Movies
What to watch this fall
What to watch this fall

It might be too soon to get excited about the movies we know are coming later in the year – like the first installment of the big-screen adaptation of “Wicked” or Pedro Almodóvar’s first English language movie “The Room Next Door” – but that doesn’t mean there’s still not plenty to look forward to as their time draws nearer. As always, we’ve compiled a preview of the most interesting LGBTQ and related content coming to movie and TV screens over the weeks ahead, so get ready to plan out your own watchlist as you keep reading below.
“The English Teacher” (Hulu, now streaming): In its publicity blurb, we’re told that educators being forced to navigate “a lot of bullshit” as a result of the ongoing culture wars is a theme that runs “subtly” through this new workplace comedy created by and starring Brian Jordan Alvarez, which is putting it mildly to say the least. Centering on an Austin high school teacher who comes under fire after a student sees him making out with his boyfriend at school, it’s a giddily up-front social satire that skewers not only the hypersensitivity of our current era but the counter-productive absurdity of an education system more concerned with placating political pressures than passing on knowledge; it’s already emerged as a critical darling among the new shows of the Fall Season – which is great news for Alvarez, a talented performer (best known as Jack’s husband-to-be in the rebooted “Will and Grace” and his viral video content on Instagram and TikTok) overdue for the mainstream spotlight.
“Lover Of Men: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln” (theaters, now playing; streaming/VOD, TBA this fall): Earnest, passionate, yet delivered with a light touch, this sure-to-be-controversial new doc addresses the much-speculated question of our iconic 16th president’s sexuality with a trove of well-documented evidence, presented by a host of respected historians and bolstered by amusingly modernistic re-enactments of the Great Emancipator’s supposed intimate liaisons with various men during key parts of his life. More than that, it ties its narrative to the way America’s attitudes and acceptance of LGBTQ people has evolved into contemporary times while also discrediting many modern assumptions about the ways the community has been treated in the past. It may not convince the die-hard doubters, but this polished and politically hopeful effort from filmmaker Shaun Peterson is as hard to dismiss as it is entertaining, and it definitely belongs on your watch list.
“Seeking Mavis Beacon” (theaters, Sept. 13): After a limited release on Sept. 6, this documentary expands nationwide this week with a “DIY detective story” about the search for the unknown and un-credited real-life model whose image was used as the face of “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing” – a widely used instructional computer typing program launched in 1987 – that serves as a launch pad to explore a whole spectrum of sociological and philosophical nuances related to race, ethical marketing, and the impact of technology on culture and communication. With two queer women of color – director Jazmin Jones and associate producer Olivia McKayla Ross – leading the onscreen investigation, it’s an unusual and thought-provoking think piece that is as entertaining as it is enlightening.
“The Critic” (theaters, Sept. 13): Venerated queer elder and acting legend Ian McKellen returns to the screen in this deliciously dark tale of period intrigue from director Anand Tucker and writer Patrick Marber, in which a notoriously poison-penned theater critic (McKellen) in 1934 London attempts to preserve his career by manipulating an ambitious young actress (Gemma Arterton) into a sinister scheme to influence his paper’s new editor (Mark Strong). Lush costumes and period settings, not to mention an assortment of top-notch thespians that also includes Alfred Enoch, Ben Barnes, and the always-exquisite Lesley Manville, all make this grimly macabre morality tale about the dangers of an unbridled ego an unmistakable product of the UK – and it’s likely fans of “BritTV” style costume dramas will be most appreciative of its somewhat old-fashioned charms. Even so, another deftly over-the-top performance from McKellen and an underlying exploration of hazards of leading an openly queer life within a comfortably homophobic status quo are enough to make it interesting for other audiences, too.
“Unfightable” (theaters, Sept. 13 in New York and Sept. 20 in LA; Fuse TV, October TBA): Another new doc tells the story of transgender MMA fighter Alana McLaughlin, from her difficult upbringing and service in the US Special Forces, through her transition and search for community in Portland, to her decision to seek professional status in an arena notorious for its bias against transgender athletes. A real-life narrative highlighting the bravery it can take to assert one’s true identity, this must-see offering from director Marc J. Perez only screens in New York and LA this month, but debuts on Fuse TV in October.
