Everyone (except for lesbians) knows that ripped, lithe dudes without shirts are hot. But the truth is that the only things hotter than ripped, lithe dudes without shirts are ripped, lithe dudes without shirts covered in fake blood.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. A guy sent in a headshot for a show I’m working on and his headshot was him shirtless and covered in blood. Everyone was repulsed; they couldn’t figure out why this guy would include this with his application. I, however, had to carry around a huge notebook for the rest of the day to hide my raging erection. I’d noticed this pattern before when watching the occasional shirtless hot guy horror movies, but I never really sat down and thought about the correlation there. What’s the deal? Am I some kind of perverse sexual deviant? Should I be locked away in an asylum for the safety of cute shirtless boys everywhere?

I think the connection is between the carnal aspects of sex and violence. I’m not the first to recognize this correlation. Both sex and violence represent these base, animalistic urges. Although someone might argue me on this (I’m looking at you, lesbians), sex (or good sex, at least) also involves a very similar push for domination. There’s a fight. One character is ultimately proving his alpha male(or female)ness by mounting, thrusting, and owning the other. Dogs do it too. You ever wondered why your female dog humps your leg? She’s proving to you that she owns you. She’s staking her claim (I heard this on Animal Planet. Thus, it must be true). That’s part of sex; the female-dog-humping-your-leg part. That’s the psychological part that people get so fixated on. That’s why that super-hot super-butch ultra-masculine guy I was recently involved in wanted me to smack him across the face, knock him down, and do him proper; he wanted to be defeated. It’s there. You can’t deny it.

So yeah. Sex is laden with dominance issues. And dominance issues are really the core of violence. “I have to prove to you that I dominate you through my beating in of your face.” There is a link there.

There’s something else there too, something less base. Culturally, we as American’s are bred to get boners from violence, especially my generation (the kids that grew up in the 80s). There is a damn interesting article by a guy named James William Gibson that discusses the hypermasculine sexuality of the 80s. Think Schwarzenegger. Think Rambo. Think He-Man. According to Gibson, America in the 80s felt a need to reassert its masculinity through its cultural icons (due to the kick in the proverbial balls we got from the “feminized” Vietnamese at the beginning of the 70s). Thus, we overcompensated by sexualizing muscles, masculinity, and ass-kicking (none of which was new to the cultural climate, but never in such a tense sexual context). We young gays grew up watching hypermasculine sexual icons. They were hot because they kicked ass. Beyond the American love of the cowboy (the rebellious fighter), our generation grew up with a new streak of sexual violence. I’m convinced it fucked me up.

But again, it’s not just America that links sex with death. To the French, “an orgasm” is called “le petit mort” (the little death). It’s there, boys and girls. It’s there.

Basically, this connection between the carnal natures of sex and violence, the domination indicated in both sex and a solid blood spattering, the cultural associations between the male sexuality and violence, and the general association with sex and death, my huge boner at the bloody dude isn’t that bizarre. The blood that covers him shows his dominance over the other party; it shows his masculine sexuality through physical (read sexual) dominance. In this context, the fact that he’s covered in blood is not so different from him being covered in cum. The body that he has dominated has shot its wad all over him. He’s covered in the glory of his physical victory. It’s hot.

Or I’m just a psychopath.

Whatever.

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I had assumed from the way my boyfriend went on and on about the upcoming Fangoria convention that it would be a land of magic and wonderment, that people in zombie costumes would be floating around in the sky dropping candy-canes and fake blood on a writhing and orgasmic audience, and that I would leave a different person, now adept at and invigorated by the beautiful world of horror and splatter-gore.  Unfortunately, such was not the case, but then again, you know what they say about high expectations.

From what my horror-enthusiast boyfriend tells me, Fangoria this year was surprisingly small.  It was held at the L.A. Convention Center and, while the space was ridiculously large, it only held a relatively modest smattering of booths.  Apparently, a number of staple booths were noticeably missing (the Troma booth being among them), leading to a disheartening look of disappointment on my boyfriend’s otherwise gleaming visage.  While the $25 daily rate I paid to enter wasn’t especially horrifying, I feel bad for those that spent the $250 full weekend super-fun-times bonus pack.  The number of booths could easily and thoroughly be perused within the space of 2 hours (with time to spare), and the majority of “panel discussions” were just autograph signings rather than informative or thought provoking intellectual pursuits.

