Gay City News - November 08, 2018 by Schneps Media

Rallying for Taiwan Marriage 03

Corey Johnson vs. Rebekah Mercer 09

Laura Jane Grace’s Buoyancy 28

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! E V E I REPR DEMS WIN US HOUSE, NY STATE SENATE ANTI-TRANS DRIVE FAILS IN MASSACHUSETTS Page 04

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FREE | VOLUME SEVENTEEN, ISSUE TWENTY THREE | NOVEMBER 8 – NOVEMBER 21, 2018

In This Issue COVER STORY Reprieve! Dems capture US House, NYS Senate 04 CRIME NYPD apology in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;94 Prospect Park rape case 06 Matt Foreman rips into AVP 06 MARRIAGE Wedding cakes back to SCOTUS? 08

PERSPECTIVE Good old boys fighting back 15 RELIGION After Pittsburgh, NYU Muslims stand with CBST 18 FILM Wild boys 26 OPERA How do you solve a problem like Marnie? 32

Postcards from London

November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

INTERNATIONAL

NYC Activists Rally For Marriage Equality in Taiwan Fighting US-funded anti-gay forces, Stonewall event raises $5,000 for November 24 vote BY MATT TRACY

he scene on the ground floor at the Stonewall Inn on Friday night was like that of any gay bar on a typical weekend, but upstairs a packed crowd of more than 100 people gathered to raise awareness and money ahead of a crucial election in Taiwan on November 24 that could determine whether that nation becomes the first in Asia to win marriage equality. Taiwan’s constitutional court ruled last year that same-sex couples should have the right to marry, and lawmakers were given two years to amend the constitution or else it would become law. Yet, antiLGBTQ forces, with support from American groups like the National Organization for Marriage, have put these plans in jeopardy by pushing referenda on the ballot that could not only prevent marriage equality but also curtail LGBTQ-informed sex education in schools. LGBTQ activists have responded with a ballot effort of their own in favor of same-sex marriage. Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan, along with American groups including Freedom to Marry, the Human Rights Campaign, and others showed up on Friday night determined to push back against that conservative wave. Freedom to Marry founder Evan Wolfson, a veteran proponent of marriage equality, is sharing advice based on his years of experience in the fight for marriage in the US. “Everything you do now really will make a difference, whether it’s calling and writing and encouraging your friends back in Taiwan to vote,” he told the crowd. “That makes a difference. Don’t kid yourself. That’s how we won, by having those conversations.” One of the main hurdles facing LGBTQ activists in Taiwan is an advertising blitz by wealthy conservative groups. Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan chair Jennifer Lu appeared Friday night via a recorded video and discussed the

MAT T TRACY

Taiwanese-American activist Lance Chen-Hayes has traveled to Taiwan several times to pitch in on the marriage equality fight.

MAT T TRACY

The crowd at the Stonewall Friday evening supporting marriage equality in Taiwan.

on-the-ground work her group has been carrying out during the time leading up to the vote. Lu’s team has utilized digital marketing and education to spread the word, but she said they need more money to begin on-air advertising. Lance Chen-Hayes, a Taiwanese-American activist who said he has been back and forth between Taiwan and the US in an effort to fight for marriage equality, has seen firsthand the negative impact of the anti-gay advertisements. “They have more than $33 million and they are financing everything,” he explained. “I’ve seen banners hanging from storefronts, I’ve seen banners on buses, I’ve seen people handing out flyers in cities and rural areas. It’s horrible.” A television advertisement currently airing in Taiwan was shown

GayCityNews.nyc | November 8 - November 21, 2018

at the event to underscore the overt fear-based messaging used by conservative groups. The ad featured ominous music and showed parents horrified at the notion of same-sex marriage. “I want to be very clear that these ads didn’t just come out of nowhere,” said Freedom to Marry’s Cameron Tolle, who also has traveled to Taiwan twice since the summer. “That ad is nearly a carbon copy of the same exact ad that we had to fight against here in the US… Tonight, we’re letting anti-LGBT groups in Taiwan know that we are watching you.” The crowd at Friday’s event started off with a couple of dozen attendees, but soon it grew to the point where there was no room to walk. Tolle announced that $3,800 of the $5,000 they hoped to raise

for Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan had been raised in the event’s first hour. He returned to the podium shortly after that to reveal that the night’s fundraising goal was met, leading to loud cheers from the crowd. People from all over Asia and elsewhere around the world flocked to the Stonewall to show their support. Tommy Chong, who is from Hong Kong, said he wanted to attend because of the impact the vote could have on other parts of the region. “It’s an historical moment for gay rights in Asia,” he said. “Other cities and countries in Asia could follow them as a role model.” A 27-year-old Taiwanese-American lesbian named Jessica, who opted not to share her last name because she is not out to her family, is worried that progress that has been made in Taiwan could be scaled back. The status quo, she said, is not enough. “Even though I’m not technically there right now, it’s important to be here tonight,” she said. “I just hope that we can be married like any other couple. I don’t want there to be some weird separate but equal thing going on.” Underscoring one of the main themes of the night — voter turnout — Taiwan native Chin Chia Li said he believes that voicing support for gay rights to family and friends is what can help turn his country into a beacon of hope for LGBTQ people. He said he is out to all of his friends, both gay and straight, and they have all been very supportive of him. “We have to come out to let everybody know that yes, we are human, we are right here, we have the right to get married,” he said. The other groups supporting the effort on Friday night included API Rainbow Parents of PFLAG NYC, GAPIMNY, OutRight Action International, Human Rights Watch, and Café Philo@NY. Those who speak Chinese can learn more by visiting Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan’s website at equallove.tw.

POLITICS

A Democratic House, Nation’s First Gay Governor Control of Congress now divided; LGBTQ community makes impressive strides BY PAUL SCHINDLER

n a night when the Democratic Party achieved a net gain of somewhere between 30 and 35 seats in the US House of Representatives, wresting control from the Republicans and finally putting some check on President Donald Trump, the LGBTQ community enjoyed key victories, including the election of the nation’s first out gay governor and the defeat of an anti-transgender ballot initiative in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts referendum resulted from the efforts of antitrans activists to repeal a 2016 law that guaranteed equal access to public accommodations regardless of gender identity. A yes vote upheld that law and garnered roughly 70 percent of the vote, after a hard-fought campaign.

PETE SOUZ A / WHITE HOUSE

Colorado Governor-Elect Jared Polis (left), seen here with his husband, Marlon Reis, and President Barack Obama.

In a written statement, Carol Rose, the executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts said voters “reaffirmed our Commonwealth as a place that fiercely defends our basic values of dignity and respect for everyone. At a time when transgender rights are being threatened nationally, we absolutely must preserve the rights we have secured at the state level.”

In Colorado, Jared Polis, an out gay Democrat elected to Congress in 2008, was elected governor with a margin of about seven percentage points. Polis succeeds twoterm Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper. “Every Coloradan wants good schools, healthy communities, and more opportunity for the next generation,” Polis said in a written statement. “So the time is now to unite in our common purpose, rooted in our shared love for our home of Colorado, and move forward together, confident that what makes us unique isn’t just the boldness of our ideas — it’s the resilience and the spirit of Coloradans, who make change happen, who bring these bold ideas to life.” In Oregon, Governor Kate Brown, an out bisexual Democrat who took office in 2015 after her predecessor resigned and won a

special election the following year, held on to her office, with a five percent margin over her Republican opponent. In Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema, an out bisexual member of Congress first elected in 2012, trails her Republican opponent, Martha McSally, who was elected to the House two years later, by about 16,000 votes. According to CBS News, however, there are more than one million early ballot votes that have not yet been tallied, so it will be at least several days until that race is called. The Democrats’ sweep of the House saw the election of three new LGBTQ representatives: Christopher Pappas, who will be New Hampshire’s first LGBTQ member of Congress; Angie Craig, Minnesota’s first out lesbian or

➤ ELECTION, continued on p.5

Democrats Capture New York State Senate Four seats on Long Island, a Brooklyn ﬂip, and three upstate victories tell the story BY PAUL SCHINDLER

ince four Republicans state senators joined all but one Democrat to push New York’s marriage equality law over the top in 2011, the GOP leadership of that chamber has not allowed a floor vote on a single LGBTQ-related issue. Flipping the State Senate has been a top community priority in each election since then. On Tuesday, the Democrats captured the Senate with votes to spare, netting eight seats. “It’s extraordinary,” said Manhattan Democrat Brad Hoylman, the Senate’s only out LGBTQ member. “To me, it’s the first step in really restoring voters’ trust in Albany where progressive legislation has languished for years.” The Democrats went into the election with a nominal 32-31 ma-

DANIEL J. MARINO/ BOROUGH PRESIDENT’S OFFICE

Democratic challenger Andrew Gounardes bested longtime incumbent Republican State Senator Marty Golden.

jority, but Brooklyn Democrat Simcha Felder, who represents socially conservative Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, has caucused with the Republicans ever since he took office in 2013. Even when the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) returned to the regular fold early this year, the party remained unable to claim its majority.

But on Tuesday, the party captured four Long Island seats currently held by Republicans, when Monica R. Martinez won in a race to succeed the retiring Thomas Croci, James Gaughran defeated incumbent Carl Marcellino, Kevin Thomas beat incumbent Kemp Hannon, and Anna Kaplan bested incumbent Elaine Phillips. Upstate, Democratic Assemblymember James Skoufis won a seat vacated by William Larkin, Jen Metzger captured the seat held by retiring incumbent John Bonacic, and Peter Harckham defeated incumbent Terrence Murphy. In Brooklyn, Andrew Gounardes knocked off the only remaining GOP senator from New York City, longtime lawmaker Marty Golden. In a written statement, the victorious Gounardes said, “Tonight, the voters of Southern Brooklyn have said that they want new lead-

ership in Albany that delivers real results for working families, including, quality, affordable health care, fully funded public schools, speed cameras in every school zone, reproductive choice for all women, lower housing costs, and accessible and reliable public transit. We would not be here but for the countless volunteers who knocked on thousands of doors from Bay Ridge to Marine Park, made hundreds of thousands of phone calls, stood at dozens of subway stations, stuffed and addressed countless envelopes to help us to get out the vote.” In January, the new State Senate will include 40 Democrats (including Felder) and just 23 Republicans, a dramatic power shift. Republican control of the Senate has not only blocked action on the

➤ STATE SENATE, continued on p.5

November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

➤ ELECTION, from p.4 gay person elected to the House after defeating Jason Lewis, an outspokenly anti-gay Republican representing suburban Minneapolis; and Sharice Davids, who will be Kansas’ first out lesbian or gay member of Congress and the first Native American woman to serve there. Kansas offered another gift to the LGBTQ community, with the

➤ STATE SENATE, from p.4 long-stalled Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), but also on measures to ban socalled “conversion therapy” for minors and to end the state’s prohibition on gestational surrogacy. Other progressive causes — from women’s reproductive freedom to protection of immigrants, universal health care, criminal justice reform, debt-free college education, and marijuana legalization — have also been stalled by Republican leadership in the Senate. Over a number of election cycles

defeat of Republican Chris Kobach, the secretary of state there, in his bid for governor. Kobach, a voting rights opponent who came to national attention by whispering in Donald Trump’s ear wild tales of millions of fraudulent voters in the 2016 election, is also known for his strident opposition to gay rights. In addition to Kansas, Democrats also captured governorships previously held by Republicans in

Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Mexico, and Maine. After losing key states in the Midwest in the 2016 presidential contest, the party’s control in Michigan and Wisconsin — and holding on to their position in Minnesota and Pennsylvania — offered some sign Democrats have not been marginalized in this electoral vote-rich part of the country. One sweet, if minor result of Tuesday’s election was the defeat

of Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who went to jail rather than do her job of issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, was defeated in her bid for reelection by an eight-point margin. And finally, in 2018 — for the first time in history — more than 100 women were elected to the House of Representatives. After a century with the vote, women are just now approaching 25 percent representation there.

— including 2012, when President Barack Obama swept New York, and 2016, when Hillary Clinton did the same — the Democrats failed to win a clear, Felder-proof majority. It was under a Republican president in a midterm election, when they finally struck gold — bigly. “A lot of voters are downright disgusted with Washington,” Hoylman said. “With the tax cuts. Human rights. Environmental issues. The threats to health care and women’s right to choose. The issues we always argued were important in the State Senate were crystalized in the national conversation.”

He added, however, “You can’t underestimate the quality of our candidates,” noting that the grassroots activism sparked by Donald Trump’s election prompted strong contenders — including members of the State Assembly and county legislatures — to step forward. Hoylman said there are a number of “obvious corrections” the Senate is likely to move on quickly — including GENDA, voting rights, and reproductive freedom. Other progressive objectives — including fi xing the MTA, ethics and campaign finance reform, and rent law renewal — are important objec-

tives but more complex. And restoration of a public hearing process for bills, which Hoylman charged Republicans ignored, means there will be timing constraints on moving what is a very large, backlogged agenda. Still, with eight new Democrats grabbing GOP seats and another six new progressives ousting IDC members in September, pressure for action will be intense. As Governor Andrew Cuomo begins his third term in January, he will likely face a more assertive Legislature where both chambers have progressive Democratic leadership.

