'TV: All the feels as 'Looking' says farewell'

This review was originally published on SameSame.com.au, on the 28th of July 2016, available here.

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Warning: This review contains spoilers for Looking seasons one, two, and the movie-length finale. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

When I first heard about Looking two years ago, the show about a group of gay men living in San Francisco, a kind of bearded-hipster reimagining of the iconic Queer As Folk concept, I was a tad dubious. One might call me a Brady.

Everybody wants to see themselves represented in popular culture, and gays have been starkly underrepresented on television for years. I feared that I might not relate to the characters in front of me, and that this show would tell a story I didn’t recognise.

It turned out to be excellent television, delivered by masterfully tender director Andrew Haigh – responsible for one of my personal favourite gay cinematic vignettes, Weekend (2011) – and I was hooked from the first episode.

Two years later, and we have reached an end to a charming piece of queer television. Two seasons, concluding with a feature-length finale, to see Looking off.

In Looking: The Movie, we return to wrap up the stories of Patrick (Jonathan Groff), Agustín (Frankie J. Alvarez), Dom (Daddy… sorry, I mean Murray Bartlett), and the utterly ineffable Doris (Lauren Weedman).

In the first half of the film, we are shown again the locations that made the first two seasons so memorable. Not mere setting, but real reflections of San Francisco, and oftentimes evoking its bustling community. So much of it feels familiar; particularly the gay bars and clubs, and they carry me away with the spirit of the queer haunts in my own city.

Even the title, Looking, graphically emblazoned across our screens in neon lights, feels wink-nudge familiar: neon lights of gay bars, our nightlife, the dim historical underground of queer culture – embodied in a scene, a city, a deftly depicted word.

In the second half, our characters’ arcs come to an end. Dom, after separating from his lover and business partner by the end of season two, decides to put himself out there again. Agustín overcomes his own insecurities and fears of self-sabotage, and marries the love of his life. And Doris, beautiful, untamed Doris, settles into her own relationship with her partner, and admits that they’re thinking about having a baby – while always “living in sin”.

Yet the most satisfying story to come to a close is that of Patrick, the lens through which we have always viewed these characters.

Patrick starts out in the beginning of Season One inexperienced, and is almost frustratingly immature. He often displays a total lack of self-awareness, and is generally apprehensive about pursuing his own desires.

Whether those desires are a committed relationship with the now-taken, now-moving-on Kevin (Russell Tovey) – or his past Season One love, the subdued and stoic Richie (Raúl Castillo), who spent much of Season Two involved with the insufferably self-absorbed journalist Brady (Chris Perfetti), Patrick’s neuroticism taints their potential, leaving him in a tragically depressed bind.

There’s a scene near the end of the film, where Brady accuses Patrick of being a ‘bad gay’ – but Patrick barks back, saying that he should be able to live how he chooses, without feeling like he’s letting the team down. It’s a volatile redemption for an otherwise peaceful Patrick, one that exemplifies his transformation from fragile and uncertain, to confident and self-assured. Brady and Richie both exit, leaving him rattled in their wake.

Shortly after, we see a lone Patrick looking out at his friends, all wrapped in loving embraces on the gay bar-cum-wedding reception dance-floor, their stories at an end.

Then, in a testament to Andrew Haighs’ skill for poignant vignettes, Richie returns.

Reflected in the glass behind Patrick, he treads over – and they share a kiss. All the whilePerfume Genius’ ‘Hood’ plays in the background, a far-too-meaningful track, as two seasons’ of Patrick’s childlike fear of embracing Richie and his own happiness finally melts away – Boy, I wish I grew up the second / I first held you in my arms – and he is reunited with the man he loves. The one who nearly got away.

It was after the conclusion of Patrick’s narrative that I understood my earlier fears were misplaced: Our gay stories don’t always need to feel so concretely told. For all the dissatisfied harrumphs our “gay thought police” dish out – as Patrick describes them – these televised representations of our lives, while never encompassing us completely, present characters that we can connect with.

This wasn’t a story about “all of us”. This was about complicated humans navigating chapters of their lives, in a world that perhaps you and I grew up in. These were modern gay anecdotes narrated against the backdrop of gay culture; a formula that has been missing from the small screen for years. In an unfamiliar desert of heterosexual excess, this was an oasis of television navel-gazing made solely for us.

