‘Buzz’-kill: Promoting Gay Stereotypes on BuzzFeed

“39 Songs that Shouldn’t Have Flopped but Straight People Let it Happen”

“42 Songs Only Gay People Know”

“30 Songs From the Early 2000s that only Gays and Woke Straights Know About”

These are just a few titles from popular pop culture website, Buzzfeed. I’ll give you a hint: close to none of the songs listed in these articles feature guitars or male vocals. That’s pretty much the gist of it. Apparently, if you’re gay, you only listen to dance/pop music from women who run the gamut of fabulous to glamorous, sexy to sultry–and everything in between. No nuance. No variety. Is that what it means to be gay?

According to Buzzfeed, it is. Don’t get them wrong: Buzzfeed loves gays, women, people of color, transgender people, disabled people–witnessed in all the articles they post that are usually on the right side of our current woke zeitgeist. Buzzfeed is nothing if not current in trends, that’s for sure. 

Yet, they are curiously archaic in this innocuous tangent of articles written by gay authors themselves, that perpetuate the narrowest and most superficial gay stereotypes. 

Why does a website that so clearly wants to appear enlightened allow such myopic fodder? 

Maybe because articles about gay people who aren’t fun and flashy aren’t going to sell. Even gay people know that, which is why these gay authors write and sign their names on these frivolous pieces themselves.

Here’s the thing: it’s no secret that stereotypes are generally bad, but the open secret is that people often accept–even revel–in stereotypes they like, such as gay men’s alleged love affair with fun, disposable pop music.

Who cares if it’s a stereotype, when it’s oh-so-cool and flattering, depicting us as exciting, glamorous, and sexy? (Forget that these articles in question could also be accused of portraying us as: vapid, shallow, and superficial).

The main problem is though: obviously, not every gay person is like this. Even the authors (and readers) themselves probably know. Subsequently, when a gay person sees headlines and articles like these and doesn’t recognize themselves in them, it only perpetuates any nascent feelings of isolation and exclusion that are already too common among LGBTQA people–particularly young ones. 

It’s ironic that in our current zeitgeist, which seems to multiply in identity politics by the year, month, day or hour, we can still perpetuate stereotypes like this so cavalierly–even diligently.

As any gay person knows, it’s still all too common to be judged by our gay peers for indeed not liking the latest Lady Gaga song or not idling our lives away at the local gay dance club. 

Why do we still have these holdouts of ignorance, intolerance, and pressures to conform in the gay community, when we–along with the whole national zeitgeist now–allegedly preach enlightenment, tolerance, and acceptance of different lifestyles?

You do not get to pick and choose which stereotype is acceptable or not. It’s similar to double standards. You either reject them all or accept them all. 

These articles are obviously not the equivalent of preaching hate, bigotry, or violence against anyone–but it’s no less damaging towards a community that still struggles to find acceptance and inclusion. Such articles offer too little to compensate for how much they can alienate. 

‘Mind’ Games Keep You Guessing

The Year I Lost My Mind certainly avoids current gay indie-film tropes, if not most cinematic tropes altogether, with its bizarre collection of idiosyncrasies.

On the surface, it’s a thriller about a troubled young man who dabbles in petty illegal activities, but its his particular tics and habits that amount to a tantalizing viewing experience, if for no other reason than to find out just what the hell is going on?

Tom is a pale, offbeat, lonely gay man in his early 20s, living at home with his mother and sister in Berlin. Our first introduction to him sets the tone: he dons a large horse mask, compelling his resigned mother to ask “Why do you enjoy having people be afraid of you?”

Her inquiry is apt. Things only get stranger from there as her moon-faced, taciturn son walks into stranger scenarios, often wearing a variety of more masks from his bountiful collection.

Tom soon breaks into a stranger’s apartment where the handsome tenant sleeps peacefully, unaware of the passive crime that hovers over him. Tom simply observes the unsuspecting young man, then leaves—making mental notes for some later transgression perhaps.

This leads to a low-grade stalking scenario, spread out over the course of the strange protagonist’s idle days, spying on his subject’s routine around town from a distance.

Through his increasingly disturbing habits, interests, and behavior, one gets the sense that Tom has not only been marginalized by mainstream society but by the gay subculture too, with his unconventional looks that preclude reciprocation when he’s witnessed making advances on other men.