Enough complaining, however.  While it wasn’t a barrel full of blowjobs, there were a number of worthwhile things to see at Fangoria.  Quite a few interesting films were being promoted.  Of course, Psychosomatika had a booth, the film that my boyfriend had a blood-spattered hand in.  It’s still aways away from completion, but as I’ve said before, it looks like it’s going to be rather fascinating. Gutterballs, a sexually explicit hyper-graphic 80s slasher homage set entirely in a bowling alley, looks like it could have some very fresh things to say (and by “things to say” I mean “gratuitous ways for people to die and at least one shot of an erect penis”).  There was a booth that had Machine Girl paraphernalia, the Japanese “girl with a machine gun for an arm” revenge flick that I lovingly referred to as the second coming of the messiah in a previous post, but by the time I went begging for some schwag, they were long out.  I considered offering the young man behind the counter an H.J. for the last remaining promotional poster hanging on the wall behind him, but I decided instead to leave with my dignity and less-than-sticky hands.  And finally, the piece de resistance was the booth for the aptly titled Zombies Zombies Zombies, a rousing and inspiring tale chronicling the ongoing struggle between zombies and their eternal rivals, strippers.  The producers were holding a screening of the film, but unfortunately it was this afternoon (Sunday), and while it looks fantastic, it was not worth another $25 of daily admission.  I could own the film for that price, and watch it at least twice a day.  Possibly while masturbating.

My boyfriend, while disappointed by the small number of booths, was quite pleased with the number of obscure horror films he was able to procure.  We are now the proud owners of Calamity of Snakes, a film about snakes… and a calamity… or something.  And we also own Forced Entry, which I have to assume is a rape film.  I’m not really a fan of rape, but to each his own I guess.  I, being less of a horror enthusiast and more of a con-enthusiast, purchased a bootleg of the entire series of Freakazoid!  There was a fantastic booth offering a number of bootlegs of impossible to find 80s/90s animated series; I was erect with glee.

Overall, it was a fun time, and the $25 price tag wasn’t especially taxing.  For horror fans in search of hard to find DVDs, it was a gangsta’s paradise, but for people hoping for a horror con with the wonderment and majesty of San Diego’s Comic Con, it was sorely, sorely lacking: a few nice things to see, occasional neat costumes, but light in overly appealing panels discussing the present and future of the genre.

 Psychosomatika

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! - Trailer #1 from zombies3 on Vimeo. 

A serious point of stress for me when trying to defend my distaste for mainstream gay cinema to my ridiculous former friends that lauded LATTER DAYS as the second coming of gay Jesus. It finally took a bizarre German flick about killer condoms to flush out what my beef with mainstream gay cinema is...

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For anyone that’s read my Hellbent review, you’re aware that I’m not especially fond of “gay” movies.  I have found in my personal experience that they tend to blow.  They’re usually just a string of played out clichés and perfectly plastic bodies, cashing in on the fact that they have an underrepresented niche audience so starved for representation that they’ll buy any craptacular schlock that David DeCoteau feels like subjecting them to.  I’ll admit it; I saw The Brotherhood.  I want my money back, DeCoteau, you thieving bastard.  I know we can do better than this.

While I’m singling out DeCoteau, I’m largely doing so to make a point.  Yes his movies are pretty awful, and yes they lean almost exclusively on the sexual appeal of their (I’ll admit super hot) protagonists, but the truth is that DeCoteau’s films are horror.  Horror movies are known for flashing gratuitous tits for no particular reason.  The “Witchcraft” series (of which there are now 16) requires at least 30% of the film be gratuitous sex and breasts.  So to hold him to a higher standard as a “gay” filmmaker than he would have as a straight filmmaker is unfair.  In general, horror movies allow for terrible two-dimensional stereotypes instead of characters, thus DeCoteau is perfectly within his legal rights to create horrid horror movie schlock full of ab-shots and poorly constructed homoeroticism.  But the problem is that while there are terrible B straight horror movies with nothing but sex as a selling point, there are also solid filmmakers that create interesting and well-thought-out pieces of horror art that make their writers and directors stand out as creative talents.  Where’s the gay George Romero?  Where’s the flaming Lucky McKee?  (I’m looking at you, Jody.)

