love. The message they have is one of self-privilege. They're the type of people obsessed with getting attention and special interests by playing the victim card over and over again, and they get it by spreading misery and pain, the core elements of who they are, miserable, and self-absorbed, just like the characters in their story.
It's clearly intended to be super edgy by challenging the way heterosexuals may look at "homophobia" by reversing the roles of oppressor/aggressor. All it reveals is an incredibly insulated concept of oppression held by its creators, one that relies on hyperbole, cliché, gross-out scenes, and everything caricatural surrounding bigotry that you can possibly think of, looking at the problem through an unrealistically magnified lens. It's as if they tried to cram an entire history of oppression into one little neighborhood, within the space of two hours.
Starting with the premise, a world that's completely homonormative where heterosexuals are oppressed and ostracized. As a concept, you could actually make something quite interesting out of that, but the problem is, we have to be given a REASON, and it has to make sense. This could have been a very developed sci-fi theme, or something of the sort, where humans are grown in test tubes, where there's an involved and developed backstory explaining how heterosexuality became redundant and was viewed as a force of antagonism. The problem is, the film makers had no interest in crafting a story with any sense or rationale to it. Literally all they seem to care about is propaganda.
The film is supposed to be an alternate universe that's always been homonormative and oppressive of heterosexuals since the time of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Julio," and us the audience, are supposed to take it for granted. As such, the film fails to address the real reasons behind bigotry, and instead presents homophobia as an either/or situation that can be easily flipflopped, when it can't. Let's really take a look at this though. Today, the average secular family has roughly 1.6 children. In a world that actively discourages heterosexual unions, calling them "breeders" as a pejorative, would such a world really be able to sustain its own population? More to the point, every single person alive would have to hate/despise their parents literally for giving birth to them. It's just dumb.
The film is pretty much one scene after another showcasing overt bigotry against heterosexuals, each scene more extreme than the last. That's ALL it is. The message is loud and clear. "Ha! You see what us homosexuals have to live with? Well now you know what it feels like, and doesn't that bother you tremendously?!" OK so they succeeded in bothering me. Touche, but not for the right reasons.
I'm bothered by how ridiculously tone deaf they are to the world they live in. Did anyone at my school get picked on or bullied for being gay, led alone beat up or murdered? NO. NONE. Literally never! At one point, within the wrong circle I made an offhand comment saying "I think two men having sex is disgusting," and for this comment I was ostracized, insulted, and shunned for the next little while until I formally revoked those words. That was the world almost 20 years ago. The world today is so overwhelmingly pro gay, that the over-the top scenes in this film are not even close to an accurate parallel AT ALL. In the city in which I live, all summer long people are flying rainbow flags from dawn to dusk, so I'm sorry to say, gays being oppressed in ANY societal context is not a reality I've ever known.
That being said, even in the fictional context here, it makes no sense. If heterosexuals in the film face so much hatred to the point of being beaten up, bullied, and killed, why are so many people "coming out of the closet," in the first place? The plot of the film is completely incoherent to the setting, for this reason. In such a society, EVERYONE would be in the closet. Likewise, the 50's were a "don't ask/don't tell" situation, and as a result you DIDN'T have a dramatic world of overt direct oppression/harassment like you do in this film.
The film is just SO over the top, SO self-indulgent that it reminds me of "Reefer Madness," but with one important difference: "Reefer Madness" is at least something we can all sit back and laugh at now. The film simply takes itself too seriously, and so do too many people who watched it, while it contains not a SINGLE hint of intentional humour or irony, despite the ridiculous plot elements. The scenes of bullying would be bad in ANY film, regardless of the subject, because of how clichéd and forced they are. Of course, because the film tackles the gay issue, it's presented with awards and accolades, but honestly, if this was a film that dealt simply with bullying, simple bullying, the majority of people would be canning it for the same reasons that I am.
I'm all for having the discussion about bigotry and oppression, and if that's what they wanted to do, it would have been a much more productive conversation if it was evoked through satire. Of course that's not what these filmmakers are about, not unity or mutual understanding, and certainly not about spreading love. The message they have is one of self-privilege. They're the type of people obsessed with getting attention and special interests by playing the victim card over and over again, and they get it by spreading misery and pain, the core elements of who they are, miserable, and self-absorbed, just like the characters in their story.