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CRIME

NYPD Apologizes in ‘94 Prospect Park Rape Case “Zero justiﬁcation” for LGBTQ activist’s treatment admitted; some critics wanted more BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

early 25 years after a woman was raped in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park only to be accused of fabricating the crime by Daily News columnist Mike McAlary — with what many LGBTQ activists said was the help of a senior NYPD official — James O’Neill, the current police commissioner, issued an apology to the woman. “The survivor of the 1994 Prospect Park rape case suffered a terrible ordeal when she was brutally violated,” O’Neill wrote in an October 28 apology that was posted on the NYPD’s website and tweeted from O’Neill’s account on Twitter. “And there is zero justification for the additional trauma she endured when her word was doubted by authorities investigating her claim, and a writer for a major New York City daily newspaper, who — citing unnamed NYPD sources — predicted in print that she would soon be arrested for filing a false report.” The woman, who remains anonymous to this day, was attacked in the park days before she was to speak at a rally opposing anti-LGBTQ violence. McAlary argued in three columns that she made up the crime to promote the rally and that police were going to arrest her. He maintained his position even after police disclosed that they had found semen on the woman’s clothing.

DUNCAN OSBORNE

John Miller (right), the counterterrorism chief for the NYPD, who has said he had no role in Daily News columnist Mike McAlary’s unsupported claims the woman had made up her account, continues to draw fire from LGBTQ advocates.

“I appreciate this straightforward and unequivocal apology from Commissioner O’Neill on behalf of the NYPD,” the woman said in written a statement on October 29. “It represents a significant step forward and stands in marked and welcome contrast to the current cultural climate where victims are denigrated and doubted. Nothing can undo the public excoriation I experienced; however, there is much healing to be found in this public statement to

survivors that when they seek help, the NYPD is committed to treating them with dignity, credulity, and respect.” Earlier this year, police revealed that DNA recovered from that semen match DNA from James Webb, now 68. He is currently serving a sentence of 75-years-to-life for 1998 sexual assault convictions. Webb is not eligible for a first parole hearing until 2070. The statute of limitations has run out on the 1994 rape and Webb cannot be charged in that case. After that disclosure, John Miller, who was the chief NYPD spokesperson in 1994 and now heads the department’s counterterrorism unit, sent a written apology to the woman via Martin Garbus, the attorney who represented her in an unsuccessful libel lawsuit she brought against McAlary. “We received something from John Miller two weeks ago and I don’t consider it an apology,” Garbus told Gay City News in January. “She has not received an apology.” Miller was suspected of being complicit in McAlary’s columns though he has consistently denied playing such a role other than initially telling reporters to be cautious in writing about the rape case. Activists pressed the NYPD for a more public apology since the disclosure that Webb was the perpetrator.

➤ NYPD APOLOGY, continued on p.7

Matt Foreman Rips Into AVP Leadership Anti-violence agency’s former head faults it for “silence,” “inaction,” “lethargy” BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

former head of New York City’s premier agency serving LGBTQ crime victims charged the current administration there with “lethargy and lack of leadership” over its role in recent developments in a 1994 rape case (see story above). “I do understand that AVP has moved away from direct action and expressions of outrage and calls to action in response to violence (replaced by the banal ‘AVP mourns’ and ‘AVP learns’ statements),” Matt Foreman, who headed the Anti-Violence Project (AVP) from 1990 to

Matt Foreman, who headed up the AVP for six years in the 1990s.

1996, wrote in a letter to the agency. “That said, I believe AVP has failed our community. By refusing to forcefully speak out and leverage — in any way whatsoever — a ter-

rible injustice AVP has failed in its obligation to secure long-term policy and resource allocation reforms from the NYPD. AVP’s inaction and silence are an offense to the organization’s history and its current mission and vision statements.” Foreman made his critique in an April 4, 2018 letter that was sent to Beverly Tillery, currently AVP’s executive director, and Dara Majors, then AVP’s board chair. Gay City News only recently obtained a copy of the letter. The case concerned a woman who was an AVP volunteer in 1994. She was slated to speak at an AVP rally that year when she was raped in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. In

three columns, Mike McAlary, then a columnist for the Daily News, accused her of inventing the rape to promote the rally and called her a liar who would soon be arrested by police. McAlary, who died in 1998, claimed that police sources were supporting him. Earlier this year, police revealed that DNA recovered from semen found on the woman’s clothing matched DNA from James Webb, now 68. He is currently serving a sentence of 75-years-to-life for 1998 sexual assault convictions. Foreman and several groups that advocate for sexual assault sur-

➤ AVP, continued on p.7

November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

➤ NYPD APOLOGY, from p.6 Matt Foreman, who headed the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project from 1990 to 1996, was among the activists and groups that pressed the NYPD to reform its Special Victims Division and to apologize to the woman. “After the case was reopened and announced solved in January, a bunch of crime victims organizations got together and asked how can we use this to press forward for long needed reforms,” Foreman told Gay City News. In two meetings this year with O’Neill, the commissioner was presented with “a significant list of reforms that had been festering for a long time” and O’Neill agreed to issue the apology at a meeting in May, Foreman said. While the groups were not told exactly when the apology would be issued, they were given some advance notice. The woman agreed to give a single interview to a major news outlet and that interview, which was with the New York Times two or three days before the apology was made public, was facilitated by a publicist working with the groups. Foreman said the meetings had produced some results in the Special Victims Division, and he credited Michael Osgood, the division’s

➤ AVP, from p.6 vivors demanded an apology from the NYPD, which they received on October 28. Advocates seized the moment to press for reforms in the NYPD’s response to sexual assaults. They had a March 5 meeting with senior NYPD officials, including James O’Neill, the police commissioner, to address the NYPD’s handling of sexual assault cases. Foreman wrote that AVP was effectively absent from that advocacy work. “AVP did not participate in the group calls to prepare for the March 5 meeting with Commissioner O’Neill,” he wrote. “Ms. Tillery did not come to that meeting, even though the heads of eight other victim assistance/ sexual assault advocacy organizations managed to do that — as did the Commissioner, the First Deputy Commissioner, the Chief of Department, the Chief

commanding officer. “I think he has taken a number of steps over the last nine months that have been very positive and innovative,” Foreman said. “The fundamental reality is that the division needs at least 140 more detectives… The division is woefully understaffed.” Activists also wanted Miller fired, but O’Neill said at a January press conference that Miller had his continued support. “That is disappointing,” Foreman said. “At the same time, I want to be forward looking… It is clear that nothing is going to happen.” In his deposition in the woman’s libel lawsuit, Miller disputed that he had ever supported McAlary’s assertions that the woman was a liar and that her rape claim was a hoax. Garbus obtained depositions that McAlary gave in lawsuits unrelated to the libel case and found that McAlary admitted to inventing stories and fabricating quotes to “illustrate” a story. He was deposed twice in the libel case and eventually had to reveal that he had a single source for his columns — John Miller. McAlary died in 1998. The libel suit was dismissed in 1997, and the woman elected to not pursue an appeal though Garbus believed an appeal would be successful.

of Detectives, the Chief of [Special Victims Division], the Deputy Commissioner of Collaborative Policing.” AVP sent a lower level staffer to the meeting. Foreman wrote that AVP did not participate in drafting a follow-up letter after the meeting or in an “advocacy group call to decide how to respond to New York Magazine’s explosive March 16 story about DA Vance’s horrific handling of the sexual assault claim made against Harvey Weinstein in 2015.” Foreman wrote that AVP said nothing about a city report that found that the NYPD’s Special Victims Division was “grossly understaffed and failing to properly investigate rape cases (a key issue in the groups’ first letter to the Commissioner on February 7 and pressed hard at the March 5 meeting)” and that “AVP did not send a represen-

GayCityNews.nyc | November 8 - November 21, 2018

➤ AVP, continued on p.39

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MARRIAGE

Gay Wedding Cakes Could Go to Supreme Court Again Oregon bakers seek review of state discrimination ﬁne in wide-ranging appeal BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

elissa and Aaron Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a now-defunct custom bakery in Gresham, Oregon, have filed a petition asking the US Supreme Court to strike down the $135,000 penalty imposed by Oregon authorities for their refusal to make a wedding cake for Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer in January 2013. In their October 19 filing, the Kleins claim the Oregon ruling violates their constitutional rights of free exercise of religion and freedom of speech. They also claim they did not discriminate against the lesbian couple because of their sexual orientation, contrary to the findings of a state commission that was affirmed by the state appeals court. Perhaps most consequentially, they are asking the Supreme Court to consider overruling Employment Division v. Smith, a 1990 high court ruling that found that the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause does not exempt people with religious objections from complying with state laws of general application not specifically targeting religious practices. If the Kleins’ petition for review were accepted, the Supreme Court would be revisiting an issue it sidestepped in its June Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruling. In Masterpiece, baker Jack Phillips refused, initially on religious grounds, to make a wedding cake for a gay male couple, and Colorado officials found he had violated the state’s anti-discrimination law, rejecting his First Amendment defense. In his appeal of the Colorado Court of Appeals’ ruling affirming the Commission, Phillips asserted protection under both the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and its Free Speech Clauses, claiming the government cannot compel a “cake artist” to express a message contrary to his religious beliefs, on free speech as well as freedom of

COURTESY OF L AMBDA LEGAL

Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer and their children.

religion grounds. The court did not decide those questions, instead concluding that comments from some of the Civil Rights Commission’s members — along with its rejection of discrimination claims filed by a provocateur who charged bakers with discriminating against him by refusing to make explicitly antigay cakes — showed the state did not provide Phillips with an appropriately “neutral forum.” The case against Phillips was dismissed. In his opinion for the court, however, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has since retired, reaffirmed that people and businesses do not enjoy a general right to refuse, on free exercise grounds, to comply with state laws of general application not specifically targeting religion. Kennedy’s opinion did not address Phillips’ “cake artist” free speech claim. Kennedy cited a 1968 ruling, in Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., where the owner of a chain of BBQ restaurants cited his religious beliefs as grounds for denying service to black customers in defiance of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. There, the Supreme Court affirmed the Richmond-based Fourth Circuit

Court of Appeals, which reversed a district court’s refusal to enjoin the restaurant’s discriminatory policy. Kennedy did not mention the 1990 Smith precedent, which involved a Native American man who used peyote in a religious ritual and later flunked his employer’s drug test, was fired and then denied unemployment benefits. The Supreme Court found that the incidental burden imposed on his free exercise of religion did not excuse the man from complying with his employer’s drug use policy and being subject to the state’s unemployment insurance law. In a concurring opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop, however, Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Clarence Thomas, described the Smith ruling as “controversial,” implying it deserved reconsideration. The Kleins followed up on Gorsuch’s signal by asking that the court either reconsider Smith or, alternatively, reaffirm specific comments in Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion, where he suggested that when somebody raises a free exercise of religion claim in a case that also implicates “other fundamental rights,” such as freedom of speech, the court should

apply “strict scrutiny” to the state action under challenge so that the other fundamental right could be vindicated. The Oregon Court of Appeals had explicitly rejected this “hybrid rights” approach, but the Kleins pointed out that lower courts are divided on whether to take up Scalia’s suggestion. The Kleins are also arguing they did not discriminate against the Bowman-Cryers because of their sexual orientation; they would refuse to make a same-sex wedding cake regardless of the sexual orientation of the would-be customer. They noted they had, several years before, made a wedding cake that the couple ordered to celebrate Rachel’s mother’s marriage to a man. And they pointed out that the couple quickly found another baker to make their wedding cake — and that a celebrity chef gave them a second custom-designed cake for free. On the other hand, Oregon officials, in assessing substantial damages for emotional distress to the Bowman-Cryers, weighed reports that the Kleins had posted about the discrimination claim on their Facebook page, showing an image of the actual discrimination charge with contact information for the lesbian couple, who subsequently received nasty messages, including death threats. The Kleins devote a large part of their petition to arguing they are “cake artists” whose creations are expressive works, entitling them to the same vigorous constitutional free speech protection normally provided to artists in less digestible media. The Oregon court, they claim, erred in failing to apply strict scrutiny to the state authorities’ decision against them. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the First Amendment protects an individual’s refusal to speak a message with which they disagree. Whether the court will view baking a wedding cake in free speech terms is an interesting question.

