“Southern Baptist Sissies” is making the LGBT festival
circuit (I don’t see it on schedule for the DC area yet). It’s pretty easy to guess the subject matter
from the title
.
First, the format of the film, directed by Del Shores, is
noteworthy. It is filmed right off a
stage (the Marka Theater in West Hollywood), with the story set in Dallas, TX. (I’m surprised they didn’t stay in Texas to
film it, perhaps in Austin.) There are references to streets (Cedar Springs)
and bars (Moby Dick) in Dallas --- meaningful to me because I lived there from
1979-1988 (although some of the clubs have moved around and switched names in
recent years). The stage sets rotate
among a “Calvary Baptist Church”, which gets turned into a dance club, a dinner
theater, and various other gatherings as the stagecraft possesses.
The technique is the same as what Lars Van Trier used for
“Dogville” a few years back, and the shooting style is called Dogme, although
some of the rules are broken (for example, here the aspect is a full 2.35:1). The scenes seem to be shot in long continuous
takes, without much editing, as is common with Dogme.
Apparently, there is an original stage play of the same
name, and I think it was written by Del Shores.
I don’t know where it played. The
Cathedral of Hope in Dallas could have provided a venue for the Buckle of the Bible Belt.
The script, broken into two “Acts” (and long – the film runs
almost 140 minutes) creates counterpoint between the charismatic young hero
Mark (film producer Emerson Collins, 29,
who is incredibly satisfying to the eye – lean, strong and
smooth-chested), the fundamentalist pastor (Newell Alexander), the older “fag”
Peanut (Leslie Jordan, who reminds me of Toby Jones or even the late Philip
Seymour Hoffman), the would-be reluctant boyfriend TJ (Luke Stratt-McClure) and
the tragic Andrew (Matthew Scott Montgomery).
Collins very much dominates the whole play and film with his presence,
sort of the way Tom Welling dominates Smallville.
There’s plenty of theology spinkled throughout. One idea is that missionaries are necessary
to get people on other parts of the world saved. Another comes from Andrew’s mother, who
noticed that he wasn’t interested in girls and wasn’t going to get
grandchildren through him. That sort of
says it all.
Mark has some great lines, like “I’m so interdependent that
when I die, someone else’s life will flash before my eyes”. Yet, the whole modern moral issue seems to be
about balancing independence with interdependence.
The word “sissy”, of course a pejorative, almost like (as George Gilder once wrote) “dilettante”, suggests a man who doesn’t carry his share of the common burdens
of protecting the community or guaranteeing its future. (The “f” word occurs sometimes in the
play.) In the days that we had a male-only military
draft (long before the formal “don’t ask, don’t tell”) we thought of physical
cowardice when we contemplated the word.
That concept is less important in an individualistic society than it
used to be, but that’s how things are seen in less democratic parts of the
world (like Russia and much of Africa).
Of course politicians abuse it.
There’s something inconsistent about this idea in Christianity, though,
in another sense: early Christians
expected the “End” soon, and would not have worried about their future with
procreation. In fact, people expecting
the Rapture or tribulations could think the same way. The people “left behind” would have no future
anyway. It was Paul who said “It is
better to marry than to burn.”
There are a lot hymns in the soundtrack by Joe Patrick Ward,
including “Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling”, near the climax of the film. That
hymn had been used to great effect in “The Trip to Bountiful” by Ben Masterson,
with Geraldine Paige, set in south Texas, which I saw at the Inwood in Dallas
in 1985 (Island and Embassy Picture).
It’s being remade now.
The official Facebook (for “Sissie”) is here. I reviewed from a private Vimeo
Screener. I believe that the
distribution will come from Breaking Glass Pictures.
When I lived in Dallas, and my parents came, my father wanted to visit the First Baptist Church (my picture above from 2011, call it the First Southern Baptist Church) on Ervay on downtown Dallas. Wally Amos Criswell would give 45-minute sermons. One Sunday night in 1980 he gave a sermon on homosexuality, which he found "bewildering."
Hope Reel Affirmations picks up and shows this in DC. It is a “West End” kind of film. Sorry, I don’t know the little indie theaters
in NYC as well as I should.
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