Rachel's Paideia Blog

Off Campus Event

I guess I didn't really do that much off campus either...it's felt like such a productive semester, but I think most of what I have accomplished has been preparation for other things. Or school work. One really interesting thing I went to was something I heard about in my Gay and Lesbian film class. For the class we watched the film By Hook Or By Crook, which is basically this low-budget movie with a male lead played by a female-to-male trans man and his friendship with a sort of crazy man, also played be a f-t-m trans man. The film disregards sexuality and places its importance on friendship and non-romantic relationships between friends. It was a cool movie, and one of the directors, Silas Howard and his friend Lynnee Breedlove came and spoke to our class. Very interesting discussion. The reason they were able to come, though, was because they were in Austin for a comedy tour they were on, which was the event I went to.
Their comedy was very funny, and in line with the "new queer cinema" direction of the film, in which gay filmmakers don't try to portray their gay characters in a positive light as had been done in the past, but are more unforgiving and in-your-face. Their comedy dealt a lot with struggles of acceptance--not knowing which bathroom to use (male or female) and also included a skit with stuffed animals who were confused about their sexual desires for one another as well as their own self-perceptions. Though it was humorous, I felt like it really had a lot of depth. I was impressed by Silas and Lynnee's ability to so freely share themselves with an audience. I know it much take so much courage to be able to expose oneself to so many people, and that was very beautiful for me to watch.

posted by Rachel @ 11:02 PM