Another Gay Sequel

‘Another Gay Sequel’ is totally inessential. Its title, with that implicit exasperated question mark – another? Really now? - admits as much. While the first ‘Another Gay Movie’ retained an (admittedly tenuous) grip on reality, this follow-up, subtitled Gays Gone Wild, is proudly outrageous and implausible from the off. Production values are low, the acting by turns wooden and hammy and the plot paper-thin: a bunch of guys vacationing in Fort Lauderdale compete to see who can get laid the most. But despite its lackadaisical attitude and resolutely lowbrow tone the movie is both likeable and – albeit more or less unintentionally – a fascinating commentary on the mechanics of modern gross-out comedies. In fact, it is precisely because everything about ‘Another Gay Sequel’ is so blasé and slapdash that this is the case; ostensibly anarchic and irreverent mainstream comedies are exposed as tame, contrived, and cynical by comparison. Ironically, then, Todd Stephens’ film is worth bothering with chiefly because it is not bothered by what you will think of it.

That ‘Another Gay Sequel’s’ title suggests a surfeit of ‘gay’ movies is, of course, also ironic; for if the multiplexes are glutted with movies that could be called ‘gay’ in the pejorative, synonymic-of-‘lame’ sense, there are very few movies that centrally or sensitively represent homosexual experience. When male/male eroticism does figure in Hollywood comedies it tends to be – befitting a culture where ‘gay’ has become a put-down - as something the audience should consider inherently funny and/or gross (representations of female/female eroticism, of course, tend to be about the titillation of a male audience). While recent ‘bromantic’ comedies like ‘I Love You Man’ (2009) and ‘I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry’ (2007) may gesture towards P.C. tolerance, they hardly represent significant departures from this model. Indeed, a kiss between Kevin James and Ben Stiller was reportedly excised from the latter for fear that the American ratings board would deny the film a revenue-optimising PG-13 rating. Given the reliance of much modern American comedy on ‘I can’t believe they showed that!’ moments such censorship is especially exasperating. The suppression suggests the classic homophobic formulation about having no problem with homosexuality but there being ‘no need to shove it in people’s faces.’

Such attitudes have been discussed by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Michael Moon. Dubbing ours a ‘culture of “knowingness”’ they have attempted to trace the circulation of rumour, innuendo, and open secrets within it. The problem, they argue, with ‘the reserve force of information, the reservoir of presumptive, deniable and unarticulated knowledge’ at large in society is that this tacit and implicit information can be denied, disavowed and repressed as soon as it becomes convenient to do so (or compromising not to do so). Such denials allow the ‘public [to] imagine[] itself as a reservoir of ever-violable innocence’ (Tendencies 222). Tabloid papers’ contradictory self-presentation, their oscillation between the roles of unhoodwinkably jaded sages and perennially outraged moral guardians, is a prime example of this mechanism at work. Presumed acknowledgement, toleration or consensus can evaporate when it comes into play, with social minorities tending to suffer the consequences. And it is exactly this capacity to convince ourselves we’re surprised, shocked and/or amused by things that we actually already know that is central to a lot of comedy – not least gross-out movies, which are abetted in their attempts to shock by how sanitized and prettified even Hollywood ‘realism’ is. Although such films induce awkward laughter rather than outraged ire, that laughter tends to be as normative as the hysteria whipped up by tabloid scare mongering, reinforcing hegemonic values and prejudices. This is something that becomes especially apparent when watching ‘Another Gay Sequel’, which, for a gross-out movie, is remarkable for not looking over your shoulder, digging you in the ribs and demanding you be disgusted/appalled/incredulous all the time. It’s both more explicit and less proud of how explicit it is than mainstream comedies – especially, of course, when it comes to the representation of gay sexuality, which is both present and emphatically embodied in a way unthinkable in comparable movies (the extent to which letting guys look at semi-nude guys is part of ‘Another Gay Sequel’s’ appeal – and the extent to which it self-reflexively acknowledges this – is something I’ll consider later). This up-front attitude makes for a weirdly mature gross-out movie. It also makes it more acceptable when, as they often do, jokes fall flat; rather than press-ganging viewers into going ‘eeeeew’ the movie merely shrugs, moves on, tries again.

And when ‘Another Gay Sequel’ really tries to be gross it can reach nigh on Artaudian levels of unpleasantness. Incest, dismemberment, and the full spectrum of bodily excreta all feature. The quantities of piss, spit, vomit, blood, faeces and spunk that get flung about align the film as much with porn and horror – marginal genres centrally concerned with the body and its modalities – as with comedy. This focus on the Kristevan abject has its counterpart at a meta- level, insofar as the film also perpetually exhibits messy and off-putting aspects of movie production, foregrounding the sort of processes that normally go on behind closed doors. Thus there’s in-jokes about having to recast characters who appeared in the first movie because their agents got uppity about them being typecast as gay, while a raft of flagrant product placements afford an insight into how Stephens scraped together a budget. The film is also unabashed about letting viewers ogle its actors. At one point a couple engage in a narrative-advancing conversation during foreplay, almost as if the movie is sugaring the expository pill with some consolatory nudity (incidentally the scene, despite its slightly exploitative tone, also feels realistic – how many important decisions do get made in bed?). This focus on keeping the customer satisfied, along with the lurid grading (hyper-vivid, David LaChappelle-style aqua and fuchsia tints abound), the animated sequences, the self-referential humour, the ‘celebrity’ cameos (Ru Paul, Perez Hilton) and the shonky special effects all serve to announce the film’s artificiality, its made-ness, and do so with the same refreshing unconcern for convention and the suspension of disbelief that is ‘Another Gay Sequel’s’ hallmark, distinguishing it from mass-market comedy.

