Angels in America.

DVD reviewed by Duane Simolke for This Week In Texas


Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece actually encompasses the separate plays Part I: Millennium Approaches and Part II: Perestroika. After seeing a wonderful performance of Part I at Texas Tech University, I kept wanting to see Part II performed live. Instead, I saw both on HBO, adapted for television.

Mike Nichols, the director of Biloxi Blues, The Graduate, The Birdcage, and many other hit movies, brought his considerable talent to Tony Kushner’s screenplay. The resulting mini-series deserves the many Emmy nominations and awards it received.

As with the plays, some of the actors play multiple roles. Jeffrey Wright reprises his stage roles, joined by famous movie actors like Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, and Emma Thompson, as well as underrated independent movie actors like Justin Kirk and Mary-Louise Parker.

Examining how AIDS affected and changed America, Angels offers dreamlike story-telling and emotional performances. Despite its sometimes surreal vision of life during the 1980s, it encapsulates the human capacities for betrayal, denial, survival, acceptance, and compassion.

Jeffrey Wright used his Emmy win to call attention to how AIDS continues to devastate both Africa and African Americans, as well as to a need for films that deal with those issues. Hopefully, such projects would attract extraordinary talents like viewers will find with Angels in America.

Latter Days.
DVD reviewed by Duane Simolke for This Week In Texas

I wanted to see this movie from the first time I heard about it. Proving itself more than worth the wait, Latter Days easily ranks up there with gay favorites like Torch Song Trilogy, Sordid Lives, Jeffrey, Friends & Family, and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. It will doubtlessly make its way into countless DVD collections, and not just among gay viewers.

C. Jay Cox, best known for the screenplay of the gay-friendly comedy Sweet Home Alabama, makes his directorial debut with Latter Days, which he also wrote. Dealing sensitively with a romance between a gay man and his Mormon missionary neighbor, this comedy quickly takes dramatic turns. If I explained too much of the plot, it would sound contrived, but Cox uses serendipity to show how people’s lives interconnect and change each other. (Besides, I wouldn’t want to ruin the plot twists!)

The DVD includes, among other features, a fascinating documentary that explores the film’s history, from the planning stages through its making and into the early months of its theatrical release. I hope C. Jay Cox will write and direct more great films like this one!

Book review: Mission Child, by Maureen F. McHugh

A colonized world develops a unique identity and culture. Years later, one of its citizens develops a unique identity as well, adapting to her culture by taking on the identity of a man. Soon, she finds that her gender-blurring actually appeals to her in ways beyond what her situation demands of her.

I love Mission Child as much as McHugh’s more popular novel China Mountain Zhang, which received the James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Locus Award for Best First Novel.

McHugh is a great writer who can involve readers in any scene, regardless of how much or how little action that scene contains. The language seems descriptive to an extreme, but she still manages to tie those descriptions into the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

Before reading her work, I read reviews that included complaints about her supposedly not focusing on plot. Readers can find countless formulaic, plot-driven science fiction and fantasy novels, but they won’t find many original and evocative writers of McHugh’s caliber.

McHugh’s other novels include Nekropolis and Half the Day Is Night.

Gay mayors, governors?

In “Mirrors: A Blackmail Letter,” one of the tales from my story cycle The Acorn Stories, the closet-case mayor of a Texas town launches a “family values” crusade that targets an artist with whom he had a gay sexual encounter. Please don’t confuse the mayor of Acorn, Texas, with the governor of Texas, or with any other real person. A gay mayor is one thing, but no one would believe the idea of a gay governor! Come on, this is Friday the 13th, not April Fools Day!

The International Herald Tribune: Governor steps down after disclosing gay affair
SignOnSanDiego.Com: New Jersey governor resigns and admits gay affair
New York Post: N.J. Governor Resigns Over Gay Affair With Aide In $5m Blackmail Flap
The Independent Media Center: "It's OK to be Gay, Governor Perry"
The Texas Triangle: Perry Winkles
The Austin Chronicle: Naked City: The Real Sins of Gov. Perry

The cover image from The Acorn Gathering: Writers Uniting Against Cancer is the current group photo for the Yahoo! Group An All Around Writing site. An excerpt from the group’s description follows: “Here, writers of all kinds can get together and discuss their books, poetry, lyrics, things read, and even get a chance to meet with some publishers and agents.”

Science fiction this summer….
 
I always look forward to the USA’s summer series The Dead Zone. Now they’ve added another science fiction series for the summer: The 4400. I don’t know why they don’t just show these programs on the SciFi Channel, which they own, but both shows are good. (NBC now owns USA Networks, so USA and SciFi Channel programs are benefiting from extra publicity.)
 
Read about Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure in two blogs this week: AMERICAblog and the gay travel/entertainment blog towleroad. 
 

More about gay marriage, multiculturalism, and/or the anti-gay constitutional amendment.

The Battle Over Same-Sex Marriage 'Wedge issue' isn't grabbing conservatives
Black religious leaders and activists rally in support of gay marriage
The National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Organization
The Two-Spirit Tradition in Native American Experience
Equality Center California
National Black Justice Coalition
AMERICAblog
Holding Me Together: Essays and Poems
Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure

A related excerpt from Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure follows.

