At around 15-20 minutes into the film, someone says "When you're gay, you monitor everything you do"
This quote really stuck out to me in the film. He is explaining that being any identity other than the norm can make you want to overcompensate to be normal if you feel the need to hide anything. People so often assume hetero/home sexuality based on appearance, and people who identify (or think others see them) as anything non-normative may be consistently worried that they are not passing for how they want to be viewed in society.
In this film, there is a lot of emphasis on how strikingly different the reality is vs. the ball scene. In the ball scene, people act how they want to, how they want to be seen. In society, people may dress in a more normative fashion. I think this speaks to a lot of identities. If you can't be yourself in society, that isn't fair, but it is a harsh reality to the LGBT community. Sometimes, one chooses to present themselves in a way that seems more real, and it backfires. They receive harsh criticism from strangers, friends and family. And the worst part is that the criticism comes for anything - if one is presenting oneself as one wants to present one self OR if one is perceived as "faking" something other than themselves. There is no way to win.
2 comments:
I wonder what we do personally to react to people that are not similar to us. I never really worry to much about monitoring my behavior and I wonder what it would be like
This is a better articulation of what I was trying to say in class about the ability to confidently and safely deviate from norms being a luxury. "Faking" something is certainly more transgressive/dangerous for some than others.
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