The film also differs from recent teen comedies in other significant ways. While hat-tips to horror classics (‘Carrie’ (1978), ‘Night of the Living Dead’ (1968)) and staples of the camp canon (‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane’ (1962), ‘Showgirls’ (1995), ‘Splash’ (1984), Busby Berkeley musicals) pepper ‘Another Gay Sequel’, the movie is more than a tissue of spoofs a la Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg’s ‘Scary Movie’ (2000), ‘Date Movie’ (2006), ‘Epic Movie’ (2007) and ‘Meet the Spartans’ (2008). Unlike Seltzer and Friedberg’s lazy cash-ins, wherein ‘getting’ what they’re riffing on is the whole point of the exercise, ‘Another Gay Sequel’ doesn’t expect viewers to have seen everything it cites – just as well given how old and/or esoteric many of these movies are. You might feel more included if you do pick up on a reference, but you won’t feel excluded for failing to do so. Moreover, the film’s attitude to the movies it cites is one of affection - however ironically inflected - rather than the derisive mockery of most parody films. The difference could be equated to laughing with someone as versus laughing at them, a distinction anyone remotely queer is likely to be all-too familiar with. Thus, when Nico (Jonah Blechman) channels bygone silver screen heroines his vamping is funny but transcends pastiche by virtue of a palpable affection. Blechman’s performance, in fact, is one of the film’s strongest facets; he manages to imbue a character that could easily have been a shrill caricature with plausibility and a genuine emotional pull – no mean feat when all around him is cursed tikis, mermen and splooging seagull shit. He even makes a twenties-style song and dance number about the erotics of piss (“whenever I feel dour / I dream and count the hours / ‘Til I dance in golden showers / With you”) moving. And just as Blechman’s character is more likeable than he should be, so the film (which - and I may not have made this clear enough – is mostly awful) manages to be more than the sum of its distinctly subpar parts. It’s lazy, puerile and far too transparent in its bid for ‘so bad it’s good’ status – an accolade which, as any aficionado of camp will affirm, can only be attained when not aimed for – but it retains a certain appeal nonetheless.

This makes it all the more frustrating that the movie fails to develop potentially interesting ideas and plot strands. Perez Hilton’s performance is as painfully funny as anyone who is visited his blog might expect. His concussion-induced conversion to Catholicism, however, and his subsequent upbraiding of the shag-happy holidaymakers for perpetuating and substantiating stereotypes of gay hedonism, raises issues about ethics, archetypes and identity that could have been fruitfully explored, but which the movie fails to really grapple with. If there is a ‘message’ it is a pretty vague one. By the time the credits roll the ‘slut’ of the group’s met a cut Cuban virgin and learnt he could stand to be a bit more monogamous, the couple have had a resoundingly successful threesome and realised they could stand to be a bit less monogamous and the diva-ish Nico has come to terms with the fact that everybody feels a bit lonely sometimes. Hardly profound philosophical insights – but who would look for those from a gross-out film? The last scene also sees another sequel mooted, with Nico toasting “Another Gay Movie Strikes Back: Gays in Space.” As hair-raising, charming and peripherally thought-provoking as ‘Another Gay Sequel’ occasionally is, one can’t but think that - even for a franchise that specialises in taking things over the top - that would be a bridge too far.

Watch

Country: USA
Budget: £
Length: 97mins

Bibliography
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Tendencies, 1994, Routledge,
Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, 1982, Columbia University Press

Filmography
'Another Gay Movie' 2006, Todd Stephens, Luna Pictures
'Carrie', 1976, Brian de Palma, Redbank Films
'Date Movie', 2006, Aaron Seltzer, New Regency Pictures
'Epic Movie', 2007, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, New Regency Pictures
'I Love You Man', 2009, John Hamburg, Dreamworks SKG
'I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry', 2007, Dennis Dugan, Universal Pictures
'Meet the Spartans', 2008, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, New Regency Pictures
'Night of the Living Dead', 1968, George A. Romero, Image Ten
'Scary Movie', 2000, Keenen Ivory Wayans
'Showgirls', 1995, Paul Verhoeven, United Artists
'Splash', 1984, Ron Howard, Touchstone Pictures
'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?', 1962, Robert Aldrich. The Associates and Aldrich Company

Pub/2009

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