➤ WEDDING CAKES, continued on p.9

November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

POLITICS

Corey Endorses Rebekah Mercer’s AMNH Removal Manhattan Beep Brewer also faults climate change denier’s role at science museum BY ANDY HUMM

ity Council Speaker Corey Johnson, an ex-officio trustee of the American Museum of Natural History, has joined calls from 450 scientists and as well as the direct action group Revolting Lesbians to get billionaire climate-change denier Rebekah Mercer off the museum’s board. Among many contributions to and investments in right wing organizations, she has donated $5 million to the Heartland Institute, a climate-change denial think tank that boasts of having convinced Donald Trump “that manmade global warming is not a crisis.” In a written statement received exclusively by Gay City News, Johnson said, “Rebekah Mercer clearly does not share the values of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). She and her family contributed to groups who deny climate change exists, which is a denial of the very science at the core of the Museum’s mission. Rebekah Mercer should do the right thing and step down from the Board of Trustees. We need someone who respects science — which means they don’t dispute findings they find inconvenient politically. Climate change is real and anyone who truly cares for the future of our planet recognizes that. Those who don’t should not serve on the board of one of this city’s premier scientific institutions.” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who like Johnson is an ex-officio trustee, voiced her displeasure with Mercer’s role at the museum, as well, but also suggested the push to remove her faces a roadblock. “She does not represent my views,” Brewer said of Mercer. “I have talked to the museum about it in the past. They are not going to take her off.” Revolting Lesbians held yet another small but spirited demonstration on October 28 in front of the museum demanding Mercer’s removal. It included a Mercer impersonator — Philadelphia

➤ WEDDING CAKES, from p.8 There are numerous ways in which the court could decide the Kleins’ case should it be accepted for review. A decision overturning the Smith precedent, however, could have the most far-reaching implications for LGBTQ rights. Gorsuch was correct in calling Smith a “controversial” decision. When it came down, Scalia’s opinion drew dissents from

ANDY HUMM

The direct action group Revolting Lesbians staged another protest outside the American Museum of Natural History on October 28 demanding the removal of Rebekah Mercer as a trustee — and are now getting vocal support from two ex-officio trustees, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer.

activist Mike Hisey — and others wearing Mercer masks in the spirit of Halloween. They held signs saying, “The Earth is Not For Sale. Mercer Off the Board.” Patrons of the museum, many with children in tow, easily grasped the wrongness of having a funder of climate-change denial on the board. Anne Maguire, one of the organizers of the action, said, “We welcome Corey Johnson’s statement asking Rebekah Mercer to step down and hope it encourages other politicians to call for her resignation as well, especially those exofficio New York City elected officials who are

liberals on the court and it was Chuck Schumer in the House and Ted Kennedy in the Senate who quickly drew up a first version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which President Bill Clinton eagerly signed into law in 1993. Though the Supreme Court took exception to this first version, it eventually ruled that Congress could create a legislative exception to federal laws when they incidentally impose a substantial burden

GayCityNews.nyc | November 8 - November 21, 2018

also board members at the AMNH — Mayor Bill de Blasio, Comptroller Scott Stringer, and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer. Mercer is not just destructive of our planet, she is destructive of our democracy. She is part-owner of Breitbart News and responsible for their altright propaganda which spreads white supremacist nonsense and anti-immigrant bigotry. Mercer was on the board of Cambridge Analytica, and her family’s fortune supports the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation amongst others. All elected officials should be doing much more to get Mercer off the board of the AMNH and they have leverage. The city gives the museum $22 million annually, so we urge politicians to use our tax dollars wisely and prudently by asking the museum to remove Mercer if she refuses to resign. We also urge Mercer’s colleagues on the Board of Trustees and all those who donate money to the museum to do the right thing and insist on her removal.” Maguire’s statement came prior to Brewer’s comments about Mercer serving on the board. Neither the mayor’s office nor the city comptroller’s office would comment on the calls for removing Mercer. The museum’s annual fundraising gala is Thursday, November 15, and Revolting Lesbians plans to picket it if Mercer has not been removed from the board. An earlier effort to get billionaire oil industry plutocrat David Koch off the museum board was successful. The museum did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Johnson’s call for Mercer’s removal. In the past, the museum has insisted that trustees and donors do not make decisions about its scientific and educational content. Revolting Lesbians, on Facebook at facebook. com/RevoltingDykesNYC, is asking its supporters to demand Mercer’s removal by emailing AMNH’s president Ellen V. Futter at futter@ amnh.org or tweeting @amnh.

on the free exercise of religion. An outright overruling of Smith would impose a burden on states and the federal government to demonstrate a compelling state interest to justify substantially burdening a person or even a business’ free exercise of religion. We should then expect many new claims that anti-discrimination laws violate the constitutional rights of people and businesses who have religious objections to LGBTQ people

— a claim the Kleins are pursuing here. Given the 30 days Oregon officials have to respond and the Kleins’ right to reply to that response, the Supreme Court would likely not consider this case for review until at least December. But if it were accepted before year-end, there would be plenty of time for the court to hear arguments and rule during its current term that runs until June.

What is BIKTARVY®? BIKTARVY is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults. It can either be used in people who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before, or people who are replacing their current HIV-1 medicines and whose healthcare provider determines they meet certain requirements. BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION What is the most important information I should know about BIKTARVY? BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects: ` Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV and stop taking BIKTARVY, your HBV may suddenly get worse. Do not stop taking BIKTARVY without ﬁrst talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to monitor your health.

Who should not take BIKTARVY? Do not take BIKTARVY if you take: ` dofetilide ` rifampin ` any other medicines to treat HIV-1

What are the other possible side effects of BIKTARVY? Serious side effects of BIKTARVY may also include: ` Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to ﬁght infections. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking BIKTARVY. ` Kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys. If you develop new or worse kidney problems, they may tell you to stop taking BIKTARVY. ` Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death.

Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat. ` Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain. The most common side effects of BIKTARVY in clinical studies were diarrhea (6%), nausea (5%), and headache (5%). Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effects that bother you or don’t go away.

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking BIKTARVY? ` All your health problems. Be sure to tell your healthcare provider if you have or have had any kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis virus infection. ` All the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, antacids, laxatives, vitamins, and herbal supplements. BIKTARVY and other medicines may affect each other. Keep a list of all your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist, and ask if it is safe to take BIKTARVY with all of your other medicines. ` If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if BIKTARVY can harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking BIKTARVY. ` If you are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk. You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Ask your healthcare provider if BIKTARVY is right for you.

Please see Important Facts about BIKTARVY, including important warnings, on the following page.

November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

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Because HIV doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t change who you are. BIKTARVY is a 1-pill, once-a-day complete HIV-1 treatment for adults who are either new to treatment or whose healthcare provider determines they can replace their current HIV-1 medicines with BIKTARVY.

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GayCityNews.nyc | November 8 - November 21, 2018

IMPORTANT FACTS This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY┬о and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your condition and your treatment.

(bik-TAR-vee) MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT BIKTARVY BIKTARVY may cause serious side рао Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. 0M `V\ OH]L IV[O /0= HUK /)= `V\Y /)= TH` Z\KKLUS` NL[ ^VYZL PM `V\ Z[VW [HRPUN )02;(9=@ +V UV[ Z[VW [HRPUN )02;(9=@ ^P[OV\[ ├ДYZ[ [HSRPUN [V `V\Y OLHS[OJHYL WYV]PKLY HZ [OL` ^PSS ULLK [V JOLJR `V\Y OLHS[O YLN\SHYS` MVY ZL]LYHS TVU[OZ

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GET MORE INFORMATION рао ;OPZ PZ VUS` H IYPLM Z\TTHY` VM PTWVY[HU[ PUMVYTH[PVU HIV\[ )02;(9=@ ;HSR [V `V\Y OLHS[OJHYL WYV]PKLY VY WOHYTHJPZ[ [V SLHYU TVYL рао .V [V )02;(9=@ JVT VY JHSS .03,(+ рао 0M `V\ ULLK OLSW WH`PUN MVY `V\Y TLKPJPUL ]PZP[ )02;(9=@ JVT MVY WYVNYHT PUMVYTH[PVU

)02;(9=@ [OL )02;(9=@ 3VNV +(03@ */(9., [OL +(03@ */(9., 3VNV 36=, >/(;┬╗: 05:0+, .03,(+ HUK [OL .03,(+ 3VNV HYL [YHKLTHYRZ VM .PSLHK :JPLUJLZ 0UJ VY P[Z YLSH[LK JVTWHUPLZ =LYZPVU KH[L! -LIY\HY` ┬П .PSLHK :JPLUJLZ 0UJ (SS YPNO[Z YLZLY]LK )=@*

November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

NEWS, IN BRIEF By Andy Humm Gay Man Charged in Brooklyn Anti-Semitic Vandalism James Polite, a 26-year-old gay man who once interned for New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and worked against hate crimes, was arrested November 2 for vandalizing the Union Temple of Brooklyn in Prospect Heights, scrawling “Die Jew Rats” on the stairwell wall. He is also charged with setting trash fires outside several synagogues and one inside Yeshiva Beth Hillel in Brooklyn. Quinn condemned the attacks as “a vile expression of bigotry” and said, “The actions he is accused of break my heart.” The New York Post reported that Polite is “gay, bi-polar, and the foster child of Jenny Levison, a member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and Josh Waletzky, a Yiddish singer-songwriter.” Despite his mental health issues, he graduated from Brandeis University in May. Polite is charged with criminal mischief and arson as hate crimes. He is currently in Woodhull Hospital for psychiatric observation. Actor Billy Porter Opens Up About Abuse from Stepdad Billy Porter, Tony winner for “Kinky Boots,” wrote in Out magazine about sexual abuse at the hands of his stepfather — starting when he was nine years old and continuing for four years. “I was born gay and he knew it,” Porter wrote — and his stepfather took advantage of his vulnerability. Porter said that he was inspired to come out by the bravery of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who testified about the abuse she suffered as a teen at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh, now a US Supreme Court Justice. “Ex-Gay” Therapist Caught Trolling for Gay Sex Online Norman Goldwasser, who works to perform discredited “conversion therapy” on gay men, was found to be cruising on the gay apps Manhunt and Gay Bear Nation as “hothairy72.” On his profile, he said he liked kissing, married men, massage, and, from news re-

ports, “more explicit activities.” He had dedicated his professional life to screwing up the heads of gay people. Goldwasser’s hypocrisy was exposed by Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out who got a tip about the trolling. Caught dead to rights, Goldwasser said that he has “helped” others but “was unable to help himself.” Evangelical Prof Sues Over Having to Respect Trans Students Professor Nicholas Meriwether of Shawnee State University in Ohio is suing the school over being compelled to use female pronouns for transgender student Elena Breuning. He said he will use the name she uses, but not the pronouns she wants. He says that the school’s insistence that he comply with its policies around respect for trans students is a violation of his Evangelical faith. First Transgender Judge in Arizona Tracey Nadzieja was sworn in last month as the first openly transgender judge in Arizona history — and the third in the country. She now serves on the Superior Court Commission of Maricopa County. She hopes her gender identity will become a “non-issue,” but understands that being a “first” is a story. International LGBTQ News Round-Up Mexico’s Senate unanimously passed a bill granting pension rights and health care benefits to married gay couples. Thirteen of 31 Mexican states have full marriage equality. The Bermudan government’s challenge to a court order to maintain marriage equality is underway. The government imported judges and an attorney for the occasion. If it loses this round, as is likely, the government’s final appeal could be to the Privy Council where it will also likely lose. A regional coordinator in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Paul Makonda, called for the hunting down of LGBTQ people. That triggered 10 men being arrested in Zanzi-

GayCityNews.nyc | November 8 - November 21, 2018

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➤ NEWS, IN BRIEF, continued on p.16

PERSPECTIVE: Let ter From the Editor PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER Victoria Schneps-Yunis CEO & CO-PUBLISHER Joshua Schneps

Reprieve!

FOUNDING EDITOR IN-CHIEF & ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

BY PAUL SCHINDLER

PAUL SCHINDLER

editor@gaycitynews.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR DUNCAN OSBORNE

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS DONNA ACETO (Photo Editor) CHRISTOPHER BYRNE (Theater), SUSIE DAY (Perspective), BRIAN McCORMICK (Dance)

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t was not the Blue Wave of our fondest dreams. There will be no Senator Beto O’Rourke or Governor Andrew Gillum. And Governor Stacey Abrams seems like a long shot at this point. The Democrats did not produce an historic swing of seats in the House, and with three Senate races still undecided, the Republicans so far have a gain of two seats. Still, good and important things happened on Tuesday evening — first and foremost, the Democrats won control of the US House of Representatives. Congress will no longer be the acquiescent echo of President Donald Trump’s fevered dreams. An enormous constitutional check will now become a reality in January. The president’s base and his donors will no longer be able to ram their agenda through Congress, and the Republicans’ pathetic unwillingness to assert their independence and fulfill their oversight responsibilities will no longer win the day. As far as investigations into the president go, it’s hard to say precisely what the next steps will be. The incoming Democratic committee chairs have reportedly divvied up general areas of jurisdiction to avoid unproductive infighting. And, already on election night, there was word of plans to subpoena the president’s tax returns from the IRS. But much, of course, depends on the course of the Mueller investigation. The firing today of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his interim replacement by a Trump loyalist should put everyone on warning of a Saturday Night Massacre-style move by a threatened president. Mueller certainly saw this possibility coming, and presumably has exercised wisdom to ensure that the fruits of his investigation to date can be preserved to the greatest degree possible. Any rash move by Trump could finally spark Republican outcries, but with Democratic control of the House even if the GOP’s cravenness continues unabated, the American people now have recourse. Beyond the congressional races,

there are other things to celebrate. A backlash against transgender rights was soundly defeated in Massachusetts; a loss there in one of the nation’s most liberal jurisdictions would have been devastating. In Colorado, Jared Polis, an out gay congressmember will become the nation’s first gay governor. And three new gay and lesbian members of Congress were elected, including the first Native American woman to go to Washington — from Kansas! A lesbian victor in Minnesota defeated a stridently homophobic Republican incumbent. In a long-delayed milestone in the nation’s slog toward greater gender parity in governing, for the first time in history at least 100 women were elected to the House. It is worth reminding ourselves, however, that after nearly a century of women having the vote, they still do not yet make up even one quarter of the members of Congress. It’s not just who won on Tuesday night that matters. It’s also who lost. Chris Kobach — a homophobe and voter suppressor par excellence — will not be governor of Kansas (again, Kansas). David Brat, the Tea Party darling who ousted the already very conservative Eric Cantor four years ago, is out himself. California’s Dana Rohrabacher, another troglodyte on LGBTQ issues and one of Russia’s favorite American politicians, was also defeated. Going Trump-ugly on their opponents did not salvage the careers of two upstate New York congressional Republicans, John Faso and Claudia Tenney. And if you live in Rowan County, Kentucky, you will no longer have to arm wrestle County Clerk Kim Davis to get a marriage license. She got beat this this week. The Democratic Party nationally showed signs that it was taking more seriously the geographic barriers they tripped up on two years ago. Among the seven governorships the party flipped, three were in the Midwest: Michigan, Wisconsin, and (though they’re safe here) Illinois. Retaining governor’s mansions in Pennsylvania and Minnesota, the