And we can’t really turn to the “romantic comedy” counterparts for quality filmmaking and the creation of three dimensional gay characters and role models. Trick?  Latter Days?  Seriously?  Is “falling in love with your trick” the only love story we as a people can come up with?  Seriously, people.  Don’t make me start having sex with women.

The problem I found, however, is that while I make this list of things that piss me off about our near absolute lack of quality gay “mainstream” cinema, I find myself unable to logically point out why these films bug me so much.  Most straight romantic comedies are two dimensional and terrible.  A large quantity of straight horror is nothing but tight teen bods writhing and slithering and eventually killing each other.  If this is just standard fare, why does it seem so much worse in gay cinema?

This has been a serious point of stress for me when trying to defend my distaste for mainstream gay cinema to my ridiculous former friends that lauded Latter Days as the second coming of gay Jesus.  It finally took a bizarre German flick about killer condoms to flush out what exactly my beef with mainstream gay cinema really is: subplots.

[Rather than muddy up this discussion with an old-fashioned movie review interlude, I’ll just link you to my separate “The Killer Condom” review for your perusing pleasure.  The short version (in case you’re too lazy to read it): Kondom des Grauens (or The Killer Condom) is a mid-90s German film about a gay cop on the hunt for the ravenous latex beast that bit off his right nut.  While pursuing his prey, Luigi (the cop) falls in love with Billy (the hustler), and in the end, they save each other’s lives.  The movie sounds silly, but it’s funny, it’s heartfelt, and it’s provides the best gay role models and one of the best gay romances I’ve seen on the big screen to date.  Read the review.]

The Killer Condom creates a solid, likable, and (in my opinion) positive gay character by making his sexuality a visible and important part of the film, but also relegating it to the land of subplot. The movie isn’t about a gay guy who happens to be a cop.  The focus of the film is not on him as Gay and his pursuit of Gayness (note the capital letters).  That is what has bothered me so much about cinema with gay protagonists: it’s always almost exclusively about them being gay.  They become an icon (or usually more accurately, a stereotype) rather than a character.  They’re not a gay character; they’re supposed to be Gay embodied in a character.  And that almost always sucks.  In an attempt to do this, the filmmakers turn to the basest of gay stereotypes and gay appeals.  The characters are just dicks and holes, dicks and holes.  Bah!  We’re more than that.

In The Killer Condom, the protagonist is a cop who happens to be gay, not a Gay who happens to be a cop.  The plot of the film centers on a policeman solving a mystery.  The love story unfolds like any detective-style love story.  Again (and I can’t say this too many times) his sexuality is secondary.  That’s what makes his character likable and well rounded.  That’s what makes him have goals beyond getting laid.  That’s what normalizes both him and his relationship, even if he did follow the same path as the protagonist of Trick and fell in love with his man-of-the-evening.  It works because it’s a film about a troubled cop that solves a mystery and falls in love, not about a Gay who gays and gets gayed upon.

So I’ve finally realized that this is why I’ve hated “gay” cinema: because they attempt to create stereotypes and icons of Gayness rather than create representations of gay people that do regular people things.  In this attempt to represent Gay, they break the characters down to the lowest common denominator (or they break them down to appeal to the lowest common denominator) of the gay male community: hot dudes and sex.  This deprives the characters of any semblance of three-dimensional gay reality.  In that sense, they can’t represent role models of gay people, just role models of stereotyped gay behavior, denying viewers identification with developed gay adults as role models and reinforcing the idea that gay people can only be embodiments of imposed stereotypes.  Only by breaking this pattern and normalizing the homosexuality in roles by making the gayness secondary to larger plot-points and character development can we hope to break out of this cycle of stereotypes and schlock to create rounded gay role models and quality gay cinema.  If the Germans can do it, why can’t we?

I’ve said for years that the reason I’m gay is because a woman’s nether regions are all subversive and insidious, that there could easily be a bear trap hidden up there and I wouldn’t know until it was too late.   Of course I had always assumed I was joking, but after seeing Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Teeth, I’m not so sure.