Looking is about seeking something greater than what you’ve seemingly settled with.

It’s about being bold, taking leaps, and reaching forward from the grip of your own self-doubt, to pursue something more – whether that’s love, a career ambition, or sheer self-acceptance under the lights of gay nightlife.

But it’s also about finding solace in your own situation, and realising that sometimes, an escape isn’t what you need.

Sometimes our own carved-out corner of the dance-floor is perfectly good enough, as we get busy changing, busy growing, and looking for our happiness.

'Why the AFL's Pride Game means so much'

This piece was originally published on SameSame.com.au, on the 23rd July 2016, available here.

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I grew up in a football household. What I mean by that is: my family are staunch, almost fanatical AFL football fans.

My entire family, on both my Mum and Dad’s side, are all Hawthorn supporters. Mum and Dad grew up on opposite sides of inner suburban Hawthorn in Melbourne, and I’ve always been a bit convinced that their union was partially driven by a shared love for the Hawks.

Our household walls are covered with posters from grand final winnings. We have a signed Hawthorn jersey hanging in our living room, framed under glass. Stay-at-home nights watching away games are punctuated by the hysterical screams of my footy-fan mother, as near misses and straight-up goals play out on the television.

We’d attend every home game along with our family. I’m Greek, so that’s around thirty-plus impassioned louts lining two straight rows. We were louder than the beer-swilling men in the members’ section, and could shove for space on the crowded post-game trains at Richmond Station better than anyone.

The vertigo from looking around a stadium at a game can only be overshadowed by the thrill when someone nearly kicks a goal, as the punters fire up, bite their nails and shout and scream – and the player lands it! The arena erupts with a giant howl that vibrates in your ears and makes your stomach flip with excitement.

Of the family present at these outings, I was one of the louder ones.

And then at some point, as I began to mature, something changed. I went to matches less and less.

At the time, I was trying to find my place in a world that, though I so often denied it, found me feminine by virtue of my homosexuality, and femininity in men an unspoken crime. I could either overcompensate through a charade of masculinity – or opt out entirely, and be seen as inherently less of a man.

I watched as football continued to assert itself as a man’s game: the shouting, swearing, and rough-and-tumble ferocity an intrinsic part of masculinity, one that was threatened by both gays and women. Not only that, but stories of homophobia fell out from within the game itself. How could I possibly adapt to that? I didn’t pass as a “bloke” – where did I fit in?

The simple fact was: I didn’t. And so I did away with my spectatorship, and receded into my queer adolescence, isolated with video games and crippling anxiety. No longer feeling like part of the cheer squad, I stopped going to games.

Now, years later, St. Kilda and Sydney major league football clubs will go head-to-head on August 13th at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, for the very first Pride Game. The St Kilda players will wear rainbow-patterned numbers on their guernseys, with Sydney sportsmen donning rainbow socks. Even the goalposts will be gayed up. It’s an undeniably iconic moment in AFL history.

The event is inspired in no small part by the work of ex-footballer-turned-community leader Jason Ball who, as the first footballer at any level to come out of the closet, helped unite local Yarra Glen and Yarra Junction football teams in the inaugural Pride Cup match of 2014, which continues annually to this day.

When you’re a boy feeling unwelcomed by boy-things, it’s as if no matter how close you get to a goal, you’re always passing with points or straight-up hitting the posts.

When an unruly spectator at an AFL match screams “poofter” at a player on the field, it’s a stark reminder for a red-hot minute that you’re not welcome there. It’s a casual and subtle nudge that football has and always will be, a man’s sport for manly men. No poofters allowed.

But with the Pride Game inbound in August, the model is swiftly changing. We’re seeing more footballers than ever stand up against homophobia. Players I was almost resentful of, for being the deified cultural symbols of masculinity, are showing the country that they won’t stand for that which holds the gay community down.

Australian Rules Football has, for what feels like far too long, struggled to tackle the bodies of bigotry, both in sport and in the culture that it creates. But with the advent of Pride Game, it is taking an active stance against the behaviour and intolerance that is rife within not just the sporting community, but in society at large.

One of the institutions, the very hallmarks of our country, is celebrating diversity, and challenging the ingrained notion that gays aren’t welcome in sport. It’s embracing a community who for years felt they weren’t allowed to exist, whether out in the open or out on the field.