Democrats are showing moxie in this key battleground region. If the Blue Wave didn’t crest as high as we would have liked, it’s important not to start pointing fi ngers and eating our own. Despite the fact that Hillary Clinton outpolled Donald Trump by three million votes in 2016, too many of us became prisoners of a self-defeating delusion that the majority-plus-three-million were somehow a multitude who lived in a bubble. In this week’s congressional races, Democrats outpolled Republicans nationwide by more than seven percent. Gerrymandering softened the blow that advantage inflicted on the GOP. The fact of the matter is that the Democrats recruited a very strong field of candidates. O’Rourke did not prevail in Texas, but he came closer than any Democrat in a generation — while exciting the imaginations of progressives nationwide. Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum, from all I saw of those races, were fi rstclass candidates. I can’t see any immediate reason why we should spend time examining or worrying about what any of the three of these candidates did or represented. They lost because large majorities of white men and (and, in Gerogia, white women) rejected them. All three should remain active in public life, and we should figure out how to fi nd more people of their caliber. Max Rose in Staten Island wasn’t on much of anyone’s radar for a possible flip — and yet he took down incumbent Congressmember Dan Donovan, a fi xture on the local scene since 2003, when he became that borough’s district attorney. Upstate, Antonio Delgado overcame baldly racist baiting to defeat John Faso. Undoing the damage that Trump has wrought was never going to be a quick project. What we learned this week is that a mobilized citizenry, getting involved in resistance efforts, in lobbying, in protesting, in organizing, and in taking on the responsibility to run for office can have a meaningful impact. We didn’t put away Trumpism Tuesday night. And a wounded animal can often be at their most dangerous. But we took important strides, and we should emerge confident that we are not the ones in a bubble. We share the American dream, and without our help and hard work it can never truly be realized. November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

PERSPECTIVE: Snide Lines

Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet, Good Old Boys Are Hunting n a recent New York Times column titled “White Male Victimization Anxiety,” Charles Blow described how President Trump publicly apologized to Justice Brett Kavanaugh for “the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure” at the hands of Christine Blasey Ford, who claimed that Kavanaugh had tried to rape her. Blow also cited Senator Lindsey Graham’s own plucky #MeToo moment during the Kavanaugh hearings, when Graham proclaimed, “I’m a single white male from South Carolina, and I’m told I should shut up.” Blow’s fi ne op-ed piece joins a growing media chorus studying the current “victimization” of white American men. We queers can assume — since everybody else does already — that we’re talking straight white American men, who, excoriated for their lapses of “politically correct” behavior, now identify as victims. Frankly, I fi nd the term “victim” offensive. These people are survivors! Straight white men haven’t recently begun to feel victimized: they’ve felt that way since the dawn of time. It’s one of their main feelings. I know. I went to a “Make America Straight White Male Again” rally and got a free MASWMA baseball cap! This deeply moved me. So I sat down and composed a little history for fi rst graders, to educate them about the oppressed straight white male diaspora. To explain the patriarchy, I’ve devised an unthreatening little Elmer Fudd-type character that children of all ages are sure to love.

hairless head, a nubby potato nose, shifty primordial eyes, and a dithering, crazed expression that only a Caucasian could love. All day long in his little hunter’s suit, he would stalk about matriarchal civilization, holding his slingshot at the ready. “Shshsh,” he’d say to the villagers. “Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m hunting and gatherwing. Huhhuh-huh.” Folks called him the Good Old Boy. “That’s to distinguish me from women and minorwities,” he’d say, laughing bashfully. One day, the Good Old Boy was hunting wabbits, when he tripped over one of those heavy Venus of Willendorf figures that the women kept lying around. “Ow! I bwoke my toe on the lady’s big rock boobies!” cried the Good Old Boy. Then he sighed. “All I have is this crummy penis.” Suddenly, the Earth’s poles shifted. “Wait!” he said, raising his little fist in the air, “I am being victimized!” Thus it was that the Good Old Boy started the fi rst reproductive rights campaign! Surrounded by his followers, he held a primeval rally outside the village menstrual hut. “We demand equal wights to have babies, you pesky bwoads,” he bellowed, as he and his gang threw themselves on the ground, groaning and simulating advanced stages of labor. This made the women stop menstruating and walk away. “Just for that,” called the Good Old Boy after them, “you don’t get to vote! Plus I get to feel you up anytime I want.” Then the Good Old Boy got up, dusted himself off, found Jesus, and conquered Europe.

Chapter One: Venus Envy Long ago, in primitive times, there lived a straight white chubby little male. He had a large,

Chapter Two: God Helps Boys Who Help Themselves Life in Europe would have been pretty boring if it hadn’t been for

BY SUSIE DAY

God. One day, the Good Old Boy was sitting in his 11th century hovel, eating his Euro-breakfast of gruel and croissants. “Woman,” he growled at his wife, “this food is tasteless. Bring me nutmeg, dammit.” Then he remembered that his wife had left him nine years ago, taking all the spices. So God told him to go all the way to the Middle East to get his nutmeg. “I’m a wegular Chrwistian martyr,” grumbled the Good Old Boy. On his way out the door, he tripped over some local pixies who were wont to engage in zesty homosexual acts with each other. “Thou corn-holing, minorwity bog dwellers!” he scolded. “You better not be here when I get back.” When the Good Old Boy got to the Middle East, he was so dazzled by the level of civilization, he almost forgot about his nutmeg. Never had he seen such fi ne buildings, such brilliant art. Then he noticed that the natives were laughing at him under the hot, Islamic sun. “Waskally people of color,” he seethed. “They’re giggling at my sunburn. Help me, Jesus — I’m being victimized!” Then Jesus gave him the gift of Islamophobia and told the Good Old Boy to colonize the entire Mideast for centuries. So he did. Chapter Three: Burn, Pixie, Burn Back in Europe, our hero was fi nally starting to feel good about himself! But it isn’t easy for straight white males in this world, children. Often, he was forced to endure harassment from cackling old women who tried to turn him into a bat or make his crops fail. Then there were those rotten pixies, who followed him around making kissy noises. So he lit a bonfi re. “Burn in hell, evil hag,” said the Good Old Boy. “Take that,

faggot,” he added, throwing another pixie on the fi re. No doubt about it: he was developing real straight white male pride! Still, that old feeling came over him — he felt like a victim. Chapter Four: Democracy Fleeing victimization, the Good Old Boy crossed the mighty waves to the New Land. There he found millions of people who had lived there for centuries with their own forms of democracy. But the Good Old Boy had been duped before, so he conducted a little survey. He found that, in all the great tribal councils, there was not one straight white male. Imagine his feelings! “You can’t fool me,” cried the Good Old Boy. “You’re all women and minorwities. This is weverse discrwimination.” He sat down to clean his gun, which went off, annihilating 5,000,000 of the women and minorities. He turned and coughed in their direction and 5,000,000 more died of smallpox and other diseases. He picked up a catalog and ordered 450,000 slaves to build his life in the New Land. Then he thought about how good it would be to get together with other Good Old Boys and hammer out the Constitution. He felt better. Yet, even today, the struggle continues. Plagued by invading caravans and the hoax of climate change, the Good Old Boy is forced to sleep with his gun. And he dreams. He dreams of how he will shoot the crap out of anyone who dares to make him feel like a victim. Study Questions: 1. Write an essay about your favorite straight while male character in Franz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth.” 2. Are there any women, Jews, or people of color in the membership rolls of the Proud Boys? Discuss. 3. Fifty-three percent of white women voted for President Trump. What the fuck?

For more news & events happening now visit www.GayCityNews.nyc GayCityNews.nyc | November 8 - November 21, 2018

PERSPECTIVE: Media Circus

Caravan Conjuring Amidst the Cacophony BY ED SIKOV

y deadline for this column preceded the election by a day, limiting the number of snarky things I can say about it. But the fact that it isn’t over yet at the time I’m writing this is scarcely enough to stop me from being bilious. Fox News and the White House appear to be involved in a lively competition to determine who can be the most hysterical on the subject of the so-called “caravan” of refugees fleeing extreme poverty and crime in Central America hoping to ask for, and find, asylum in the United States. “Saturday Night Live”’s astoundingly funny Kate McKinnon did a spot-on impersonation of Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, while Cecily Strong took on the role of the ever-furious Jeanine Pirro. “All of a sudden, the term nationalist is bad,” McKinnon’s Ingraham lamented. “The word white is bad. The phrase white nationalist is bad.” “Just look at this footage of the caravan crossing into Mexico,” Strong’s Pirro said before cutting to a well-known scene of zombies climbing over each other from the Brad Pitt movie “World War Z.” Strong’s mercilessly accurate Pirro then snarls to McKinnon, fire practically shooting out of her nostrils, “Everyone you’ve ever seen in your nightmares. It’s got

NEWS, IN BRIEF, continued from p. 13

bar for being gay, Amnesty International reported, after they were reported for attending a same-sex wedding. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tanzania has distanced itself from Makonda’s attacks. The US Embassy has warned US citizens to “review their social media profiles” lest they run afoul of the government’s attacks on gay people. The penalty for consensual gay sex is 30 years in prison. In Padang in West Sumatra in Indonesia, 10 “suspected lesbians” were detained by police after sharing photos of themselves on

Guatemalans, Mexicans, ISIS, the Menendez brothers, the 1990 Detroit Pistons, Thanos and several Babadooks.” Meeanwhile, I find it illuminating and appalling in equal measure that journalists of all stripes kept making the point that the Pittsburgh murders constituted the greatest anti-Semitic massacre in American history. That may well be true. I have no reason to argue with it. But why won’t anyone mention that 3,500 people of color were systematically lynched here in the Land of the Free, their bodies mutilated, often while they were still alive, the mutilations serving as gleeful entertainment for the white trash racists who committed these nauseating crimes. Now before anyone gets all Jewier than thou about it, let me say that I am a Jew from the Pittsburgh area; I have attended services at Tree of Life; I have cousins who belong to Tree of Life; and at least one of those cousins spent the week attending funerals for victims she knew. Eleven people died in Pittsburgh, and that’s eleven too many. And yes, by the way, I’m aware of the Holocaust. But get some perspective, people. Are you really taking AfricanAmerican murders so for granted that they no longer even count? Consider the airtime devoted to the Tree of Life murders compared

Facebook cuddling and kissing. Same-sex sexual activity is not a crime in Indonesia except in the Aceh province where Sharia law is in force. These women were sent by police for “guidance” and forced to sign statements that they would not repeat their “deviant” behavior. Their parents were also contacted about their arrests. In Brazil, where an anti-LGBTQ president has just been elected, a shelter has nevertheless been opened in Manaus for sexual minority refugees from Venezuela. Casa Miga is being run by the non-profit Manifesta LGBTI+ with support from the UN High Com-

to the coverage of the two black grandparents in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, who were gunned down at a Kroger’s supermarket for the crime of shopping while black. I can’t blame you if you didn’t hear much about that white killer; the coverage was scant, at best. In a final wet hocker spat at the graves of the two black victims, well — as the New York Times reported, “The hate crime statute in Kentucky does not apply to murder.” Oh. Seeing as it’s my job to wade into the muckiest mucous of contemporary journalism so you don’t have to, I thought I’d venture into the belly of the swamp creature. Yes, sports fans, I turned to the website of the Daily Stormer, the neo-Nazi answer to Town and Country. The very first story I looked at was a truly hilarious if totally unintentional parody of anti-Jewish hysteria. The subject of the story is a Florida State University student who threw chocolate milk at some poor slob. The story was shat by Andrew Anglin: “That filthy kike wench who attacked Republicans in revenge for the synagogue shooting has been arrested for her chocolate milk assault. Of course, the mainstream media isn’t saying it was a revenge attack, or even saying she’s Jewish, but in the video she states clearly, “Nazis are killing my people” as her reason for throwing milk at a Republican. Also, she’s an intern for the communist n____ Gillum

mission for Refugees. In Thailand, a “life partnership” bill will go to Parliament this month and public comment has been solicited. It will then go to the Cabinet and National Assembly. The bill will give same-sex couples most of the same rights as heterosexual married couples, but not marriage and not adoption rights. A coalition of international partners — including the US — are pressing Russia to investigate anti-gay abuses by the government of Chechnya. The 16-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is com-

lol. What is it with Jews and communist n_____s?” Here’s another choice “article” from the Daily Stormer; this one was spewed by Luis Castillo: “Internet racism is not always easy. Every day, we have to see firsthand the brutality our people suffer from these bestial forms of Nature — the rapes, the murders, the drugs — this whole Jewish culture of sluttery and AIDS. Waking up to the reality we face is the only way we’re going to survive, but it’s not without growing pains. I’ve seen things, man. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen them, too. That’s why I wanted to bring you this beautiful story of how a father and son grew closer by hating on spics, n_____s, arabs [sic] and Jews, and bullying queers through the Internet. Racism is about sharing your culture with the people you love.” The story itself is nonsense — literally. It’s incoherent babble. So I’m not going to bother you with any more quotes from it. But notice: What with the references to the chocolate milk’s target and Andrew Gillum, the Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, it’s clear that these petulant little fucks — aka Nazis — are Republican Rump supporters. Quelle surprise! Or as we say in the language of the fatherland, was für eine Überraschung! Follow @edsikov on Twitter and Facebook.

plaining that Russia is not taking these abuses seriously. The Roman Catholic Church dropped the “LGBT” acronym from its final document from the Synod on Youth. It had been in a draft version, but the document now uses terms such as “sexual inclination” and “homosexuality.” The section on gay people only passed by two votes as it was. The Evangelical prime minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, derided gender-neutral passports and is stopping them from being introduced as planned next week. He dismissed them as “nonsense.”

