Straight Skin, Gay Masks and Pretending to be Gay on Screen by Gilad Padva

Author:Gilad Padva [Padva, Gilad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Lgbtq+, Gay, Social Science, Gender Studies, LGBTQ+ Studies, General
ISBN: 9781000057676
Google: SbfjDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-05-11T03:50:38+00:00

Pretending-to-be-gay inside and outside the patriarchal order

The fear of being labeled as a “gay movie,” a fear shared by Freshman Orientation and Boat Trip, motivates the sexualization of the fag hag in these films. In Freshman Orientation Amanda clarifies that she is not satisfied with the title “fag hag.” Clay’s plan to conquer the sexy woman by pretending-to-be-gay seems to succeed in a scene in which Amanda puts her beautiful head in Clay’s lap and wonders: “Why can’t all guys be like you?… What am I doing here?! I really like you.” Clay answers that he likes her too and assures her, “You’re the most amazing person that I’ve ever met.” They kiss but Amanda stops him: “This is… not right. It’s unfair to you and it’s dishonest.” Clay almost admits his own dishonesty, but Amanda hinders his sensational confession.

Amanda embraces an allegedly gay-friendly attitude, at this point, while explicit homophobic messages are asserted by another character, the sorority leader Serena (Jud Taylor), who hates men and criticizes Amanda for her infatuation with a gay man. She rebukes her: “Wake up, Amanda! Gays manipulate women to fall in love with them all the time.” (Emphasis added.) Serena’s claim manifests this film’s ideological frameworks. Unsurprisingly, Amanda replies that Clay is not like that, but Serena insists:

Fine, then let’s say he’s giving up gay life for you. You really think he can tow himself out of it? He likes a dick in his mouth and he’s gonna want it again because fags, Amanda, are still men!

Interestingly, Serena fantasizes an all-male sexual spectacle in which Clay plays a receptive “feminine” role which is synonymous, in her straight mind, with faggotry. Yet she thinks that this boy is “still a man,” a young male adult whose presumed lustfulness and compulsive voluptuousness demonstrate his masculinity, even if it is a damaged or perverted masculinity.42

In Serena’s eyes, Clay is a member of a sexual community that is both deviant and discriminatory. Her description of a man taking a penis in his mouth demonstrates many straight men’s (and some straight women’s?) nightmare, on one hand, and emphasizes gay Clay’s involvement in a sexual subculture that totally excludes women, on the other hand. Hence, Freshman Orientation caricaturizes both gay sexual practices and radical feminism which is misrepresented in this film as fascist misandry, a relentlessly dogmatic hatred of all men.

According to the ideological framework of this heteronormative romantic comedy, Clay and Amanda can fulfill their love, only if Clay’s gayness is refuted. Clay, a young adult who is devastated by his unfulfilled love for Amanda and affected by his roommate’s feelings toward him, re-negotiates his place in the dichotomous sexual structure. When Matt drunkenly kisses him, Clay first tells him that this is “freaky,” calls him a “shitface” and asks him “not to make that weirder.” In a crucial moment, however, Clay apologizes and seems to be attracted to his roommate. Freshman Orientation, however, doesn’t allow such a same-sex romance. Matt refuses Clay’s homosexual offer.

The sought-after unification between Clay and Amanda, however, is not easily achieved.

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