Her gray eyes sparkled like no eyes Hachen had ever seen. Actually, she had broken the law by secretly telling him that her eyes were light brown, but, unlike his gifted spouse, he couldn’t see in color. He couldn’t even see the redness of her skin, though he knew from history class that most people on Valchondria have red, brown, or black skin, and some of the people who had once lived there had yellow or white skin. To him, everyone simply looked white or black.

During history classes, before the Maintainers expunged certain anti-glory facts from the school curriculum, Hachen had learned about how white-skinned people and yellow-skinned people faded from existence. After the Supreme Science Council realized that those two races contracted certain illnesses that no one else contracted, they worked with the Maintainers to pass a constitutional amendment, banning any two members of those races from marrying. The measure supposedly protected Valchondria’s families and stability. Within three generations, both races ceased to exist; only the red, black, and brown races remained obvious, or some mixture of the three.

That time in Valchondria’s history brought outcries of shame, and the government vowed to never again use the law to promote bigotry. But then, little more than a hundred years later, the SSC found that obesity caused many illnesses, adding to increased national healthcare costs. So another constitutional amendment passed, this one allowing the Maintainers to fine people for not keeping a healthy height-to-weight ratio.

And after the virus came, the Maintainers and the SSC passed yet another constitutional amendment that promoted discrimination. That one made the ridiculous assertion that discussing colorsightedness posed a heavy hazard threat to traditional values, and that claiming to be colorsighted was nothing more than a plea for so-called “special rights.” It amazed Hachen that a civilized culture could keep taking away people’s civil rights. It also hurt him, because the woman he loved was the target of that bigotry.

And the new forms of bigotry kept emerging. Next came legally permitted language, initially called “socially recommended rhetoric,” creeping slowly into schools and the media and then into the law. And then Maintainer cameras came. And freedom left. All in the names of preserving traditional Valchondrian values. All suffocating Valchondrian creativity, thought, and progress.

Copyright 2004 Duane Simolke. Excerpt used by permission.

Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure

GayLinkNews.Com: Degranon Rewritten for Gay Audience That Embraced It

Movie review: Saved!

A student at a Christian high school wants to save her gay boyfriend by having sex with him. Another student there seems to see herself as God’s head cheerleader. Right away, this film shows its irreverence and its outlandish humor.

However, despite what the previews and the first half of the film suggest, this movie isn’t anti-Christian at all, but rather anti-hypocrisy and anti-bigotry. Too much prejudice parades around in the cloak of religion, and this little comedy tears that cloak off.

With a brilliant and mostly young cast that includes Jena Malone, Macauley Culkin, and Mandy Moore, Saved! calls us to laugh at our arrogance and ultimately feel more compassion toward those who might not fit into our world view…as well as those who mistreat us.

Some will dismiss Saved! as simply an attack on religion in general, while some others will see it as a specific attack only on fundamentalist Christianity. I wouldn’t call it either, and I speak as someone who attended Christian colleges and immersed himself in the culture this movie depicts: a culture of often-tacky Christian merchandising and a culture that centers around the constant politics of exclusion.

I would call Saved! a funny, enjoyable satire that might challenge us to show a little more love. And isn’t love the one virtue that Jesus stressed the most?

Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure: Reading Group Questions. I wrote down the following questions to possibly spark discussions, for reading groups, etc., or just anyone who likes talking about books.

What are the central themes of this novel?

If you read Degranon’s limited, first edition, how is it different from the second edition, Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure?

How are the planets Degranon and Valchondria alike or different?

In which ways does this novel relate to real life?

How do Degranon’s themes of race and racism matter when all of the characters are people of color? How would this novel be different if all, most, or even some of the characters were white (Caucasion), or would it have no impact?

How do the characters’ religious views differ from or relate to each other’s, and to your religious views? What about their values and ethics? How closely connected are their values and ethics to religion?

Within the novel, which groups face discrimination, and why?

How does being colorsighted relate to being gay? How does being gay in the novel differ from in real life?

Are Valchondria’s laws and Degranon’s laws believable? Could those laws pass any place on Earth? Have they?

Which of the characters do you like the most or identify with the most? Why?

Can you point out the allusions to Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451? How does that novel relate to this one? Can you find allusions or parallels between Degranon and any other books?

How does Degranon relate thematically to The Acorn Stories? To Holding Me Together?

What is your favorite scene in Degranon, and why?

Which of the romantic storylines is your favorite?

Please mention and discuss other books or movies with gay or diversity themes.

Discuss Degranon at GoodReads.

Keywords: science fiction, scifi, gay science fiction, science fiction adventure, multiculturalism, diversity, fanaticism, God, religion, religious freedom, religious right, liberty, civil rights, gay, lesbian, queer, racial, people of color, racism + homophobia, racism, homophobia, weight discrimination, discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, Utopia, terrorism, Middle East, American history, free speech, romance, love, family.

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