November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

WOMEN’S EVENT DANCES NIGHT AWAY AT CAPITALE

DONNA ACETO

Center executive director Glennda Testone and her mother.

DONNA ACETO

Filmmaker David France and producer Joy Tomchin.

DONNA ACETO

Dancing at the Capitale.

PHOTO ESSAY BY DONNA ACETO

DONNA ACETO

Honoree Julie Mehretu.

he LGBTQ Women’s Event, an evening of cocktails, dinner, and dancing to honor those making a difference, was held November 3 at Capitale on the Bowery. This year’s honorees included artist Julie Mehretu, Rutina Wesley, a star of HBO’s “True Love” and OWN’s “Queen Sugar,” Abby Fiorella, the general auditor at Mastercard, and Jill Schlesinger, a business analyst at CBS News.

DONNA ACETO

Judith Kasen-Windsor and Brigid McGlinn.

CLOSE Enjoy discounted rail fare and admission to attractions like the Norwalk Aquarium, New York Botanical Garden, Dia:Beacon, Empire City Casino, Storm King Art Center, Zipcar Ride2Drive packages and more! Visit mta.info/mnr/getaways to plan your trip today. © 2018 Metropolitan Transportation Authority

GayCityNews.nyc | November 8 - November 21, 2018

RELIGION

NYU Muslims Show Solidarity with LGBTQ Jews Islamic Center greeted Beit Simchat Torah congregants Friday in wake of Pittsburgh massacre BY PAUL SCHINDLER

ince Donald Trump’s election two years ago this month, members of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah (CBST) have stood outside the Muslim prayer space at NYU’s Islamic Center holding up signs saying, “Jewish New Yorkers Support Our Muslim Neighbors,” “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself,” and “United Against Hate.” On the evening of November 2, members of the Islamic Center returned the show of solidarity by standing outside CBST, the city’s LGBTQ synagogue, welcoming congregants on the first Shabbat following the previous weekend’s massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue. “In a time of constant attack from this administration, our friends from CBST have been a source of hope, faith, and most importantly love,” the Islamic Center said in a written statement. The Center’s contingent included Imam Khalid Latif. Also on hand at the entrance to the CBST services was Carmelyn

DONNA ACETO

Imam Khalid Latif of NYU’s Islamic Center and Carmelyn P. Malalis, chair of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, outside CBST’s Shabbat service on Friday evening.

P. Malalis, the out lesbian chair of the city Commission on Human Rights. CBST’s efforts with the Islamic Center grew out of Senior Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum’s thoughts

DONNA ACETO

CBST Senior Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum greets Omar and Beth.

the Friday after Trump’s election “wondering how MuslimAmericans must be feeling facing a president whose entire candidacy began with an anti-Muslim speech.” That first Friday evening, several congregants joined Kleinbaum, and since the president’s inauguration in January 2017 CBST members have been at every Friday Jummah prayer at the Islamic

Center. “The response has been overwhelmingly positive,” Kleinbaum said. CBST has formalized its engagement with the city’s Muslim community through its House of Peace effort, headed up by board member Harold Levine. The services took place at CBST’s sanctuary at 130 West 30th Street.

November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

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November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

CRIME

Bishopâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Expulsion A Too Rare Victim Vindication Archdiocese took action here, but many who were abused slip through bureaucracy BY PAUL SCHINDLER

he Archdiocese of New York has removed an auxiliary bishop, 74-year-old John Jenik, from his public ministry after a Church body concluded that in the 1980s, as a parish priest in the Bronx, he engaged in inappropriate sexual abuse of a teenage boy over a period of years. In a statement first reported in The New York Times, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Although the alleged incidents occurred decades ago, the Lay Review Board has concluded that the evidence is sufficient to find the allegation credible and substantiated.â&#x20AC;? The charges against Jenik were brought to the Archdioceseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention in January by the victim, Michael Meenan, who is now 52. At a November 1 press conference outside St. Patrickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cathedral, Meenan said he met Jenik going to Confession as a young teen. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Confession wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t in a wooden box then, it was face to face,â&#x20AC;? he recalled. Explaining he spoke to Jenik about his fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s health problems, Meenan said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was sobbing, and this guy moved in.â&#x20AC;? The priest, Meenan said, befriended his family, officiating at his eldest sisterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wedding and baptizing her children. Soon after meeting the youth, Meenan said, Jenik began taking him out to dinner and movies, many pornographic, and on as many as 70 overnight stays upstate â&#x20AC;&#x201D; where he gave him alcohol â&#x20AC;&#x201D; over a six-year period. Once when he was 15, Meenan said, Jenik had him share his bed. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He began groping me,â&#x20AC;? he recalled, â&#x20AC;&#x153;and put his face so close to me, either to kiss me or to suck my breath. I thought if this guy makes a move for my private areas, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to have to get out of here.â&#x20AC;? In an October 29 letter, Jenik denied Meenanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s allegations, writing, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I continue to steadfastly deny that I have ever abused anyone at any time. Therefore I will ask the Vatican, which has ultimate jurisdiction over such cases to review the

PAUL SCHINDLER

Michael Meenan.

John Griffith.

matter, with the hope of ultimately proving my innocence.â&#x20AC;? Meenan, a Brown University graduate, worked for several years as deputy editor at Gay City News, and was later a reporter at New York 1 and The New York Times. Asked by a reporter why he was coming forward now, Meenan, describing psychological trauma he continues to suffer, said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;My life is in a ditch.â&#x20AC;? He added, â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was the greatest evil I ever witnessed.â&#x20AC;? In 2016, Meenan prevailed on Fordham Prep, where he went to high school, to discharge a religious studies teacher, Fernand Beck, whom the school concluded sexually molested him after a drinking party at a Westchester County home. Meenan first brought the matter to the attention of Fordham Prep officials the same year, but the school took no action for 32 years. Fordham Prep eventually paid Meenan a settlement in the Beck matter, and he will seek compensation under the Archdioceseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s program to offer reconciliation to sexual abuse victims of its priests. Despite this compensation effort, Dolan opposes legislative efforts to expand the time allowed for childhood victims to come forward. Under the Child Victims Act passed by the Assembly, individuals could press criminal charges against abusers up to the age of 28 and seek civil remedies up to 50, with a one-year window for victims of any age to come forward with civil claims. In Republican hands,

the Senate blocked action on the bill, but Democratic State Senator Brad Hoylman said when his party takes the leadership in January he would expect movement. That could be the only justice for a victim like John Griffith, who turns 59 this month and was abused as a first and second grader in his Bronx parish, Holy Cross in Soundview, by a Franciscan friar. Because the priest was affiliated with his order and not the Archdiocese, Griffith said, he is not eligible for compensation under the

GayCityNews.nyc | November 8 - November 21, 2018

fund Dolan established. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was a child,â&#x20AC;? Griffith said, his voice trembling as he stood on Fifth Avenue after Meenanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s press conference. His father, who had a drinking problem, was absent from the family home for about two years. â&#x20AC;&#x153;While my father was gone, [the priest] became very engaged with my family,â&#x20AC;? he recalled. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It started out very innocently, then things began to happen when he gained my trust.â&#x20AC;? Though Griffith shared his story with his siblings â&#x20AC;&#x201D; after his motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s death â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and with friends over the years, he first began looking at taking action when he saw the 2015 film â&#x20AC;&#x153;Spotlight,â&#x20AC;? about the Boston Globeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s investigation of the abuse scandal in that city. Griffith has yet to receive a response to a letter to Franciscan authorities. His abuser, he said, is deceased. Griffith knew Meenanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family as a youth, but only reconnected with him as he became involved with the network of abuse survivors. Meenan said that as he has spoken out in recent years, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heard from â&#x20AC;&#x153;hundredsâ&#x20AC;? of men who faced similar abuse.

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FILM

Object Lessons It’s all about Harris Dickinson in Steve McLean’s “Postcards from London” BY GARY M. KRAMER im (Harris Dickinson), the hero of writer/ director Steve McLean’s highly stylized drama “Postcards from London,” is “young, fit, and has the face of an angel.” He also has a glaring weakness: when he encounters an artistic masterpiece, like a Titian in a London gallery, he faints. Jim is that sensitive to beauty. McLean’s film is a heady — and talky — mix of beauty, art, and intellect shot in a style that deliberately plays up its artificiality. In scenes where Jim imagines himself posing for Caravaggio (Ben Cura), while debating with the artist about his sexuality and even participating in a duel with him, McLean examines themes of beauty and objectification. A witty scene has Jim, working as a rent boy, posing as Saint Sebastian but unable to transport his client back to ancient times because the two men keep getting interrupted. A gorgeously lit shot of Jim posed as “the world’s first pin-up,”

STRAND RELEASING

Harris Dickinson posing as Saint Sebastian in Steve McLean’s “Postcards from London.”

however, is quite striking. “Postcards from London” opens with Jim moving to a neon-lit Soho “to make his for-

tune,” but sleeping on a street where drugs and sex are sold. In a bar where he hopes to find a job, he instead meets up with the raconteurs, a group of handsome young hustlers — David (Jonah Hauer-King), Jesus (Alessandro Cimadamore), Marcello (Leonardo Salerni), and Victor (Raphael Desprez) — who provide their johns with sophisticated post-coital conversation. Aiming to “drag male prostitution into the 21st century while paying homage to the artists who came before,” the raconteurs educate Jim about filmmakers Pier Paolo Pasolini and Rainer Werner Fassbinder and artists Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. For Jim, sex is the easy part; it’s the art that fucks him up. McLean prefers showing beauty, not sex, but the camera loves Jim’s body. His fainting, though, soon has serious consequences for him. He is diagnosed with “Stendhal Syndrome,” a rare condition that stems from the strong emotions he feels. As Jim’s condition worsens, he

➤ POSTCARDS, continued on p.25

Buddies Breaking Bad Lost teen follows adventurous classmate into epic crime spree BY GARY M. KRAMER he stylish Argentine crime drama “El Angel” recounts the robbery and murder spree of baby-faced Carlos (Lorenzo Ferro), a teenager in 1971 Buenos Aires who became the nation’s longest serving criminal inmate. The film, co-written and directed by Luis Ortega, recounts several of Carlos’ crimes, often committed with Ramón (Chino Darín), a classmate he was attracted to. On the phone from Buenos Aires, Darín, explaining the teens’ intense friendship, said, “I think Ramón is magnetized by Carlos because Carlos is younger and weaker than he is — but seeing Carlos, everything Ramón believes being a man in the 1970s is is changed. He can’t understand that Carlos has this freedom to live in the moment. When he sees Carlos, Ramón knows Carlos is someone.” The actors, having studied American buddy movies from the 1970s, use their bodies to capture the feeling of the era. Argentina, at that time, was on the brink of dictatorship, and the country’s social and political environment was undergoing tremendous change. That back-

THE ORCHARD

Chino Darín (facing) and Lorenzo Ferro (side shot) in Luis Ortega’s “The Angel.”

drop — along with the period music, costumes, and cars — informs this atmospheric film. “El Angel” created a palpable homoerotic tension between the two youths, most notably in a scene that has Carlos covering a naked and sleeping Ramón’s genitals with the jewels they just stole. Ramón allows Federica (William Prociuk), a gay art dealer, to blow him with the expectation he will fence the boys’ loot. Ramón also hopes Federica will help him fulfill his dreams of becoming an actor. Darín believes Ramón uses his looks and sexuality to get what he wants from others, but he is not so quick to identify either teen in “El Angel” as gay. “People are trying to label Ramón and Carlos’ sexuality,” Darín said. “And one of the nice things about this story is that they are two guys who have their own kind of sexuality. I wouldn’t define them as homosexual, bisexual, or any labels. Fluid would be the most accurate term. Ramón, particularly, is a sexual mercenary. I like to see him like that. He uses his sexuality as a resource.”