“Will and Harper” (theaters, Sept. 13 / Netflix, Sept. 27): Yet another doc – or is it a non-fiction “road trip buddy movie?” – is set apart from the rest by the star power on the screen: namely Will Farrell, who goes on a cross-country drive with close friend Harper Steele, a writer he met on his first day working on “Saturday Night Live” in 1995. The twist? Steele, whom Farrell had only known as a man, had come out to him as a trans woman, and the trip is their way of forging a new path forward in their friendship “through laughter, tears, and many cans of Pringles.” Funny, intimate, honest, and heartfelt, this is one of those movies that has Hollywood abuzz, and with good reason – its unequivocal and highly visible exploration of trans identity comes with considerable industry clout in the form of its star (who is joined by fellow SNL alums like Seth Meyers, Tina Fey, Kristen Wiig, Colin Jost, Will Forte, Molly Shannon, Tim Meadows, and Paula Pell) and promotes unconditional love and acceptance toward trans people on the cusp of an election in which their rights and protections are very much at stake. Needless to say, this one should be near the top of your watch list.
“My Old Ass” (theaters, limited Sept. 13, wide Sept. 27): Just in time for the new psychedelic revolution comes this comical coming-of-age story in which free-spirited Elliott (Maisy Stella) takes an 18th birthday mushroom trip and finds herself face-to-face with her own 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza). Her “old ass” has some pretty strong opinions about what her younger self should and shouldn’t be doing, and doesn’t hesitate to deliver them in between wisecracks – causing Elliott to second-guess everything she thought she knew about family, love and what increasingly appears to be a transformative summer ahead. Written and directed by Megan Park, and also featuring Percy Hynes White, Maddie Ziegler, and Kerrice Brooks, this one is notable for featuring a bisexual central character, which is more than enough for us to put it on our list.
“How to Die Alone” (Hulu, Sept. 13): In this comedy series co-created by and starring Natasha Rothwell, Mel is a “broke, fat, Black JFK airport employee who’s never been in love and forgotten how to dream” – until an accident leads to a near-death experience. Jarred into a new outlook on life, she throws herself into a quest to go out and start living by any means necessary. Rothwell’s strong talents are enough to bring us to the table, but out gay co-star Conrad Ricamora (“How to Get Away With Murder,” “Fire Island”), as Mel’s best friend, definitely ups our interest level for this promising new entry.
“Agatha All Along” (Disney +, Sept. 18): We all know Marvel has been struggling to please its fans with its ambitious slate of TV content, but one hands-down winner for the titanic franchise was certainly the imaginative and ultimately powerful “WandaVision” – and this new miniseries, which stems directly from that critically lauded entry into the MCU canon, is breathlessly anticipated as a consequence. It follows the further misadventures of villainous Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), who (according to the official synopsis) “finds herself down and out of power after a suspicious goth teen [Joe Locke, ‘Heartstopper’] helps break her free” from the spell that trapped her at the conclusion of the former series. When he asks her to take him down the legendary “Witches’ Road,” a series of dangerous magical trials that might help her restore her powers, her interest is piqued, so the pair gathers a “desperate coven” and sets off on the treacherous journey together. Hahn’s reprisal of her fabulously campy supervillain role is likely to be the main attraction, but including the adorable Locke as her gay new teen familiar is a brilliantly irresistible touch.
“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” (Netflix, Sept.19): Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s true-crime anthology series “Monster” follows up its award-winning “Dahmer” saga by exploring the story of the real-life titular brothers, convicted in 1996 for the murders of their parents, José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez – successfully prosecuted on the argument that they were motivated by greed for the family fortune despite the brothers’ claims of lifelong physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. It was a shocking, heavily publicized case, launching a surge in audience fascination with true crime, and let’s face it – nobody has quite the same golden touch in getting to the humanity behind these kinds of lurid tabloid tales as the prolific Murphy. It’s a must-watch, you can count on it – though if it’s anywhere near as disturbing as the show’s inaugural season, it probably won’t be a binge-watch. Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny play the parents, with relative newcomers Cooper Koch and Nicholas Alexander Chavez as the boys.
