people
Let's Stay Together
Film documents range of male couples
by Patricia L. MacAodha
he Man You Had ir. Mind, a homemade
the film, but their 10-year relationship shows stay
documentary that was selected for the 2006
ing power, having survived the “seven-year itch.”
Portland Lesbian <Si Gay Film Festival, pro
In the case of Bill and Todd, it all comes togeth
files five same-sex couples from a variety of er. Fifteen years a couple, they marry during the
ages, life experiences and relationship
2004 legal marriage window, and their celebration
styles. Vignettes featuring each couple represent
unites family and friends in joyful acknowledgment
a continuum, an appealing view of relationships of this relationship, marred only by one relative
between these five Portland couples. Director Jim
who accepts them as a couple but just can’t handle
Tuchschmidt and producer Aaron Kirk Douglas,
the marriage step.
themselves gay men, explore each subject’s coming
These men present a face of solidity that leads
out: levels of conflict from family, friends and com
them through encountering family tragedy and not
munity; that magical moment of each encountering
only surviving it, but also succeeding. They have the
the other (Eric Marcoux says, “It was just bang!”);
kxtk of bedrock material for their community:
and the subsequent bonding process.
responsible, attractive, professionally successful—
The couples in this film experience many chal
men everyone can admire and respect.
lenges. A former Mormon, with his lover of about
Finally, the film segues to Eric Marcoux and
a year, is raising his young son. His partner realizes,
Eugene WtxxJworth, who graciously invited me to
“Wow, now I’m a dad.” Responses by family mem
interview them in their magical home, hidden tan-
bers—mothers, fathers, siblings, an aunt, etc.—
talizingly behind a wtxxled area. The couple have
range from some refusing to communicate with the
created and re-created this house during their years
self-accepting gay man to parents thanking Gixl for
in Portland, sharing it with a stunning blue and
their son’s partner.
gold macaw that trades kisses with Marcoux and is
There’s also an interracial couple who have been
terrified by hats. (1 left mine in the hallway upon
together off and on for seven years, one of whom is
entering.)
HIV-positive.
The rtxtm in which we talk, and the one adjoin
A September-May relationship is classically
ing it, are filled with Marcoux’s paintings. The
portrayed, with the older partner
chided for having a much younger
lover (he has grown children near
the partner’s age), while the younger
man gets some flak, too. In fact,
those family members taken aback by
this relationship appear to be more
disturbed by the age difference than
the same-sex aspect.
The question of age disparity is
a gtxxJ one to examine. Many such
relationships have happened in the
gay community, especially among
men, and frequently have a mentor
ing capacity in them that goes all the
way back, at least, to Plato. What
happens when the wrinkles deepen
on one and not the other? When
generational differences—combined
with unspoken, but understood, stan
dards of physical attraction cause
questions in the mind of the younger
Eugene Woodworth (left) and Eric Marcoux celebrate their 54th
partner? This was not addressed in
at a benefit screening for Elder Resource Alliance.
/\ >4 |\I D
I I
atmosphere reminds me just a hit of
the photos one sees of the Paris
apartment of Gertrude Stein and
Alice B. Toklas, with art as the
focus and an ambiance through
which one becomes acquainted
with this couple.
The men met in Chicago in
1953, with Marcoux coming out of
a sequestered life in a Trappist
monastery and leaving the order just
before taking final vows. A devoutly
Catholic man, he was stniggling with
what he would no longer deny about
The couple moved from Chicago to Portland two years after
himself while, with great fortune,
their first meeting in 1953.
meeting the love of his life. Marcoux
was 23, Wixxlworth a slightly older 25. They met
maintained this 54-year relationship. That and, as
through a friend who was dating Wixxlworth.
Marcoux says, “Sometimes inertia is a blessing.”
Woodworth was—and remains, by nature—
They made a choice, as AIDS unfolded, to lim
a dancer, having developed his own company
it their sexual relationship to each other, hut
through an artistic center in Chicago before
Marcoux insists, “It was not a noble gesture." They
Marcoux entered his life. He made the choice to
met at a time when relationships like theirs had
give up dance as a career and take on better-paying
“soft edges”—and could be that way when jealousy
employment, opening the dtxir for Marcoux to
or AIDS didn’t threaten what was between them.
become a practicing artist. WixxJworth says,
Times change, hut the relationship, as with many
however, that for him, “Life is always a dance.”
of their friendships, included more factors, more
There is never a time
elements for building an increasingly stable life
when he is not “putting
together—stable, but hardly boring.
things together as chore
Moving to Portland two years after they met,
ography and art." He still
they first lived in an apartment but began looking
moves and appears with
for something with a country feel to it. The home
a dancer’s grace, evi they have built around their relationship is the
dencing years of disci perfect indicator of the symbiosis that characterizes
plined practice and par
the unity between them. The fact that they began
ticipation. Even though
with no role models, no family support for becom
he no longer actively
ing spouses, no perception that there was ever
dances professionally,
anyone else to guide them in defining who they are
he says he will always he
to each other can be a comfort to those who
a dancer.
struggle today to seek legitimization of same-sex
It is, in fact, the
relationships. In Marcoux and Woodworth’s case,
self-discipline each man
legitimacy is built through the action of two people
has developed through
who love each other. Forget what the rest of the
world thinks! ©
his own walk in life—
Woodworth through
dance and Marcoux
T he M an Y ou H ad in M ind opens June 12 at
through the Trappist
Living Room Theaters.
experience and his
P atricia L. M ac A odha is a Portland freelance
current practice as
anniversary June 13
a Buddhist—that has
writer. E-mail her at I)atmae3l@juno.com.
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