Images for a Generation Doomed by Kylo-Patrick R. Hart

Author:Kylo-Patrick R. Hart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2010-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Going Mainstream with Splendor

Araki had initially announced that his next film following Nowhere would be The Separation of the Earth from its Axis, the story of a gay male teen who ends up falling in love with a single father (“Personnel” 11; Totally Screenplay). However, by the time Nowhere was released, the assumedly gay director had apparently (and quite unexpectedly) become romantically involved with Kathleen Robertson, who played Lucifer in the concluding offering of his teen-apocalypse trilogy (which he dedicated to her in the closing credits with the words “I love you, honey 4ever.xxx”) and who starred in what ultimately became his seventh feature instead of The Separation of the Earth from its Axis, the romantic comedy Splendor (which he also dedicated to Robertson in the closing credits: “For my baby, my one and only”). Araki’s romantic relationship with a woman certainly “set tongues wagging” (Brodie 11), especially after he walked all around the Sundance Film Festival with Robertson on his arm (Hays, “Make,” par. 7). It also ended up further alienating several of his earliest fans while simultaneously leading his filmmaking style and creative choices in new, far less controversial, and increasingly heterosexual directions.

Take, for example, the following scene from Splendor, written and directed by Araki, which is actually one of the film’s most erotic. In an L.A. apartment, Veronica (played by Robertson), a heterosexual aspiring actress, invites the two men she has been dating simultaneously for several months to dinner and, after plying each with numerous drinks, initiates a game of Truth or Dare. She asks the first guy, the brooding novelist and music critic Abel (played by Johnathon Schaech), if he has ever had sex with a guy; he replies that he has not. She asks the second guy, the punk-rock drummer with perfect abs Zed (played by Matt Keeslar), the same question; “Define sex,” he replies. Next, she dares Abel to remove his shirt and Zed to remove his pants. As the game progresses, the woman dares Abel to kiss Zed. He instantly refuses. Veronica expresses her disappointment, cautioning that Abel’s refusal is turning her off and adding that a kiss between the two men would be incredibly hot. Reluctantly, Abel plants a quick peck on Zed’s cheek. “No, you have to do it on the lips,” Veronica protests, once again revealing her disappointment. Minutes later, after she has stripped naked and danced around the room on a dare, Veronica dares Zed to kiss Abel “full on.” An initially tight-lipped, entirely tongue-less and passion-free kiss, lasting fewer then ten seconds, results.

If the above scene had appeared in The Living End, Totally F***ed Up, or The Doom Generation, the resulting kiss between these two attractive young men would have been much hotter, and they likely would have been fondling each other’s package before progressing to have sex with each other, as well as with Veronica. In Splendor, however, that is where the scene draws to an abrupt close. The following day, during a conversation with her lesbian

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