“Brilliant Minds” (NBC, Sept. 23) Out gay actor Zachary Quinto stars in this new medical procedural, loosely based on the life and work of Dr. Oliver Sacks, the famed late doctor whose work helped reconfigure the way we understand and treat neurological disorders – but while the real Sacks, though gay, didn’t come out until late in life, the series “re-imagines” his story into modern New York, giving Quinto’s version of the doc the chance to not only be open about his sexuality, but to use some unorthodox practices to help his patients. It might sound a bit forced, but Quinto is always an interesting actor to watch, and any chance to get queer talent playing queer characters in queer stories is good enough to warrant a chance from us, too.
“Grotesquerie” (Sept. 25, FX): The season’s second Ryan Murphy show is this miniseries about a small community unsettled by a wave of heinous crimes – which feel to the town’s lead investigator (Niecy Nash) to be eerily personal. Struggling with issues at home (and her own inner demons), she enlists the aid of a journalist nun (Micaela Diamond) with a difficult past of her own; together, this mismatched team strings together clues as they find themselves snared in a sinister web that only seems to raise more questions than answers. Yes, that all sounds pretty vague and evokes “American Horror Story” vibes without revealing anything – but with Nash as its star and supporting players like Lesley Manville, Courtney B. Vance, and even Travis Kelce (yes, him) on the roster, it’s bound to be a good time.
“Joker: Folies a Deux” (theaters, Oct. 4): This sequel to 2019’s acclaimed “Joker” brings back both director Todd Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix as failed comedian Arthur Fleck, continuing his re-imagined origin story into the iconic “Batman” villain as it introduces him to the “love of his life” – soon-to-be fellow villain Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga) – while incarcerated in Arkham Asylum. The mad mischief-makers naturally embark upon what’s described as “a doomed romantic misadventure,” and frankly, we don’t know much more than that. But the trailers look amazing, and there’s no question of Phoenix’s brilliance in a role he’s already made his own. Even without those encouragements, though, there’s nothing that’s going to stop fans of queer diva Gaga from flocking to the theater to see her take on a character she seems already to have been destined to play – and you can bet we’ll be among them.

“Smile 2” (theaters, Oct. 18): For horror fans, Halloween brings this sequel to the popular 2022 “death curse” chiller from filmmaker Parker Finn, this time following a global pop sensation (Naomi Scott) as she starts out on a new world tour, only to begin experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. No, the premise doesn’t sound terribly original (and just as it didn’t in the first installment), but if Finn keeps the same level of visual and storytelling skills as the last time around, it’s sure to be a delightfully terrifying thrill ride for those who dare.
“Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara” (Hulu, Oct. 18): Our list closes with one final documentary, which chronicles the labyrinthine tale of how the influential queer indie rock band of the title fell victim to an insidious hacking scheme from a lone stalker, leading to an identity-theft and catfishing campaign that continued to terrorize both the two musicians and their global legion of fans for more than a decade. Tegan and Sara join documentary filmmaker and investigator Erin Lee Carr to unfold this real-world mystery is into “a thriller, a caper, a whodunnit, and an intimate personal journey rolled into one.” Sounds good to us!
Movies
‘Things Like This’ embraces formula and plus-size visibility
Enjoyable queer romcom challenges conventions of the genre

There’s a strange feeling of irony about a spring movie season stacked with queer romcoms – a genre that has felt conspicuously absent on the big screen since the disappointing reception met by the much-hyped “Bros” in 2022 – at a time when pushback against LGBTQ visibility is stronger than it’s been for 40 years.
Sure, part of the reason is the extended timeline required for filmmaking, which tells us, logically, that the numerous queer love stories hitting theaters this year – including the latest, the Manhattan-set indie “Things Like This,” which opened in limited theaters last weekend – began production long before the rapid cultural shift that has taken place in America since a certain convicted fraudster’s return to the White House.