It’s extending a loving hand to a young Brandon Cook, and letting him know that, whether he’s gay or straight, he can come along and raise the roof at Etihad Stadium with the rest of them.

And that’s what we call “kicking goals”.

'Yes, Coming Out IS A Big Deal'

This piece was originally published on SameSame.com.au, on the 9th of July, 2016, available here.

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Fun fact: I have spent a LOT of time on YouTube over the past few days watching Aubrey Plaza interviews.

I wish I were kidding. There’s something about her cool yet confident and catlike presence, that I can’t decide if I want to be her, or be her best friend. If you would like a really awkward date to see Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates, you can reach me at…

Another fun fact: Aubrey Plaza recently came out as queer. Or, as some headlines read, ‘at the very least, bisexual’.

More specifically: Speaking with LGBT publication The Advocate, Plaza responded to a question about whether women came onto her, with an answer containing the phrase “I fall in love with girls and guys. I can’t help it.”

Of course, this doesn’t really classify as a definitive answer to the question of Plaza’s sexual orientation. She’s not labelling herself – and nor does she need to. There is no requirement for Plaza to boldly and openly state the dictionary definition of her sexuality.

She’s allowed to fall for girls and guys, and she’s allowed to just exist this way. No frills, and no strings attached.

And as I poured through online story comments looking for those all-too-common bites of negativity, I could find nothing. No hate speech, no rage. Maybe I’m finally following all the right publications.

And yet, one comment, repeated so many times in so many different forms, stuck out to me: “Who cares if she came out? Why is this news?”

It’s easy to interpret such a comment as the usual homophobic silencing tactic we’re all so very used to, when you’re told to shut up and stop talking and stop making me uncomfortable with all this NOISE about your LIVES and IDENTITIES, GAWD.

But a lot of these comments sounded more like: I can’t believe that it’s 2016, and a celebrity coming out still makes international news.

This phrase usually comes from the mouths of heterosexuals who, though they truly mean well, can’t really understand why a celebrity coming out is important.

Most of them are just depressed at the reality that, in this day and age, being gay is still considered a problem. They’re the good ones: the ones who ‘like’ our angry gay Facebook updates in solidarity, and retweet our insidious homosexual propaganda. They don’t come to the marches, but they’re glad you went.

Yet every now and again, one might say, “I just don’t know why you need your own nightclubs” – or, “So you’re gay. That means you love shopping, right?”

They’re only a bit ignorant; almost endearingly out of touch. All they really need is for a fabulous homosexual to take them to a gay bar, and have all the binge-drinking queers give them a little education.

So, it’s in the spirit of education that I’d like to make a statement. To any straight members of the audience who might be listening:

Yes, coming out IS a big deal.

It’s a big deal, when members of the LGBTQ community are still being beaten, bashed – and, quite recently, murdered by the dozens – for a celebrity like Aubrey Plaza to almost casually talk about her broad sexual identity.

It’s a big deal, when queers are underrepresented across all media platforms, and gay kisses on television see massive repulsed outcries from “family” groups and conservative pundits.

It’s a big deal, when young people still live with a nagging feeling of being shit fucking scared to come out of the closet; when youths, not unlike who I was before I came out, still pray in their beds at night to the Lord on High that they might wake up the following day a happy-go-lucky heterosexual.

It’s a big deal, when it normalises behaviour that, scientifically and historically, has always been “normal” – but has been culturally warped by a terrified conservative populace over a period of decades.

You know, as a positively rabid homosexual, I agree with the idea that “it shouldn’t be a big deal”. And it is sad that it’s still big news.

We could have come so far already, if people weren’t so terrified of difference, and so unable to break free from whatever deity cripples them with fear – whether that’s a religious deity, or the real-world demons of conservative traditionalism.

But while holding hands in the street is still a carefully-considered political statement, and not a thoughtless gesture of affection – when interlocking those delicate fingers with your same-sex partner still carries a very real risk of violence – I’d like to celebrate people who come out. Particularly celebrities in the public eye.

Because the more LGBTQ icons who say, “This is who I am. What about it?” – the more young people know it’s OK.

And the more role models we will have who will show those young people that, whether you fall in love with girls, or guys, or both – and you can’t help it – it’s all a little bit fine.