Ahead of this weekend’s GAZE International Film Festival, tn2 got a sneak preview at two of the films showing on Saturday: Kate Bornstein is a Queer & Pleasant Danger, an equal parts hilarious and moving documentary about the gender anarchist and seminal trans icon, and African Pride, an Irish documentary by RTÉ journalist Laura Fletcher, which examines homophobia in South Africa’s townships.
Kate Bornstein is a Queer & Pleasant Danger
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“Would you like to see my big, golden, flying penis?” asks 66-year-old Kate Bornstein, as she gives viewers a tour of her apartment. This cheeky, bold humour is just one facet of her wildly eccentric personality. A self-described “gender outlaw”, Bornstein is ardently postmodernist in her understanding of gender constructs. Inhabiting a space between male and female, Bornstein believes “identity is playful, you can bend it — you can be more than one thing at a time.”
At one point, Bornstein “checks off” her identities on a list: “Jew. Transexual dyke. Reluctant polyamorist. Sadomasochist.” She’s also a recovering Scientologist, a trailblazing activist and an inspirational theorist and writer; the documentary in many ways draws from Bornstein’s memoir, A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The True Story of a Nice Jewish Boy Who Joins the Church of Scientology and Leaves Twelve Years Later to Become the Lovely Lady She Is Today.
In addition to her readings and public appearances, the documentary features Bornstein’s interactions with her family and friends. It is through these intimate moments that the film excels. Bornstein speaks lovingly of her long-term partner, sex educator Barbara Carrellas, and the audience joins them at their annual New Year’s Eve lobster dinner. Bornstein announces with delight, “I’m a sapiosexual. I just learned that word! It means that I’m attracted to brains, like a zombie. And Barbara, you are so smart, the zombies would eat you first.”
The documentary tackles Bornstein’s coming out narrative in a powerful and fresh way. After we see a 1991 clip of her sharing memories with her mother and brother in their family home in New Jersey, Bornstein recounts on stage her coming out story — from the point of view of her mother. Seated in an armchair, and impersonating her mother’s heavy Jersey accent, Bornstein yells, “Get out of here right now young man! And if you go through with this, don’t bother coming back, because you’re not welcome here!”. The heartbreaking scene offers a unique and postmodern variation on one of the biggest aspects of the LGBT experience, as Bornstein (as her mother) recalls the moment with both tenderness and regret.
Bornstein’s account of her time with the Church of Scientology is equally fascinating and painful. Although initially drawn to the notion that people are “immortal spiritual beings who therefore have no gender”, Bornstein eventually left the Church, and was forced to leave behind her young daughter Jessica, who is still a member today. Bornstein reveals that she has been estranged from her daughter for twenty years, and has never met either of her two grandchildren.
Not one to shy away from confrontation, Bornstein proudly declares that her books were banned by Pope Benedict, and recalls mischievously how her reclamation of the word “tranny” got her “in big trouble on the interwebs”. Bornstein puts forth a compelling defense, arguing that the opposition to the term is deeply rooted in classism and sex negativity, and that older, middle-class, white trans people “don’t want anything to do with” young, transgender sex workers.
The film may disappoint those expecting a focus on Bornstein’s work and activism, as it is more concerned with the personal life and relationships of its subject. Director Sam Feder followed Bornstein for three years, but rather than presenting a linear chronology of her life, Feder attempts to create a multifaceted portrait of the transgender icon. While this is an interesting concept, the first half of the film feels somewhat scattered as it struggles to find its way. However, by avoiding voyeuristic or intrusive questions about her body and transition, Kate Bornstein is a Queer & Pleasant Danger portrays a truly brilliant and fully-rounded individual who is not solely defined by her trans identity. — MM
The Lighthouse Cinema, Saturday August 2, 6.30pm. Tickets €8-10.
African Pride
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The recent trend for European and American documentaries highlighting the African LGBT experience poses something of an ethical conflict. While these films give a voice to people facing incredible persecution, they also often feature unsettling implications of Western back-patting. Countries like Uganda (home to some of the world’s most oppressive anti-LGBT legislation) become representative of everything that we in the west feel we have overcome — religious bigotry, homophobia manifesting as violence and state supported repression. It’s easy to pretend everything is ok when there’s a dark and regressive Other far away in the Southern hemisphere.
African Pride, a film by RTÉ journalist Laura Fletcher, sets out with a fresh approach to the subject. The films follows lesbian communities within South Africa’s townships, the makeshift settlements that house the poorest of the poor and which have long been a blot on the nation’s post-apartheid development. Frustrated with lack of support from community and national authorities, they have taken to the streets to, in the words of the director, “[meet] homophobic violence with visibility”. Fletcher’s subjects seem to inhabit a different world to the modern and accepting South Africa where the murder of one white woman recently caused an international media storm. Dressed alternatively in traditional clothing and loose unisex casuals, these women calmly recount incidences of sexual humiliation, rape and violence. Blurry photographs show the smiling faces of girls who have not been so lucky — victims of homophobically motivated murder. Traditional gender roles appear to be a motivating factor in this hidden epidemic — women speak of having been targeted for “butch” presentation and activists stress that women’s rights are for all women. The activists groups themselves are portrayed as colorful and intriguing collectives which span generational and ethnic affiliation, united by their desire to take action—one of the film’s most striking comments occurs when Yonela (Small) Nyumbeka faces the camera and states, “You can rape me today, but I’ll still remain as a lesbian.”
Yet, despite the engaging nature of its subject matter, the filmmaking falls short of its potential. Fletcher cut her teeth in TV and African Pride often looks and feels like a lost Prime Time segment, from the generic emotive music to the lack of a clear narrative thrust. While Fletcher does touch on some interesting points as to the role played by colonization in establishing gender binaries, that line of analysis is never properly realized. What made the 2013 documentary God Loves Uganda so thought-provoking was that it placed the recent surge in African homophobia within the context of increased American missionary activity. Men interviewed in Fletcher’s film refer to homosexuality as “not African” yet the historical and cultural factors that shaped these opinions are never brought up. While Fletcher should be praised for shining light on an important topic, African Pride needed both the historian and storyteller’s touch to truly do justice to the experiences of these brave and fearless women. — SLG
African Pride will be screened along with a 10-minute preview of Queen of Ireland, a documentary currently being filmed about Rory O’Neill (AKA Panti Bliss). The Lighthouse Cinema, Saturday August 2, 6.30pm. Tickets €8-10.