That does not, however, make them any less welcome; on the contrary, they’re a refreshing assertion of queer existence that serves to counter-balance the hateful, politicized rhetoric that continues to bombard our community every day. In fact, the word “refreshing” is an apt description of “Things Like This,” which not only celebrates the validity – and joy – of queer love but does so in a story that disregards “Hollywood” convention in favor of a more authentic form of inclusion than we’re ever likely to see in a mainstream film
Written, starring, and directed by Max Talisman and set against the vibrant backdrop of New York City, it’s the story of two gay men named Zack – Zack #1 (Talisman) is a plus-sized hopeful fantasy author with a plus-sized personality and a promising-but-unpublished first novel, and Zack #2 (Joey Pollari) an aspiring talent agent dead-ended as an assistant to his exploitative “queen-bee” boss (Cara Buono) – who meet at an event and are immediately attracted to each other. Though Zack #2 is resigned to his unsatisfying relationship with longtime partner Eric (Taylor Trensch), he impulsively agrees to a date the following night, beginning an on-again/off-again entanglement that causes both Zacks to re-examine the trajectories of their respective lives – and a lot of other heavy baggage – even as their tentative and unlikely romance feels more and more like the workings of fate.
Like most romcoms, it relies heavily on familiar tropes – adjusted for queerness, of course – and tends to balance its witty banter and starry-eyed sentiment with heart-tugging setbacks and crossed-wire conflicts, just to raise the stakes. The Zacks’ attempts at getting together are a series of “meet-cutes” that could almost be described as fractal, yet each of them seems to go painfully awry – mostly due to the very insecurities and self-doubts which make them perfect for each other. The main obstacle to their couplehood, however, doesn’t spring from these mishaps; it’s their own struggles with self-worth that stand in the way, somehow making theirs more of a quintessentially queer love story than the fact that both of them are men.
All that introspection – relatable as it may be – can be a downer without active energy to stir things up, but fortunately for “Things Like This,” there are the inevitable BFFs and extended circle of friends and family that can help to get the fun back on track. Each Zack has his own support team backing him up, from a feisty “work wife” (Jackie Cruz, “Orange is the New Black”) to a straight best friend (Charlie Tahan, “Ozark”) to a wise and loving grandma (veteran scene-stealer Barbara Barrie, “Breaking Away” and countless vintage TV shows) – that fuels the story throughout, providing the necessary catalysts to prod its two neurotic protagonists into taking action when they can’t quite get there themselves.
To be sure, Talisman’s movie – his feature film debut as a writer and director – doesn’t escape the usual pitfalls of the romcom genre. There’s an overall sense of “wish fulfillment fantasy” that makes some of its biggest moments seem a bit too good to be true, and there are probably two or three complications too many as it approaches its presumed happy ending; in addition, while it helps to drive the inner conflict for Zack #2’s character arc, throwing a homophobic and unsupportive dad (Eric Roberts) into the mix feels a bit tired, though it’s hard to deny that such family relationships continue to create dysfunction for queer people no matter how many times they’re called out in the movies – which means that it’s still necessary, regrettably, to include them in our stories.
And in truth, “calling out” toxic tropes – the ones that reflect society’s negative assumptions and perpetuate them through imitation – is part of Talisman’s agenda in “Things Like This,” which devotes its very first scene to shutting down any objections from “fat shamers” who might decry the movie’s “opposites attract” scenario as unbelievable. Indeed, he has revealed in interviews that he developed the movie for himself because of the scarcity of meaningful roles for plus-sized actors, and his desire to erase such conventional prejudices extends in every direction within his big-hearted final product.
Even so, there’s no chip-on-the-shoulder attitude to sour the movie’s spirit; what helps us get over its sometimes excessive flourishes of idealized positivity is that it’s genuinely funny. The dialogue is loaded with zingers that keep the mood light, and even the tensest scenes are laced with humor, none of which feels forced. For this, kudos go to Talisman’s screenplay, of course, but also to the acting – including his own. He’s eminently likable onscreen, with wisecracks that land every time and an underlying good cheer that makes his appeal even more visible; crucially, his chemistry with Pollari – who also manages to maintain a lightness of being at his core no matter how far his Zack descends into uncertainty – isn’t just convincing; it’s enviable.