➤ EL ANGEL, continued on p.25 November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

â&#x17E;¤ POSTCARDS, from p.24 becomes more detached and, as a result, the audienceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interest may wane. In the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s third act, Paul (Leemore Marrett, Jr.) lures Jim away from the raconteurs, hoping his fainting can help establish a paintingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s authenticity and value. The filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s focus on beauty, creativity, and intellect shifts to concerns

â&#x17E;¤ EL ANGEL, from p.24 RamĂłn reacts violently in a bar when someone calls him â&#x20AC;&#x153;a fag.â&#x20AC;? The characterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ambiguous sexuality may be part of his larger identity crisis. RamĂłn does not have much ambition, which may be why he hooks up with Carlos â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to share in his adventure. â&#x20AC;&#x153;RamĂłn feels his parents are disappointed with him, and that heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not fully realized in his life,â&#x20AC;? DarĂn observed. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s searching for his path and doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a clue about what he should do in life. RamĂłn wants to be famous. He uses the robberies to be recognized by his father, but when Car-

about commerce, but there is also a promise of romance and possibly love. This episode, unfortunately, remains underdeveloped. The creativity of McLeanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s visuals â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the anachronistic recreations of Caravaggio paintings, peephole vantage points, and split screens â&#x20AC;&#x201D; are all in the service of keeping the spotlight on Jim and underscoring his objectification.

Dickinson, who played gay last year in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Beach Rats,â&#x20AC;? gives another mesmerizing performance here. He makes Jim curiously both selfaware and adorably clueless. It comes off as charming because he seems to be in on the sly joke. McLeanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s film is a companion piece of sorts to his last feature, 1994â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Postcards from America,â&#x20AC;? adapted from the writings of David

los enters the scene, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a natural born thief, and RamĂłn canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t compete with that.â&#x20AC;? DarĂn well understands the issue of parental expectations. His father, Ricardo DarĂn, is a superstar in Argentine cinema. The young actor explained he originally never intended to go into the family business. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I grew up with lots of freedom â&#x20AC;&#x201D; freedom of thought and physical freedom,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was going to study engineering after I finished high school. I liked physics and chemistry. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what to be and I thought engineering was a good thing to study. When I announced this to my father, he

gave me an exercise: think of my future doing whatever engineers do for firms, or quality testing, and if I saw myself happy in that, to go on. So, I moved to acting.â&#x20AC;? That choice worked out well for DarĂn, who has developed a big following in Argentina, and â&#x20AC;&#x153;El Angelâ&#x20AC;? could win him wider exposure in the US. He also appears in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Death in Buenos Aires,â&#x20AC;? a gay-themed detective thriller recently released on home video here. When asked about his career and the films heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d made, DarĂn offered an elusive answer. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I change a lot,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get bored, but I am very restless. I

Wojnarowicz. Like that film, this new one is an acquired taste, but the combination of Jimâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chiseled chest and the cultural odyssey he embarks on has an enticing edge. POSTCARDS FROM LONDON | Directed by Steve McLean | Strand Releasing | Opens Nov. 9 | Quad Cinema, 34 W. 13th St. | quadcinema.com

like to play lots of different characters. I like diversity. I think that sometimes I am refreshed when I move from drama to comedy and look for different parts. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t like to do the same thing. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m young, so Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m proving myself. I am looking for more difficult projects to see what I can do. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m on that path, and I will be on that path forever. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m like RamĂłn. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what my thing is yet.â&#x20AC;? EL ANGEL | Directed by Luis Ortega | The Orchard | In Spanish with English subtitles | Opens Nov. 9 | Angelika Film Center, 18 W. Houston St. at Mercer St. | angelikafilmcenter.com/nyc

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GayCityNews.nyc | November 8 - November 21, 2018

TICKETS - + ( .

FILM

Gender Games “The Wild Boys” is a visual fantasia with underplayed themes BY GARY M. KRAMER ertrand Mandico makes an auspicious feature film debut with his audacious fantasia “The Wild Boys.” Shot on 16mm, and mostly in luminous black and white, the film recounts the story of Tanguy (Anaël Snoek) and his friends, who are dubbed “wild boys.” Five young men — Romuald (Pauline Lorillard), Jean-Louis (Vimala Pons), Hubert (Diane Rouxel), Sloane (Mathilde Warner), and Tanguy — are all played by young women who wear schoolboy uniforms that mask their breasts and whose hair is cut in mannish styles. They are defiant troublemakers who sexually assault a teacher (Nathalie Richard) — a heinous crime that puts them on trial. In court, they claim “TREVOR” — “a deity of chaos they can’t control” — was responsible. (TREVOR is mentioned again in the film, but never seen or fully explained, for better or worse.) The wild boys are sentenced to set sail with a Dutch captain (Sam Louwyck), who will transform them into civilized and docile beings. He

ALTERED INNOCENCE

The wild boys of Bertrand Mandico’s new film are played by young women.

ties them up on board the ship and forces them to eat hairy fruit — imagine swallowing a plum covered in pubic hair. “The Wild Boys” is full of inventive and imagi-

native elements, which counterbalance the lack of plot. When the film tries to create drama — as when Hubert spies the captain reuniting with Séverine (Elina Löwensohn) — the payoff never comes. Séverine, a woman who dresses as a man, talks about a “feminized world” where women will rule. But this storyline about female power feels underdeveloped. Likewise, the captain’s efforts at civilizing the boys is overshadowed by the fantastical elements and transformations that occur when the ship stops on an island. Mandico focuses on creating a heady, dreamlike atmosphere that is both beautiful and disturbing. There are surreal moments — a color fantasy sequence featuring a beast with glowing eye, as well as the arrival of an animal that wears a human mask. “The Wild Boys” is also often erotically charged, including a lengthy lovemaking sequence where four of the boys get drunk and cuddle and hump each other in slow motion as feathers fly through the air and coat their bodies. Scenes that play with gender

➤ WILD BOYS, continued on p.27

Western Curios Grim isolation leavened by mordant humor in Coens’ latest BY STEVE ERICKSON hen the Coen brothers’ six-part “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” was originally announced, I wondered if it were a mini-series condensed into a film, given that its distributor is Netflix. The lines between cinema and television are very thin these days. Now that I’ve seen “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” I know that each segment’s length differs. While some could fruitfully be expanded to be an hour, others are miniatures. They are supposed to be stories collected in an illustrated book. Still, the weakest is the shortest, “Near Algodones,” which doesn’t do much beyond establishing a mood of (literal) gallows humor. In the short that gives the whole feature its title and kicks it off, Buster Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) is nicknamed “the Misanthrope” and speaks to the audience directly. He also sings. He might be a coded stand-in for the filmmakers and a way to address their complicated depictions of violence. He shoots his enemies in a manner that the film initially seems to depict flippantly, and several critics at the press screen-

NETFLIX

Tim Blake Nelson in the Coen brothers’ “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.”

ing I attended laughed at these scenes. But while he dances on top of a bar singing about his victory over Curly Joe, a friend of Curly Joe’s looks in horror at his corpse. While Scruggs’ first victims are depicted dying from tiny, dime-shaped bullet hits in their foreheads, Curly Joe’s face has turned an ugly mix of red and purple. In a shoot-out, Scruggs blows off the fingers of his enemy, an image reminiscent of the finale of “Taxi Driver.” His constant banter with the audience in talk and song suggests that he’s in control of the narrative, but this doesn’t last through the end of the short or guarantee him endless power. Scruggs’ bland looks, tissue-thin veneer of dumb innocence, and good cheer earn him too many victims’ trust. He looks like he should be a hero and obviously thinks he is, but he’s a sociopath. Nelson plays this blitheness perfectly, reminiscent of a lot of powerful men who aren’t outlaws. Sudden, unexpected violence is a repeated motif here. The fourth short, “All Gold Canyon,” is about an unnamed prospector (Tom Waits) who spends his time alone by choice but can’t protect himself from danger. The third short, “Meal

➤ BUSTER SCRUGGS, continued on p.27 November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

â&#x17E;¤ WILD BOYS, from p.26 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with characters living in an â&#x20AC;&#x153;in betweenâ&#x20AC;? state of male and female, or the boys sucking on a phallusshaped plant that causes them to experience a feverish delirium â&#x20AC;&#x201D; range from pornographic to downright hilarious. Despite the polymorphous perversity on display, Mandicoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s playful and alluring visuals dilute

â&#x17E;¤ BUSTER SCRUGGS, from p.26 Ticket,â&#x20AC;? explores the intricately dependent relationship among a carnival impresario (Liam Neeson), his armless and legless attraction (Harry Melling), and a chicken. A sense of masculine alienation and loneliness runs through the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first two thirds, in which women barely appear. Many characters arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even given names. There is a female presence in the final two shorts, but Zoe Kazanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gal Who Got Rattledâ&#x20AC;? is the only one that plays a central role in the narrative. Even if the Coen brothers be-

Mandicoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s themes of feminism and toxic masculinity. What is more, there is too little emotion generated by the action. It is hard to care about the characters, and the five boys seem almost interchangeable. Tanguy is most identifiable in part because he is blond and introduced first. That said, the five lead actresses are each up to the challenge of their gender-bending roles. Watching them act out their mas-

culinity and femininity is amusing, especially as they navigate sexuality and body dysmorphia. In support, Louwyck is appropriately gruff as the captain, and he makes for an interesting foil for the wild boys. His performance swings from being controlling to becoming the victim of a mutiny. LĂśwensohn is captivating as SĂŠverine, though she has too little to do in what should have been a stronger role.

But â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Wild Boysâ&#x20AC;? is not meant to be an actorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s showcase. Its magic comes from its wondrous visuals, which engage the mind and make this queer fantasy memorable.

gan working years before Quentin Tarantino, the overlap between their sensibilities hangs over this film. The most common criticism of the Coen brothersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; films has been that they set up cruel worlds in order to laugh at their characters, especially when their work has been set in the rural Midwest or South. I think thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quite valid for the overrated â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fargoâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;O Brother, Where Art Thou?â&#x20AC;? However, if both Tarantino and the Coens have a fondness for mixing comedy and gore that angers moralists, this filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interest in the Western seems like something more than postmodern pastiche. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Ballad of Buster

Scruggsâ&#x20AC;? doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exactly play like a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;70s â&#x20AC;&#x153;revisionist Western.â&#x20AC;? In one place, this hurts it: Native Americans are reduced to a distant menace, without ever being developed as real characters. The film is recognizably part of the same universe as their far more sober remake of â&#x20AC;&#x153;True Grit.â&#x20AC;? French cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel gives each section a different look, moving from snowbound atmosphere to lush greenery. Throughout, people are tiny dots trapped in huge landscapes, and their interactions with others are menacing enough (if not outright deadly) to make such isolation seem appeal-

ing. Without its sense of humor and the beauty supplied by its visual style, the bleakness of â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Ballad of Buster Scruggsâ&#x20AC;? would be so obvious that much of its potential audience would tune out, especially when they can instantly switch to something else on Netflix. Laughing at men like Scruggs is a way to keep from freaking out at the damage they do.

