A Glorious Gabfest

If you need proof that The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name has turned into The Love That Won't Shut Up, look no further than Outtakes Dallas 2000. The gay, lesbian, bisexual, and try-sexual (those enterprising folks who'll try anything once) filmmakers whose features, documentaries, and shorts are scheduled here prove cocky enough to believe they can yammer on about anything--the Holocaust, social movements in 20th century America, pop music, the state of the Protestant church, ideological battles in public schools, life in a working-class town--that were not long ago thought to be none of our business. We've been leaders, thinkers, critics, creators, spoilers, supporters, and betrayers in all those arenas, but as homosexuals begin the slow process of teaching the mainstream that all sexuality--even heterosexuality--is relative, incomplete when we separate it from the universe of shagging possibilities, we also make people aware of the ways our perspectives have shaped different events and stories. Personal experiences compose history, but more than that, they can be turned back around to reflect that history in a process that helps us catch stuff we missed. All of us are standing inside and outside time simultaneously--it's just, some of the vistas have only begun to be painted. So if it seems like gays and lesbians are jabbering from the back of the room at every meeting, it's because our opinions--again, our perspectives--have to play catch-up within the public dialogue.

If a theme runs through much of the fare of Outtakes 2000--and given the assortment offered here, identifying that is a tricky bit of business--it can be summed up in a word that's anathema to a generation of gay radicals: integration. For some people, this translates into "let's show the heteros how normal we are." And yes, this is a silly, even dishonest endeavor. I have always been of the opinion that we should set about showing the heteros they're just as fucked up as we are--just as frightened, foolish, vain, lovesick, desperate for security but craving variety. But to do that, we have to crash the institutional parties--the Holocaust Museum, the church, the recording studio, the school board, the history class--and compare stories. That means no more hiding in hermetically sealed gay ghettos. Hopefully, even the staunch separatists, on principle, will help further this cause in the name of a wider range of choices for us all, so that gay babies can grow up to be sequin-flashing drag queens or pulpit-pounding ministers. Hell, let's fuse them and forge a new career path.

What follow are reviews of seven highlights at Outtakes 2000. Grab a schedule and avail yourself of the festival's numerous other selections.

Righteous Babes The topics of commercialized feminism and pop music are seriously underserved by director Pratihba Parmar's 50-minute documentary about the rise of female musicians in the '90s. Pratihba throws the word "feminism" around without ever acknowledging the near-endless variety of permutations it can take. There's much distance between, say, Gloria Steinem and Camille Paglia, Courtney Love and Madonna, all of whom are interviewed or profiled in this piece without a clear sense of where they stand on the spectrum. Indeed, certain commentators are assigned to discuss particular women-artists without acknowledgment that they've dissed others in the same documentary--Steinem has criticized Madonna in the past but is not asked to assess this documentary's near-unanimous assessment that she is a genius (nor is Andrea Dworkin, a veteran anti-porn crusader who drops in to comment on women's bodies' being peddled like roast beef but is not consulted on what she thinks of the Madonna video prominently featured in this production, "Open Your Heart," where the singer cavorts in a peepshow). If The Material Girl does possess divine inspiration, it's applied to the job of commodifying herself in an ever-changing market--yet the Spice Girls are only half-facetiously referred to as "the apocalypse," and for what? Commodifying feminism. Apparently, their sin is that they aren't even half as good at a sales pitch as Madonna is. Interviews with Ani DiFranco, Chrissie Hynde, Tori Amos, Sinead O'Connor, and Garbage's Shirley Manson are seemingly edited to root out thoughtfulness--the producers cut away before these women get a chance to say anything meaningful. The peculiar exception is Tori Amos, an artist known for full-moon-crazy, rambling interviews. Snippets of her haunting, harrowing song about being raped, "Me and a Gun," are delivered a cappella. With uncharacteristic directness, Amos seems to be dismissing the filmmakers when she says she's suspicious of women who "bitch about hanging on to feminism." That, she claims, is "stale pussy, man." Don't spend all your time talking about it, she says: "Be it." Sing it, sister. (Nov. 11, 3:30 p.m.)