Cruz is the movie’s “ace in the hole” MVP as Zack #2’s under-appreciated but fiercely loyal bestie, and Buono’s hilariously icy turn as his “boss from hell” makes for some of the film’s most memorable scenes. Likewise, Tahan, along with Margaret Berkowitz and Danny Chavarriaga, flesh out Zack #1’s friend group with a real sense of camaraderie that should be recognizable to anyone who’s ever been part of an eclectic crew of misfits. Trensch’s comedic “ickiness” as Zack #2’s soon-to-be-ex makes his scenes a standout; and besides bigger-name “ringers” Roberts and Barrie (whose single scene is the emotional climax of the movie), there’s also a spotlight-grabbing turn by Diane Salinger (iconic as Francophile dreamer Simone in “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”) as the owner of a queer bar where the Zacks go on one of their dates.
With all that enthusiasm and a momentum driven by a sense of DIY empowerment, it’s hard to be anything but appreciative of “Things Like This,” no matter how much some of us might cringe at its more unbelievable romcom devices. After all, it’s as much a “feel-good” movie as it is a love story, and the fact that we actually do feel good when the final credits role is more than enough to earn it our hearty recommendation.
Movies
‘Pink Narcissus’ reasserts queer identity in the face of repression
Gorgeously restored film a surreal fantasia on gay obsessions

Back in 1963, there really wasn’t such a thing as “Queer Cinema.”
Of course there had been plenty of movies made by queer people, even inside Hollywood’s tightly regulated studio system; artists like George Cukor and Vincente Minnelli brought a queer eye and sensibility to their work, even if they couldn’t come right out and say so, and became fluent in a “coded” language of filmmaking that could be deciphered by audience members “in the know,” while everyone else – including the censors – remained mostly oblivious.
Yes, the movie industry was adapting to the demands of a generation that had grown increasingly countercultural in its priorities, and topics that had once been taboo on the big screen, including the more or less open depiction of queerness, were suddenly fair game. But even so, you’d be hard-pressed to find examples of movies where being queer was not tied to shame, stigma, and a certain social ostracization that remained, for the most part, a fact of life. Hollywood may have been ready to openly put queer people on the screen, but the existence it portrayed for them could hardly have been described as happy.
Yet this was the setting in which a Manhattan artist named James Bidgood began a filmmaking project that would dominate his life for the next several years and eventually become a seminal influence on queer cinema and queer iconography in general – all executed, with the exception of an ambitious climactic sequence, in a cramped New York apartment utilizing elaborate handmade sets and costumes, which would define an entire queer aesthetic for decades to come. Though disputes with the film’s financiers would eventually cause him to remove his name from the project, resulting in years of anonymity before finally being credited with his work, he has now taken his rightful place as one of the architects of modern queer sensibility.
The movie he made – “Pink Narcissus,” which has been newly restored in glistening 4K glory and is currently being screened in theaters across the U.S. after an April premiere at Manhattan’s Newfest – didn’t exactly take the world by storm. When it finally premiered on “arthouse” theater screens in 1971, it was slammed by mainstream critics (like Vincent Canby of the New York Times, who compared it to “a homemade Mardi Gras drag outfit” as if that were a bad thing) and largely ignored, even as a new spirit of creative freedom was bringing more and more visibility to openly queer content. A screening at 1984’s “Gay Film Festival” reintroduced it to an audience that was finally ready to embrace its feverishly stylized, near-surreal fantasia on gay obsessions, and since then it has loomed large in the queer cultural imagination, providing clear and directly attributable influence over the entire queer visual lexicon that has developed in its wake – even if it has remained widely unseen among all but the most dedicated queer cinema buffs.
