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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 2002)
15.2002 Identity crises and conformity in the feature by all these right-wingers films of Todd Haynes: (from left) A ID S denouncing you as a homo paranoia in Poison, repressed emotions in sexual pomographer. Safe, the glam boys of Velvet Qoldmine Todd Haynes: Yes, that was very exciting. CM : Do you look back and think, “ That that people would kind of was the way to do it!” share. T H : Urn.. .[laughs] no. It all came so out of I hear bizarre stories. Lindsay Law, who was left field, and it more made me really frustrated the head of American Playhouse, was like, “I saw at, once again, the Democrats, because no one it at Stephen Sondheim’s house.” And I’m just ux>k my side. It was me being forced to debate like, “Where the fuck did he get it from?” So it all these right-wing conservatives simply in rela definitely took on a life of its own, and then that tion to theories about...money for the arts in moment of high-profile issues about the arts, that America. You know, it was all about that issue; it whole crackdown—certainly [on] gay-themed wasn’t even about my film, which anyone who work in that period— added attention. saw could say, “No, it’s not pornographic”— even those guys. But none of them had even CM : How did people respond to Safe ? You seen it, so it was just this abstract argument were known as a gay filmmaker, but there about the National Endowment for the Arts. were no gay characters. There was no Democrat or liberal on my end T H : At first, the response in every way was saying, “This is important.” It was just me. one of kind of head-scratching.... But I don’t think gay audiences were that much behind CM : Do you think that controversy critical [audiences]...to start finally looking at helped launch your career? Do you think you the film on its own terms. got more of an audience that way? What was interesting is that it sort of forced T H : It’s probably a double effect, but Super- people to think about, well, what is a gay star , the film I did about Karen Carpenter, in movie? Is a gay movie defined by content? Is it some ways has remained the more enduring defined by attitude? Are there gay ways or thing that people first heard about me alternative ways of seeing the straight, domi through— the way it traveled in bootleg form nant society that would qualify as a gay movie? and became a kind of underground experience Is it in the eye of the beholder, or is it in the 7 don't care i f it has two guys in it i f it's going to formally and stylistically reflect dominant filmmaking without any critique . i don't want that to be a gay movie; I don't want to be associated with that as a gay movie . " BV JEFF VESPA —Todd Haunts eye of the beheld? What defines it? And these terms are nebulous because it shouldn’t be necessarily about content or the movie that’s exactly the same boy-meets-girl, boy-Ioses-girl structure except with men in it. Is that radical? To me, that’s exactly the same. I don’t care if it has two guys in it if it’s going to formally and stylistically reflect dominant filmmaking without any critique. I don’t want that to be a gay movie; I don’t want to be asso ciated with that as a gay movie, either. So it broadened the questions, maybe, about what is a gay sensibility and what is the critical perspective you want to see from minority points of view. CM : So, a Queer as Folk type, boy-meets- boy, all-positive love story— is that something we can safely say you would never do? T H : Not as just described, no way. Uh-uh. Doesn’t interest me at all. But I’m not interest ed in any kind of simply affirmative film making. The films about women I do aren’t simply affirmative, either. They’re not about heroic women who save the day and win the war. You know, it’s always about people who are struggling and who have to find reasons to resist their situations. Some level of resistance is a through line, I guess, of my stories. CM : Velvet Qoldmine was very sexual, think of it as a bisexual movie. T H : It was totally ignored by the gay press, too! That makes me mad! It was like it didn’t even exist, which is bizarre to me! I think it’s an incredibly sexy movie, and it’s about a really radical moment of sexuality that should be looked at! It’s like, “Sorry, it’s not 100 percent just boys,” you know? That was disappointing. CM : Ju st Out ran a full page on it! T H : [Laughs] Awesome! CM: Leaving a screening of Velvet Qoldmine, 1 overheard a young woman saying, “ I think that movie would’ve had a lot more to say to us if we were boys who liked boys!” On the other hand, I have gay friends who were bothered by the effeminacy of the boys. Do you think you really tweaked people’s sexual buttons? T H : [Laughs] I guess it just excluded every body! Seriously, I think a cool thing about it, and what demonstrated some of what I’d hoped would happen— because the American theatri cal release was not well thought out— is that when it came out on video, it started to get into the hands of all these kids. At one point there were like 75 Web sites devoted to the movie, some of them really ornate, and some of them really well frequented. It’s really a movie that’s made for an obsessive relationship, which is the fans’ relationship to their object of desire, and it’s based on those kinds of cult movies that came out in the late ’60s and early ’70s that I had an obsessive relationship with, so when I saw kids—a younger audience, a lot of girls and a lot of gay guys—and they were really passionate about it and obsessive and would analyze every little thing, that was fantastic. CM : Was it partially because of the hectic atmosphere surrounding Velvet Qoldmine that you came to Portland not long after? T H : It didn’t really have to do with how the film fared. It was more how exhausted I was by the production, and it just led to a real ization that I wasn’t completely happy in New York in general, and my life seemed to be increasingly defined by my work there. It wasn’t until I moved here to write Far from Heaven and really just luxuriate in a differ ent kind of physical space... the atmosphere and climate, and spring and summer, and then meeting great, wonderful, smart, creative peo ple in Portland, that made me realize what I wasn’t feeling enough in New York. Continued on Page 26