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8=7< CA 4=@ B63 <3FB E3227<5 >@723 7AAC3 A>@7<5 ' GayCityNews.nyc | November 8 - November 21, 2018

MUSIC

A Newfound Buoyancy Laura Jane Grace tempers anger with humorous self-appraisal BY STEVE ERICKSON gainst Me!’s singer/ guitarist Laura Jane Grace made headlines when she announced she publicly identifies as a woman in 2012. The band’s album “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” is an extended reflection on her identity, even if the lyrics aren’t all directly autobiographical. Before coming out as trans, she dropped hints in several songs and devoted an entire verse of “The Ocean” to making it an open secret, singing, “And if I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman/ My mother once told me she would have named me Laura.” The life “The Ocean” imagines is one Grace would largely go on to live out, but at the time it was either ignored or taken as a cisgender man’s musings. Against Me!’s two-album tenure on Sire Records, which produced “New Wave” and “White Crosses,” was unhappy. Despite getting some airplay with their single “Thrash Unreal,” the band didn’t live up to the label’s expectation that their accessible punk style, which has earned many comparisons to the Clash, could make them the next Green Day, and they got dropped quickly. Released on their own Total Treble label, the 2014 “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” made a big statement, and it actually proved to be their most popular. If they’ve never found mass commercial success, Grace has

K ATIE HOVL AND

Laura Jane Grace and the Devouring Mothers are releasing their first album, “Bought to Rot,” this week.

become a cult hero — her memoir “Tranny: Confession of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout” was published in 2016. And the band has shown its staying power and headed toward a harsher, more purist punk sound. If “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” has a major flaw, it’s that its music could have been made 25 or 30 years ago, even if blunt lyrics about the hatred and anxiety a trans woman faces are something new for a rock group with a substantial audience. Now Grace is releasing a side project under a different band, Laura Jane Grace and the Devouring Mothers. Despite the reputation of her new label, Bloodshot Records, “Bought to Rot” isn’t in-

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fluenced by folk or country music. There are songs which could’ve fit easily on Against Me!’s major label albums, like the opener “China Beach.” Indeed, the Devouring Mothers aren’t a wholly new lineup: they consist of Against Me! drummer Atom Willard and the group’s producer Marc Jacob Hudson on bass. Grace has headed in a direction that combines punk and classic rock. “Manic Depression” isn’t a Jimi Hendrix cover, but the guitar solo that ends it nods to him. Grace has cited Tom Petty’s “Full Moon Fever” as her main inspiration for the album, but she sings with an intensity he only went for occasionally. This album frequently contrasts clean acoustic or electric rhythm guitar with louder, more distorted leads, as on “Apocalypse Now (& later).” Several songs start out fairly slow and quiet and build up to a noisy chorus or crescendo. Grace strained to be a conventional vocalist on Against Me!’s major label albums, and on “Bought to Rot” her vocals are as often spoken or shouted as sung melodically. One big difference between “Bought to Rot” and Against Me! is that Grace sounds happier here. “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” addressed subjects like trans women’s rejection as not being genuinely female with a great deal of righteous anger. “Drinking With

the Jocks” took on Brett Kavanaugh types before “toxic masculinity” was a buzzword in thousands of op-eds. Her targets have included the hypocrisy of leftist punks, on the much-misunderstood “I Was A Teenage Anarchist.” The most pissed-off song on “Bought To Rot” is “I Hate Chicago,” which irreverently takes on the sacred cows of the city where she now lives. But its disses of famous local rock bands and complaints about traffic jams and impolite pedestrians are clearly meant with a wink, coming across more like Larry David than the Dead Kennedys. A few lines hint that her problems with life in Chicago are ultimately rooted in the fact that her ex-wife still lives there. While all these lyrics may not be personal confessions, the persona Grace expresses on this album is more reflective and willing to acknowledge her mistakes than were her lyrics for Against Me! The rough tone and production of “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” matched the newfound honesty of Grace’s lyrics, even on songs like “Osama Bin Laden as the Crucified Christ” that didn’t address her trans identity. The band’s follow-up album, “Shape Shift With Me,” was a fairly weak follow-up that felt like more of the same with less impact. Ironically, Against Me! were at their most musically adventurous in their use of acoustic guitars, keyboards, and vocal harmonies to aim for a more mainstream sound on “New Wave.” In many ways, “Bought to Rot” feels like a continuation of that direction. However, it also reflects a peace Grace seems to have gone through hell to find. Even at their angriest, Laura Jane Grace and the Devouring Mothers keep a sense of humor and come across optimistic. Grace’s criticism is directed at her own flaws as much as the outside world. LAURA JANE GRACE AND THE DEVOURING MOTHERS | “Bought to Rot” | Bloodshot Records | Drops Nov. 9 | bloodshotrecords.com

November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

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TUXEDO WORLD OF STATEN ISLAND 2791 Richmond Avenue, #6, Staten Island, NY 10314, (718) 698-4859 www.tuxedoworldsi.com

CATERING & VENUES

BAY RIDGE MANOR 476 76th Street, Brooklyn (718) 748-8855 www.bayridgemanor.com BAYSIDE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 208 Totten Avenue, Fort Totten Bayside NY 11359 (718) 352-1548 email: siterental@baysidehistorical.org GRAND OAKS COUNTRY CLUB 200 Huguenot Avenue, Staten Island (718) 356–2771, www.grandoaksnyc.com GRAND PROSPECT HALL 263 Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn (718) 788-0777, www.grandprospecthall.com HOLIDAY INN 39-05 29th Street, Long Island City, NY 11101 (718 707-3700 www.holidayinnmanhattanview.com HUNTERS STEAK HOUSE 9404 Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11209 (718) 238-8899, www.HuntersSteakhouse.com IL FORNETTO 2902 Emmons Avenue in Brooklyn (718) 332-8494 www.ilFornettoRestaurant.com PA-NASH EUROSOUL 144-14 243rd Street, Rosedale, NY 11422 (718) 917-6094 www.panashnyc.com THE PEARL ROOM 8518 - 3rd Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11209 (718) 833-6666 www.pearlroombklyn.com RECEPTION HOUSE 167-17 Northern Blvd, Flushing, NY (718) 445-1244 www.ReceptionHouse.com SHERATON BROOKLYN NY HOTEL Contact Stephanie Mendez, Sales Mgr (917) 281-5550 stephanie.mendez@ sheratonbrooklynnewyork.com SHERATON LAGUARDIA EAST HOTEL 135-20 39th Avenue, Flushing NY 11354 (718) 670-7408 sales@sheratonlaguardia.com sheratonlaguardiaeast.com

SIRICO’S CATERERS 8015-23 13th Avenue, Brooklyn (718) 331-2900, www.siricoscaterers.net SOTTO 13 5140 West 13th Street, New York, NY (212) 647-1001, sotto13.com TERRACE ON THE PARK 52-11 111 Street, Flushing, NY 11368 (718) 592-5000 www.terraceonthepark.com THALASSA 179 Franklin Street TriBeCa, New York City (212) 941-7661, www.thalassanyc.com THE VANDERBILT AT SOUTH BEACH 300 Father Capodanno Boulevard Staten Island, NY, (718) 447-0800 www.vanderbiltsouthbeach.com WOODHAVEN MANOR 96-01 Jamaica Avenue Queens, NY (718) 805-8500

ENTERTAINMENT

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FAVORS & INVITATIONS

UNFORGETTABLE EVENTS 2049 Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, (718) 377-4535

FLORISTS

FLORAL FANTASY 3031 Quentin Road in Brooklyn, (718) 998-7060 or (800) 566–8380 www.floralfantasyny.com FLOWERS BY MASSENET Jamaica, Queens, NY (347) 724-7044, (718) 526-3725 HENRY’S FLORIST 8103 Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn (800) 543-6797 or (718) 238–3838 www.henrysfloristweddingevents.com MARINE FLORIST AND DECORATORS 1995 Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn (800) 447-6730 or (718) 338-3600 www.marineflorists.com

JEWELERS

BOBBY’S JEWELERS 514-81 Street, Brooklyn, NY 11209 (718) 745-1725 BUONO JEWELERS 1250 Hylan Blvd., #6a, Staten Island, NY 10305 (718) 448-4900, www.buonojewelers.com

LIMOUSINE SERVICES

MILA LIMOUSINE CORPORATION (718) 232-8973, www.milalimo.com M&V LIMOUSINES LTD. 1-800-498-5788 1117 Jericho Tpke, Commack, NY (631) 543-0908 151 Denton Ave., New Hyde Park, NY (516) 921-6845 535 8th Ave., 3rd Flr., NY, NY (646) 757-9101 www.mvlimo.com

ROMANTIQUE/DOUBLE DIAMOND LIMOUSINES 1421-86 Street, Brooklyn, NY, (718) 351-7273 2041-Hylan Boulevard, Staten Island (718) 351-7273, www.rddlimos.com SOPHISTICATED LIMOUSINES Servicing the Tri- State Area, (718) 816-9475 www.sophisticatedlimousines.com

PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO

FANTASY PHOTOGRAPHY 3031 Quentin Rd., Brooklyn NY, (718) 998-0949 www.fantasyphotographyandvideo.com NY PHOTO VIDEO GROUP 1040 Hempstead Tpke Franklin Sq., NY 11010 11 Michael Avenue Farmingdale, NY 11735 Office: 516-352-3188 Joe Cell: 516-445-8054 Peter Cell: 516-343-6662 www.nyphotovideogroup.com info@nyphotovideogroup.com ONE FINE DAY PHOTOGRAPHERS 459 Pacific St., Massapequa Park (516) 690–1320 www.onefinedayphotographers.com ZAKAS PHOTOGRAPHY info@zakasphotography.com www.zakasphotography.com

REAL ESTATE

DREAM HOUSE REALTY 7505 15th Avenue Brookyn, NY 11228 (718) 837–2121, carolynctrp@aol.com Carolyn Trippe, Lic. RE Broker

SALONS

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THEATER

Family Time Two plays — one genius, the other slight — chronicle families in crisis BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE nce or twice every decade, a play arrives that is so rich, complex, and beautifully rendered one is reminded of the theater’s primal power to touch the soul. “August: Osage County” was such a play, and now comes “The Ferryman,” Jez Butterworth’s epic tale of a family in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. Combining realism with myth and writing both emotionally raw and lyrical, over the course of three and a quarter hours “The Ferryman” sweeps the audience into its heartbreaking tale. The tragedy at the center of the play is the Carney family’s dawning realization that their seemingly quotidian peaceful lives only barely float above violence and hatred that, in 1981, threatens to erupt at any moment. Their transistor radio blares news of deaths, Irish Republican inmates’ attempts to be deemed political prisoners by staging hunger strikes, and Margaret Thatcher’s refusal to play along. For the Carneys, the eruption happens when the murdered Seamus Carney’s body is found, eerily preserved, in a bog. In the 10 years since he vanished, his brother Quinn led the family, with his emotionally fragile wife, sister-in law, aunts and uncles, and seven children. On the eve of the harvest — a time of hard work and harder celebration — Muldoon, Quinn’s former commander in the Irish Republican Army, arrives to tell the family to keep quiet about the truth of Seamus’ death… or else. But that’s just one element of a play that is really a family drama. Quinn is focused on his farm and getting along, even if Aunt Pat is fervently political and Uncle Patrick quotes Virgil. Butterworth has written nearly two dozen characters, each of which is fully realized under Sam Mendes’ brilliant direction. Through uniformly flawless performances, we get to know each person, the family dynamics, and the time and place they are living through. And we come to understand that despite Quinn’s best efforts to leave the battle behind him, it rages on. This is brought home in a powerful scene in the third act when Quinn’s young cousin Shane, who has arrived to help with the harvest, drunkenly brags about being a fighter, even though he’s little more than an errand boy for Muldoon. It is a chilling and sobering to witness the seductive power of myth as a recruitment tool. The cast is spectacular, led by Paddy Considine as Quinn, who is matched by Laura Donnelly as his sister-in-law, Seamus’ wife who has lived

JOAN MARCUS

Paddy Considine and the company of Jez Butterworth’s “The Ferryman,” directed by Sam Mendes, at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.

with Quinn’s family since he disappeared. The two actors give such grounded, quietly intense performances one hangs on their every word. Dearbhla Molloy is excellent as Aunt Pat, and Fionnula Flanagan is Aunt Maggie Far Away, who suffers from dementia but has moments of clarity and is a favorite of the family’s little girls. Tom Glynn-Carney is excellent as Shane, as are Fra Fee, Niall Wright, Michael Quinton McArthur, and Conor MacNeill as the young men. This is a play rife with imagery that is almost cinematic. The movement of characters around the stage, the use of live animals and a real baby, and so much more give dramatic, non-verbal life to this world. The play’s final image is so compelling that the collective gasp of the audience hung in the air as the lights went down. Then the cheering started. Elaine May is absolutely luminous in “The Waverly Gallery,” Kenneth Lonergan’s play about a woman slipping into dementia and its corrosive impact on a tightknit family. May fills her portrayal of Gladys Green with nuance and a kind of physicality that will be all-too familiar to anyone who has confronted this illness in real life. Gladys has moments of lucidity where we see who she once was, and her earnestness in asking the same questions over and over in her more confused state is both endearing and heartbreaking, as is her paralyzing fear when so much is changing around her. As we watch the slow disappearance of the once-vibrant Gladys, May seems to become physically smaller and frailer, a specter of her former self. It is a remarkable and unforgettable performance. Despite this bravura performance, the play itself is slim and unsatisfying. It chronicles Glad-

ys’ decline but gives us little more than a kind of documentary track of a pernicious disease. Gladys’ daughter Ellen is understandably frustrated by what is being asked of her in caring for her mother who had always been independent, even maintaining a small gallery on Waverly Street. Ellen’s husband Howard tries to negotiate the turbulent waters but is largely ineffectual. Their son Daniel lives in the same building with Gladys and ends up taking care of her through some of Gladys’ harrowing episodes of confusion. There is also a young, hopeful artist, Don Bowman, who Gladys gives a show at the small gallery. These characters circle around Gladys, but they exist primarily in reaction to her illness and so come off as flat. The performances by Lucas Hedges as Daniel, Joan Allen as Ellen, David Cromer as Howard, and Michael Cera as Don are all fine, but while we empathize with what they are experiencing, they have no discernible independent journey. The end of the play is foretold in its beginning, and it’s a hopeless and inevitable one. Aside from the joy of watching Elaine May still in top form, this is a grim evening that offers neither catharsis, perspective, nor solace. THE FERRYMAN | Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, 242 W. 45th St. | Tue., Thu.-Fri. at 7 p.m.; Wed., Sat. at 1 & 7:30 p.m.; Sun. at 3 p.m. | $59-$175 at telecharge.com or 212-239-6200 | Three hrs., 15 mins., with intermission THE WAVERLY GALLERY | Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th St. | Tue., Thu. at 7 p.m.; Wed., Fri.Sat. at 8 p.m.; Wed., Sat. at 2 p.m.; Sun. at 3 p.m. | $48-$149 at telecharge.com or 212-239-6200 | Two hrs., 15 mins., with intermission November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