With a running time of little more than an hour, it’s not the kind of movie that can be described in terms of a cohesive linear plot. “Official” synopsis efforts have typically framed it as the story of a young male hustler who, while waiting for a call from a favorite “trick,” fantasizes about various erotic scenarios in his spangled and bejeweled apartment. But since it is a film with no spoken dialogue that takes place largely in the imagination of its central character, it’s difficult to place a definitive construct upon it. What’s certainly true is that it presents a series of daydreamed episodes in which its protagonist – played by sultry lipped Bobby Kendall, a teen runaway who had become a model for Bidgood’s “physique” photography as well as his roommate and (probably) on-and-off lover – imagines himself in various scenarios, including as a matador facing a bull (who is really a leather-clad motorcyclist in a public restroom), a Roman slave thrown to the mercy and pleasure of his emperor, and both a Sheik and a harem boy obsessed with a well-endowed exotic male belly dancer. Eventually, the young man’s thoughts venture into the streets outside, where he is immersed in a seedy, sordid world of sexual mania and degradation, before facing a final fantasy in which, as an “innocent” nymph in the woods (perhaps the human embodiment of the film’s titular butterfly), he is engulfed and consumed by his own sexual impulses, only to be reborn in his apartment to face the inevitable transformation from “twink” to “trick” that presumably awaits all gay men who dedicate their lives to the transgressive desires that drive them.
All of that, to modern sensibilities, might seem like a series of stereotypical and vaguely demeaning tropes intended to warn us against the slippery slope of a hedonistic lifestyle, composed into a moralistic avant garde parable in which pleasure and punishment are intertwined with all the surety of fate; but what sets “Pink Narcissus” apart from so many early examples of queer cinema is that, despite its reliance on “rough trade” trappings and the performative “tragedy” of its overall arc from youth and beauty to age and corruption, it exudes an unmistakable attitude of joy.
We’re talking about the joy of sensuality, the joy of self-love, the joy of partaking in a life that calls to us despite the restrictions of societal “normality” which would have us deny ourselves such pleasures; in short, the joy of being alive – something to which every living being theoretically has the right, but for queer people is all-too-often quashed under the mountain of disapproval and shame imposed upon them by a heteronormative society and its judgments. Considering that it was made in a time when the queer presence in film was mostly limited to victimhood or ridicule, it feels as much an act of resistance as it does a celebration of homoeroticism; seen in a cultural climate like today’s, when joy itself seems as much under attack as sexuality, it becomes an almost radical act – a declaration of independence asserting our natural right to be who we are and like what we like.
That’s why “Pink Narcissus” looms so large in the landscape of queer filmmaking. It’s the irrefutable evidence of queer joy singing out to us from a time when it could only exist in our most private of moments; it’s unapologetically campy, over the top in its theatricality, and almost comically blatant in its prurient obsession with the anatomy of the anonymous male models who make up most of its cast (and Kendall, who seems to dress himself in various outfits only to undress for the next erotic daydream), but it feels like a thumb on the nose to anyone who might shame us for for celebrating our sexual nature, which Bidgood’s movie unequivocally does.
Restored to the vivid (and luridly colorful) splendor of its original 8mm format, “Pink Narcissus” is currently touring the country on a series of limited screenings; VOD streaming will be available soon, check the Strand Releasing website for more information.
Movies
Queer history, identity interweave in theatrical ‘Lavender Men’
Exploring one of Abe Lincoln’s most intense male relationships

For someone who’s been dead for 160 years, Abraham Lincoln is still hot.
No, we don’t mean it that way, though if we were talking about the Lincoln of “Lavender Men” – a new movie starring and co-written by queer playwright Roger Q. Mason, who also wrote the acclaimed play from which it is adapted – we certainly could be. We’re really just making the observation that the 16th POTUS continues to occupy a central place in America’s national imagination. And in an age when our America is torn by nearly as much division (over many of the same core values) as the one he presided over, it’s impossible not to compare the ideals he has come to stand for with the ones currently holding sway over the country’s political identity, and wonder at how short we have fallen from the mark.