Teeth, which made the festival circuit in 2007 and was picked up and released by Dimension Extreme in 2008, is about the ever looming fear of the vagina dentata.  For those of you that haven’t been subjected to much Freudian theory (and count yourselves lucky), the “vagina dentata” or “toothed vagina” is a recurring theme in the mythology of various cultures.  Essentially, much like it sounds, it’s the idea that the vagina (and the woman to which said vagina is attached) harbors secret dangers for the male wishing to engage in sexual intercourse, that through this intercourse with this strange woman, the male may end up getting his peen nipped off.  Once again, man looks at woman with suspicion and fear, knowing that she’s full of vile trickery and venus penis traps.  Keep on keeping those women down, men.  They’re a threat to your manhood.

Anyway, the idea of these fear-inducing lady-bits is fairly common in psychoanalytic theory, particularly in regards to film criticism.  Ovoid monsters with gaping vaginal-shaped mouths are claimed to represent the male’s fear of castration through.. blah blah blah yawn.  (Sorry, I’ve taken far too much psychoanalytic media theory to not yawn here.)  Lichtenstein, however, takes this concept out of the abstract realm of psychoanalysis and makes a direct literal translation of this myth into film (which I find to be a kind of middle finger to psychoanalytic film theorists).

Enter Dawn O’Keefe (yes, O’Keefe.  There are a number of clever vagina references and images in the film).  Dawn (Jess Weixler) is a sweet teenage girl dedicated to kind deeds and physical purity.  She speaks to kids about the importance of abstinence, she cares for her sick mother, and she rides her bike all over creation, greeting old people as her flowing modest dresses flap in the wind.  As Dawn finally meets a boy she may want to marry, she begins to question her commitment to her “sacred vow” of virginity.  Is it finally time for Dawn to give in to her baser urges?  But once a man pries open the gaping maw of doom, there’s no hope for him or his soon-to-be-severed willy.  Beware the dangers of feminine wiles, boys.

Overall, the movie is fun.  Perhaps because I’ve had to hear about the vagina dentata numerous times in various cultural analysis courses, I found the tension of knowing what was bound to happen entertaining.  The film has a number of fun campy elements, i.e. the over-the-top juxtaposition of Dawn drawing wedding dresses in health class as the teacher lectures on the penis or the ever-present nuclear power plant in the background of all external shots that’s never mentioned.  I really enjoyed the juxtapositions created at the beginning of the film, driving home the comically overblown point that Dawn in a pure virgin in thought and in deed.

But in my opinion, the film suffered from a lack of identity.  While the campy elements worked really well, the attempt in the middle to push more toward traditional horror forced the camp to fade into the background.  This caused the film to lose focus as a campy horror-comedy, and the threats are never quite serious enough for the film to NOT be considered camp.  (This inability to choose an identity is even visible in the difference between the two posters for the film, one being an obvious nod to comedy and the other to straight horror.  While the film suffers because of this indecision, I’d like to see if the film was different before Dimension bought it; perhaps this indecision was a result of a desire for more pointed branding from the film studio that paid for the distribution…)

Also (and I think this plays heavily into the lag in the middle), there’s only so much you can do with the threat of a literal vagina dentata.  You can bite off penises.  But because Dawn is the hero of the film, you can only bite off the penises of bad men.  So over the course of 2 days, Dawn gets a lot of bad men inserting body parts into her vag.  Rape is horrifying, but watching the poor girl get raped (or screwed over) by every man she trusts eventually gets old.  There’s only so many ways you can show that scene.

Teeth is a little repetitive, lags a little in the middle, and suffers from a lack of identity (or an inability to maintain the tongue-in-cheek camp I felt was so prevalent at the beginning of the film).  But the subject matter is new and strangely entertaining as a concept, and Jess Weixler does a good job going from goofy virgin to confused teen to angry girl with a toothed vagina.  Honestly, if you’re looking for something to rent or you happen to have an investment in th e dangers of female sexuality, it’s worth watching.  But if you’re just looking for a penis-severing good time, I’d recommend “The Killer Condom” instead.

Oh, and for those boys and girls out there that are interested in this kind of thing, there is some definite locker-room naked boy butt.  And a lady booby or two.