Posted on 02/10/2004 8:55:14 PM PST by Hamilton2
Queer eye screens straight campus
Gay group hosts its first fest at ND
Notre Dame. Queer Film Festival.
David Pais thought he'd never see the day.
"I was at Notre Dame in the Dark Ages," Pais, a 1972 graduate of the university, recalled with a laugh. "I wasn't even out. The idea of having a festival on campus that would help students understand their sexual orientation ... would have been incredibly enlightening.
"But the campus has made some significant changes since I was there," adds Pais, now of Brooklyn, N.Y. He's co-chairman of the Gay and Lesbian Alumni Association of the University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College, a nationwide organization of some 875 members.
This week, Pais and his fellow organizers of the Notre Dame Queer Film Festival -- a first for the university -- will find out whether this historically conservative campus is really ready to embrace the cause of gay and lesbian inclusion.
Several university departments have joined the alumni group in putting money and energy behind the festival, resulting in an impressive guest list: Don Roos, the Notre Dame graduate who directed and wrote the successful independent film "The Opposite of Sex"; Dan Bucatinsky, writer and star of the gay romantic comedy "All Over the Guy"; representatives from the Equality Forum and Young Gay America; and filmmaker/performer John Cameron Mitchell, best known for "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." Panel discussions and a screenwriting workshop (the latter led by Roos) will round out the week's events.
Being different a gift
He doesn't shock easily, but the invitation to bring "Hedwig" to a gay film festival at Notre Dame did come as a surprise to Mitchell, who grew up Catholic. He said he's never been asked to talk about gay film on any college campus. But while he welcomes the opportunity, he's a little suspicious of the categorical label.
"Hedwig wasn't specifically a gay film. Our audience was completely mixed," Mitchell said, talking recently by phone from his home in New York. "Though certainly it has gay themes, people found the character -- because it was so specific, you could say it was real. People could find it universal. They could see it as a fairy tale and as a myth.
"That's the point, really -- not to pander to any specific groups," he added, pointing to the unfortunate number of "gay" films that don't happen to be good films. "It's about telling something true. If it's true, and it comes from the heart, people respond to it."
As for gay-themed programming on television, Mitchell said most of the shows are so obsessed with superficial aspects of the "lifestyle" that he finds them more embarrassing than affirming.
"Come on. Gay used to be non-conformist," he said. "To me, it was a privilege to question all kinds of norms. To me, being a freak, being different is a gift."
Beacon of hope
A gay or lesbian student on a campus such as Notre Dame might not always think so. They have access to counseling and other resources gay students of Pais' generation did not enjoy, but to this day there is no officially sanctioned organization supporting gays and lesbians on campus; nor do they have an established place in the campus culture.
For these and other displaced students, Mitchell hopes the Queer Film Festival and "Hedwig" in particular will serve as a beacon of hope and understanding.
"Let the uniqueness of this film inspire your own uniqueness," he said. It's a lesson Mitchell intends to drive home with the post-screening Q & A.
"I'll only answer questions I've never been asked before. People always ask me things like, 'How did you come up with Hedwig?' I want to hear something else," he said, laughing. "I plan to throw some bombs. But hopefully love bombs."
When Pais looks back on his own years at Notre Dame, he often thinks of a "love bomb" that fell on him from an unexpected source.
"One of the things I remember I learned at Notre Dame, and it's stayed with me: I heard a priest say, 'It doesn't matter who you love but that you love,'" Pais recalled. "I think that has served me well."
When will this madness stop??!!! I'll take "the DARK AGES" anyday over this Sodom and Gomorrah world.
The alumni have their heads in the sand. They give their money and their children to the University hoping that the wonderful place they experienced is still there, but they've given their money but not their attention.
Then the University taught them how to make money not values or critical thought.
They have a dysfunctional sex fetish. They see things from a distorted world view. It's like the rest of us normal people see the boat leaving the shore, the mentally ill see the shore leaving the boat.
They don't know they're mentally ill, and they have the Socialist dictators on the bench using them as useful idiots to create social chaos. Only through social breakdown could a socialist revolution take place. If a socialist revolution were to occur, the useless eaters and dysfunctional would be the first to be eliminated.
Homosexuality is also against natural law. There's not one other life form on the planet that's naturally homosexual. Some plants are hermaphroditic and produce their own seed, but that's as close as it gets. Nature will eliminate the homosexuals naturally. Nature sees them as a disease. That's where AIDs comes in, but it's working too slowly because man has intrerfeared. Another disease will naturally come along that will do the job. It always has. Nature cleanses itself.
Fascist litigation. They go around the will of the American people, and have their dictators on the bench force us to obey.
That's why the homosexuals fear the voting booth. Liberals fear the booth for every policy they have. None would pass the conscience of the American citizen. It has to be forced upon them. Yes, it's fascist, but that's why the voters have to get patriots back on the benches. Liberal judges are making our laws for us. Impeaching them is way over due.
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