Romancing the Bros

Sometime ago, I worked at a bookstore in Chicago. The film adaption of the novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk was to be released soon. I was quite obsessed with the book and I reached out to the the book publisher’s publicist to see about getting a chance to interview the author. I never thought it would happen, but I underestimated the hustle of the average PR person. Of course I could talk with Chuck. A half-hour phone interviewed was arranged.

I was nervous, but I was prepared. This was to be a conversation with an author who’d nailed the zeitgeist as the world hurtled towards the 21st century. When he called, I stuck to my list of questions for the first ten minutes until we fell into a natural conversational cadence. He was as curious about me as I was him. I talked about my recent obsession with the Freemasons. He asked me why I didn’t join and I chuckled out loud at the suggestion. Not really my scene, I responded. But you seem pretty taken with the whole history, he said. Why don’t you join up and then you can reveal all their secrets to the world? I told him I was pretty sure they would murder me. We both laughed.

I have a story for you, he continued. I have a screenwriter friend who lives in Los Angeles. He wanted to do a script on the trend of conversation therapy camps for teens. Specifically the religious ones which boasted that they could “pray the gay away.” There were lots of rumors about the abject hypocrisy of these places. He has experienced this firsthand while working in a prison clinic for sex offenders. After he had completed the script, it was picked up and made into the film, But I’m A Cheerleader. There was one huge caveat to the project. The protagonist was to be switched to a female. It’s Hollywood, said Palahniuk.

Even Rock Hudson would agree that much has changed in the past twenty odd years. The celluloid closet has been blow-up, but there are still plenty of culture warriors claiming that anything at all resembling a healthy depiction of gay life constitutes a seductive plot to make everyone gay, bisexual or trans. It’s incorrect and fucking exhausting. But I am excited for Bros and more needed opportunity to let others be seen and feel accepted. You can call it what you want, but I will say it’s progress. It’s a hard won effort to undo much of the backwardness in the world today, even if it is just cultural.