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OPERA

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Marnie? Nico Muhly opera squanders the taut emtions of Winston Graham’s novel BY ELI JACOBSON he Metropolitan Opera commissioned composer Nico Muhly for an operatic adaptation of Winston Graham’s 1961 psychological thriller “Marnie,” which was the basis for the 1964 Alfred Hitchcock film starring Tippi Hedren and a virile Sean Connery. Though it has critical defenders, the film is considered one of the master’s late career misfires. The opera with a libretto by Nicholas Wright had its world premiere last year at the English National Opera and arrived for its US premiere at the Met on October 19. (Hedren made a special appearance at the final curtain call opening night.) Graham’s heroine is a troubling enigma who moves from job to job and town to town, changing her identity and disappearing after she has robbed her employers. Emotionally disconnected and sexually frigid, Marnie lives on the periphery of society, avoiding personal relationships. She meets her match in the widowed businessman Mark Rutland, whom she attempts to steal from and who in turn blackmails her into marriage. His pursuit of her forces Marnie to face her demons, which include a long-buried childhood secret. Hitchcock’s script made many changes including changing the locale from England to Baltimore and making Marnie’s childhood trauma more sexual in nature to explain her aversion to men. Wright’s libretto faithfully follows Graham’s original novel. Graham’s “Marnie” and his “Poldark” novels both include a scene where the “hero” rapes a female protagonist. In “Marnie,” Mark attempts to rape Marnie when she physically rejects him on their wedding night. In “Poldark,” Ross rapes Elizabeth when he discovers she plans to marry his archenemy Warleggan. Last year, there was considerable hue and cry of “rape fantasy” when this scene aired in the BBC’s lat-

KEN HOWARD/ METROPOLITAN OPERA

Isabel Leonard in the title role of Nico Muhly’s “Marnie” at the Met.

est “Poldark” miniseries. It is also problematic in “Marnie” (both the film and the opera) since both our hero and heroine commit actions that alienate our sympathies. Wright makes other characters openly scold Mark for his manipulation and abuse of his wife but it remains distasteful. Wright’s libretto is full of short, matter-of-fact phrases, blatant plot exposition, and prosaic language that limit lyrical expansion or extended musical concepts. In the program notes, Muhly explains how his compositional process was “inspired” (and limited) by Wright’s libretto: “Nick then went off and started sending me individual bits of the first draft of a libretto, and I realized that we had these wonderful opportunities for moments that aren’t quite arias that we decided to call ‘links.’ The premise was that Marnie doesn’t necessarily have stand-alone arias but instead these transitional musical moments where she concludes one scene with one thought and begins the next scene with another. These links function like arias would in a more traditional operatic structure…” As a result, all we ever hear are short arioso-like solos and conversational speech-song “links” that are all on the same musical level and devoid of melodic development. They don’t “link” us to the inner lives of the characters. Muhly’s music all sounds the same — meandering, restless, and

busy in bleak minor keys. There are interesting orchestral textures that suggest Britten and Janácek with a sprinkling of Philip Glass and Stravinsky. Like Emilia Marty in Janácek’s “The Makropulos Affair,”, Marnie is a shape shifter who always keeps the initials “MH” just as Elina Makropoulos keeps the initials “EM” in her various incarnations. The score functions like a movie soundtrack in providing a general atmosphere and punctuating a dramatic action or utterance, but it does not provide a voice for the characters. Muhly’s music fails to adapt in color or rhythm even when the emotions of the drama drastically change. The fox hunting scene where Marnie is forced to shoot her beloved horse Forio is a case in point: the music fails to create tension or pathos as needed. The choral writing is masterful and the orchestration is accomplished. But you don’t care because the monochromatic music doesn’t create characters or drama. Ultimately, it is boring. The Met has lavished this misfire with a top-notch physical production and design. The kaleidoscopic sets in film noir monochrome with projections designed by Julian Crouch and 59 Productions are contrasted with colorful, eye-catching period-specific costumes by Arianne Phillips. However, Michael Mayer’s direction is less focused, overusing onstage doppelgängers who mainly move props.

When Marnie and Mark face each other alone in a cruise ship cabin on their wedding night, the moment is vitiated by a background panoramic projection of a ship at sea and the conjugal bed filled with male supers in suits and fedoras. Here we need to see these two tortured souls trapped alone together in intimate contact. As staged here, all sexual and dramatic tension was lost. In fact, sexual repression, frustrated desire, and tender romantic feelings are all absent from the characters and music, rendering the central relationship in the story pointless and empty. Why do they stay together and why should they (or we) care? Whatever suspense or dramatic conflict the first act creates is dissipated by the second act. The cast is fantastic from top to bottom. In the title role, Isabel Leonard is fantastic and would be a perfect Marnie if one existed in the music. Her multifaceted mezzo-soprano has tones that suggest lyric soprano fragility, cool seduction, and dark anguish. Her mask-like beauty both entices and tells us to keep our distance — we can never see what is underneath. Muhly’s use of a mini-chorus of Marnie alter egos evoking her splintered identity is an intriguing concept but is used too inconsistently musically and dramatically to register. Mark’s mother tells us that his first wife told her she didn’t know who he was and she doesn’t know who he is either. Christopher Maltman as Mark remains an opaque cipher because that is what the role demands. Maltman lacks the magnetic charisma of a young Sean Connery that might make us understand why Marnie can’t run away from him. Vivid cameos by Janis Kelly as Mark’s icy mother, countertenor Iestyn Davies as Mark’s creepy brother Terry, Denyce Graves as Marnie’s malefic mother, and An-

➤ MARNIE, continued on p.39

November 8 - November 21, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

FILM

Bitter Farewell Syrian exile spotlights the rot of his homeland’s violent core BY STEVE ERICKSON very scene in Syrian director Talal Derki’s “Of Fathers and Sons” is carefully placed to make a point. A portrait of a family dominated by Abu Osama, a soldier with the Salafi Islamist al-Nusra Front, it was shot over the course of 300 days during a two-year stretch from 2014 to 2016. Derki lied to get intimate access to his subjects, claiming to be sympathetic to fundamentalist Islam when he’s really an atheist who fled to Germany to escape the violence reflected in “Of Fathers and Sons” and to which the al-Nusra Front has helped contribute. Even the most seemingly innocuous shots in “Of Fathers and Sons” build toward the film’s argument. When Abu Osama’s sons play, their equivalent of jungle gyms are abandoned, rusty tanks. Women are the film’s structuring absence. Abu Osama fathered 12 children, but there’s a reason Derki named it “Of Fathers and Sons.” The daughters remain off-screen. Even one of Abu Osama’s fellow Al-Nusra Front fighters thinks he takes the practice of making girls wearing a hijab too far by punishing his two-year-old for taking it off. In one initially harmless scene, his boys throw rocks at a wall and a lake, but it ends with their energy obviously directed toward nascent misogyny, as they aim them at distant girls. Derki speaks about his own intentions and experiences in voiceover at the beginning and end of “Of Fathers and Sons.” He closes the film by leaving Syria, a country he says he no longer recognizes and returning to his own family in Berlin. Of course, the vast majority of his compatriots have no such option, and despite the pain of exile he’s at least managed to keep going as a director by returning to Syria to document its decline into violence. “Return to Homs,” made in 2013, was his first feature-length documentary. Abu Osama agreed to participate in this film in part

KINO LORBER

Talal Derki’s “Of Fathers and Sons” opens at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria on November 16.

because he liked it. Matthew Heineman’s documentary “City of Ghosts,” released in the US last year, went as far as depicting ISIS executions to their conclusion on-screen. “Of Fathers and Sons” doesn’t go to that extreme, but it rides along with Abu Osama in some disturbing contexts including the prelude to an execution of captured rivals. Something happens halfway through the film that brings out his vulnerabilities, but by that point several of his sons have already begun paramilitary training. One could accuse “Of Fathers and Sons” of heavy-handedness. Abu Osama truly loves his sons, but the moments where he cuddles and plays with them feel like grooming rather than real tenderness. “City of Ghosts” and Feras Fayyad’s “Last Men In Aleppo” had an easier time finding a consistent tone because they focused on people most Westerners would find honorable. “Of Fathers and Sons” chose to depict Islamic fundamentalism with empathy. But even though Derki knows the context of the conflict in Syria, as a filmmaker he’s more interested in shocking images of tween boys in uniform being trained to fight as insurgents than in explaining it. He drops the spectator into a horrifying, unpleasant situation in media res, assuming we know the background.

GayCityNews.nyc | November 8 - November 21, 2018

For long stretches, Derki lets his choice of scenes from Abu Osama and his family’s life speak for him, with no editorializing but an obvious point of view. He generally films the sons in long shot. But he also appears onscreen to talk with Abu Osama a few times. There, he tries to bring out the man’s politics. From what Abu Osama says, the “so-called moderates” and non-Islamist anti-Assad opposition in Syria are widely considered stained by their association with America and Europe. He views the war in Syria as the prelude to a Third World War and Armageddon — he’s sure this is on the way and thinks Christians and Jews all agree with him, although they differ on its starting point — that will lead to an apocalypse he gleefully anticipates. Abu Osama sends his sons to their possible deaths in battle, but

in that respect he’s not so different from American men who have supported our many wars. He’s just so passionate about his beliefs that he’s raised his sons from a very early age to be fighters instead of simply supporting war as an abstract cause. He’s an extreme example of the way most parents raise their children expecting that they will follow their values. The most popular documentaries in America over the past year testify to an understandable yearning for heroes and desire to find narratives in real life; the conclusions from “Of Fathers and Sons” are a great deal less comforting. OF FATHERS AND SONS | Directed by Talal Derki | Kino Lorber | In Arabic with English subtitles | Nov. 16-Dec. 2 | Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave., Astoria | movingimage.us

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➤ AVP, from p.7 tative or otherwise participate in NOW NYC’s March 29 press conference and rally at One Police Plaza calling attention to the Inspector General’s report.” The woman raped in 1994 was wholly supportive of these advocacy efforts. When the apology was issued, she gave a single interview to the New York Times, which was organized by a publicist working with advocates. AVP was not mentioned in that story. The woman, who remains anonymous, issued a statement that also did not mention AVP. Foreman wrote that when he first learned that the case had been resolved, he contacted Tillery. She wrote in an email to him that “Matt, as usual, we are taking the lead from the survivor.” Foreman assumed that the woman was not interested, but later

➤ MARNIE, from p.32 thony Dean Griffey as the repellant hypocrite Mr. Strutt embody

learned otherwise when he spoke with her. “She said she had not spoken with anyone at AVP, but did want a public apology from the commissioner and, more important to her, wanted the case to be used to help make things better for other survivors seeking assistance from NYPD, particularly front line officers,” Foreman wrote. “Wow.” Founded in 1980, advocating that the police and district attorneys respond to violence against members of the LGBTQ community was a central component of the agency’s mission. Foreman was known for organizing the broader community in support of this kind of advocacy. AVP has been far less publically engaged in recent years as some on the left have come to see police, prosecutors, and the law as never a solution to any problem and always a part of the problems facing marginalized communities.

Tillery issued a statement last year after Abel Cedeno stabbed Matthew McCree and injured Ariane Laboy in a Bronx public school. Cedeno said he was defending himself from attack after violent threats and anti-LGBTQ bullying perpetrated by a group of students the two were part of. McCree died. The Bronx district attorney originally sought murder charges against Cedeno, but he ultimately was charged with manslaughter. That case is pending. “We do not believe that the addition of metal detectors is the real solution to this tragedy, and caution against responding to this incident of violence by increasing the policing and potential criminalization of our youth, especially youth of color,” Tillery wrote. “We strongly believe that all three youth involved are victims who needed the support and action of the adults around them to intervene, and we hope we

can move forward without further demonizing them in this moment… And we call upon our communities to seek restorative and healing responses to violence that offer support, not punitive measures, to all in need.” AVP issued a statement in response to Foreman’s specific charges. The agency noted that it continues to provide counseling to survivors, field calls from its hotline, and train others to do the same. AVP has a legal services unit and an “economic empowerment program” to assist clients. “Our organizing team is growing and doing more advocacy to push for policies citywide to address the disproportionate violence experienced by transgender and gender nonconforming people, as well as our entire community, and is building the capacity of our partner organizations across the country to win policy changes,” the statement read.

the hostile social forces that force Marnie to live in a perpetual state of flight and deception. The Met Orchestra led by debu-

tant maestro Robert Spano found all the colors in Muhly’s heavy orchestration. The Met Chorus led by Donald Palumbo distinguished

themselves in the best vocal writing Muhly composed for the opera. But all it was all sound and fury signifying nothing.

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