Is this why he is acting out, morally and legally? And to what extent will it manifest?

A subplot unfolds, where Tom encounters a fellow masked man—larger, stranger, and more foreboding them him, at one of his haunts around town: the nearby woods where men cruise each other.

This stirs another question: is his doppelganger’s existence real or merely a figment of Tom’s demented imagination?

Tom revisits his previous subject’s apartment regularly, affirming his lascivious motives in the absent man’s empty bed. He skirts the calamity of being caught more than once, escaping through the glass doors of the patio. His subject begins to notice missing cookies, misplaced books—but he also has a cat, so the picture is hazy.

The inevitable occurs one night when Tom boldly admires the handsome man sleeping in the middle of the night, but he manages to retreat through the front door, buffered by the shock he’s cast over his newly lucid victim.

It’s through another chance that the victim puts two and two together, and he resolves the situation through his own hands—with unexpected results that are intentionally shocking by the filmmaker. Although compelling, it doesn’t feel quite believable enough to be effective.

With a fairly adroit buildup to this climax, it feels a bit of a cheat to only tumble into improbability. The subplot involving Tom’s frightening double is resolved in a more subdued manner, alleviating some of the discord. Nonetheless, the film is effective enough for everything that occurred before its finale—an interesting study in anomaly: its images, moods, and actions are sure to linger long after the screen fades to black.

Movie Review: ‘Beach Rats’ is relevant, compellingly told

In an era where gay issues have been at the forefront of social change and a visible part of mainstream culture with no signs of turning back—regardless of the new presidency in the U.S.—a film like Beach Rats stands out simply for not being politically correct.

How many films in the second decade of the new millennium center solely on a young man living in a premiere urban mecca in the U.S. yet refuses to come to terms with his clear proclivities for other men?

Frankie is a nineteen-year-old, born and raised in Brooklyn along its fabled beachfront that invites the lifestyle for which the movie is named for: his routine involves getting high on the beach with a pack of similar-looking bro’s, often topless or decked in wife beaters during the swampy summer months. It would be idyllic if it weren’t for his covert internal struggle.

Unbeknownst to his virile buddies, Frankie also engages in meaningless sex with older men, whom he meets on a very contemporary platform: a hookup website. From the very first such exchange that he attempts in the film, it is clear that Frankie is hesitant and discreet with this pastime.

And although it’s already been a couple of years since the Supreme Court overturned gay-marriage bans in the U.S., it’s clear why someone like Frankie would still be stuck in the past no matter how fast the rest of the world is moving: entrenched in ostensibly lifelong friendships with typically meathead bro’s, with no prospects of his own—educationally or professionally, not to mention his dying father and somber home life—it’s no wonder Frankie doesn’t want to make waves.

It’s easy to forget that this world—including supposedly progressive countries like the U.S.—is still full of stories like this. They could be in your own backyard, even if you live in a major metropolitan city.

Frankie’s narrative propels further into deeper waters when he encounters a young woman on the boardwalk who openly pursues him. He instinctively goes along with the courtship because she is the right age, beauty, and temperament.

Naturally, tensions and conflicts escalate as Frankie continues to lead concurrent lives that are at odds with one another.

What makes this film rise above whatever connotations that may haunt it—the themes of shame, deception, and meaningless lascivious activities for gay or bisexual men—is its lack of judgment. This isn’t a film about the triumphs of being gay, and it’s not supposed to be. Sure, there have been more than enough films like this since time immemorial, but it’s still part of the gay experience, progress be damned.

The style of the film also beckons for a more sympathetic ear to such a subject. The laconic, natural pace is almost voyeuristic—heavy on visual and mood, over unnecessary plot developments. Frankie is not just a cipher, although it’s easy to label him one due to his reticence and ambiguity as a character. Although none of the other characters are effervescent either, they’re also not mouthpieces for exposition or pedantic moralizing. They feel like real people you meet in passing, even if you don’t get a full chance to know them entirely.

Beach Rats is obviously an old story—closeted homosexuality—but it manages to breathe new life into it through an unlikely setting and character by default, and an uncompromising vision of the subject. Taken on its own merit, outside of our cultural context—it’s simply well done.

Gay men and Gay Bars… a match made in Heaven—and Hell.