Yet there has always been a gap between the historical reality of Lincoln’s “Great Emancipator” reputation and the romanticized pedestal upon which he has been placed; and if he looms large as an influence over American identity, it’s as much for his enigmatic nature as for the values he represents. Was he a true believer in the principals of “liberty and justice for all” or a political pragmatist who recognized that preserving the nation – and its growing power in the larger arena of world affairs – required the abolition of an increasingly unsustainable system that had divided it? Your answer to that rhetorical question will likely depend on which version of “American Identity” aligns most closely with your own.
It’s also a question that’s further complicated in the context of Lincoln’s private life, something that has itself been the subject of debate as modern historians and scholars consider the questions about his sexuality unavoidably implied in his well-documented biographical record, which reveals not only a pattern of closely bonded male “friendship” with various companions throughout his life but plentiful evidence that the romantic nature of these relationships was something of an “open secret” in his lifetime, as explored in last year’s brash but scrupulously documented “Lover of Men.” If Lincoln was himself an “other,” a queer man who had risen to position and power in a world that despised and shunned people like him, what new light would that cast on his legacy?
That’s the crux of the premise behind “Lavender Men,” which builds a “fantasia” around one of Lincoln’s most intense male relationships – with Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, a young family friend who helped him carry out his 1860 campaign for president and would later become the first “notable” casualty of the Civil War when he was shot while removing a Confederate flag from the window of an inn facing the White House. The film, however, doesn’t take place in a period setting; instead, it happens in an empty modern-day theater – an apropos allusion to the location of Lincoln’s ultimate fate – where the overworked and underappreciated Taffeta (Mason) oversees the production of a play about the romance between Lincoln and Ellsworth (Pete Ploszek and Alex Esola). After a particularly demoralizing performance, the put-upon stage manager ponders alone about their own life – as a queer, plus-sized, Black Filipinx TGNC person trying to find connection and community in a world where they feel invisible – through an imagined retelling of Lincoln’s doomed love story in which the narrative is projected through the lens of their own struggle to be seen, loved, and accepted,
Expanded from the play and directed by co-screenwriter Lovell Holder, a lifelong friend of Mason who helped develop the project and oversaw the original 2022 stage production at Los Angeles’s Skylight Theater Company, the film was in his own words “shot over 10 days on a shoestring budget” – and it admittedly shows. However, it leans into its limitations, letting the spare, isolated atmosphere of the empty theater exert its own influence over the material. In this framing, Taffeta becomes something like a reverse ghost, a spirit from the present haunting a past in which their own unfulfilled longings – and resentments – are reflected through the rumored romance of a president and his “little” man, and their exploration of the narrative, with all its inherent observations about the dynamics of power, gender, status, and physical attraction, ultimately becomes a meditation on the importance of redefining personal identity free from the shaping influence of other people’s experience or expectations.
Needless to say, it’s not the kind of movie that will appeal to every taste; highly conceptual in nature, with a nonlinear storytelling pattern that frequently calls attention to its own artificiality, it might prove perplexing to audiences used to a more traditional approach. Even so, it’s refreshingly unpretentious, acknowledging its own campiness without undercutting the authenticity of the voice which drives it – which is, of course, Mason’s.
Delivering an entirely charismatic, commandingly fabulous, and palpably honest tour de force, the playwright/actor is at the center of “Lavender Men” at every level, evoking our delight, laughter, tears, discomfort, and myriad other shades of response as they take us on their historically themed tour of queer identity, which involves its own collection of repressive and/or demeaning social expectations about “fitting in” – and illuminate this hidden chapter of queer history along the way. Indeed, capturing their performance – which Mason reprises, along with fellow original co-stars Ploszek and Esola, from the stage production – is arguably the film’s most significant accomplishment. It’s a powerful example of the kind of fierce, spirited expression that is rarely seen outside the half-empty houses of underground theaters, well worthy of several repeated viewings.
For Mason, however, the thing that matters most is not their performance, nor even their brilliantly conceived script. Discussing the movie, he describes it as something much bigger than that: “I hope this film serves as a rally cry, a fountain of joy and a grounding of purpose for the LGBTQIA+ movement in the U.S. and abroad at a time when we need stories which affirm, empower and embolden us more than ever.”
“Lavender Men” is showing in limited theaters now. Watch for information on streaming/VOD availability.