Watching with Hope.

"All minorities are watching movies with hope". They hope to see themselves in them. They hope to see that they are not the only one of their kind in the world. They hope to not be alone anymore. They read between lines of dialogues. They create their own stories. I remember when I was a kid, every gaze, every gesture, every laugh in movies have personal meanings for me. Last night after watching Celluloid Closet (trailer), a documentary about history of gay and lesbian characters in cinema, I remembered my own interpretations of movies. According to this documentary there was a great censorship in portraying gay characters in Hollywood. After watching Celluloid Closet it seems that many of my dreams are really true. There IS actually a gay interest between Sal Mineo and James Dean characters in "Rebel Without a Cause". There ARE gay references in Ben Hur, Spartacus, Maltese Falcon and many other famous movies. That's great. It seems there are other people who share my fantasy world with me.





As I look back to history of Iranian cinema, I realize that we have the same procedure for portraying gay characters. In most cases effeminate characters are just for fun and their gayness never become serious. The most well known case in this category is "Snowman": about a man who becomes a woman to get American visa.




But when a case become a little more serious, everything become so vague that you can interpret the scene in anyway that you want. Such a scene is in Abbas Kiarostami's Palm D'Or winner film "Taste of Cherry". Maybe I am crazy, but you can read many things from behaviour of that young soldier, when Mr. Badii offer him a ride and ask him if he can do something for him and receive some money.




... And I think I can understand Ehsan's yesterday post. There are moments in your life when you thought that you can't continue anymore. My solution for these moments is to take refuge in dreams: computer games, films and books; and to keep away from falling in love. But beware that this kind of life become harder and harder as you grew older. Land of dreams has a high toll price. Very high.

... And Sacred is really a great game. Nothing new, but they create a Diablo II as it should be.

... And am I become crazy and see gays everywhere or really there is a gay kiss (at 1:36 M) in Alex Lloyd's "beautiful" video?

... And We are here, We are Queer, Get used to it by Hossein Khiabanian.

... And Homosexuality in persian literature.