manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vince Manis) (02/24/86)
Last night, CBS (CTV in Canada) telecast "Welcome Home, Bobby". I hadn't known anything about this prior to this week, and so it came as a bolt from the blue. It was actually good (for a TV-movie). It concerned a 16-year old high-school student, who has been busted after a relationship with a 35-year old architect with more money than ethics. The movie is concerned with what happens between him and his family afterwards (contrary to the guppy stereotype we've become used to, the family is very working-class and excessively Catholic; the father is so non-intellectual and non-professional that his chief passion is his eternal rebuilding of a 1940 Packard). In the process, Bobby suffers verbal and physical abuse from his schoolmates (who mount a petition drive to have him expelled from school for being gay; the title of their petition, "Protect the Children" made me want to run to the refrigerator to see whether I had any Florida orange juice). The best aspect of the movie, as far as I was concerned, was that Bobby may or may not be gay (he doesn't know yet); what is at stake is his *right* to be gay. The closing credits mention an organisation I've not heard of, called "The Foundation for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth". I'd appreciate more info on them.
dyer@spdcc.UUCP (Steve Dyer) (02/27/86)
[First, I would like to apologize for the length of this posting.
I'm generally a member of the one-screen-fits-all camp, and would
hate to think that this article would imply any sort of approval
for the recent trend here in net.motss towards longer articles without
correspondingly greater content. But I haven't said much lately, anyway.
Count me down for two articles...]
I was about to put my two cents in on this movie, but Vince beat me
to it. Unfortunately, I have to disagree with just about everything
he said. I made somewhat similar comments about "Early Frost", but
with my admittedly failing memory, "Welcome Home, Bobby" makes "EF"
look like a masterpiece of the genre.
Basic point: I would have liked to see the movie they wanted to make
before the TV executives got their hands on it. More than even "EF",
this is a fatally, fatally compromised movie. It's a rather touchy
topic, of course: a teenager confused about his sexuality gets involved
with a 35-ish man, gets caught, and suffers at the hands of his parents
and schoolmates. The basic elements of an OK melodrama with a decidedly
"pro-choice orientation" are all there, but what finally ended up between
the commercials is a disaster, thematically and dramatically, told with
all the sensitivity and subtlety of a screenplay written by committee.
You see, to the TV executive crowd, it's too controversial to let a vaguely
pro-gay script appear uneditted: they need some "equal time" for the sleazy,
slimy side of Gay Life. But, of course, these people lack convictions,
let alone the courage of same, and the result is a fragmented, dissonant
view of the gay experience, rather like looking at a 3-D movie without
the glasses.
As an example, the relationship between the teenager and the older man
developed rather naturally, and one of the main points which managed to
escape through the final script was that this guy couldn't simply be
considered a simple "child molester": that there was a real affection
and even love which developed between them. Now, this is too darn
revolutionary to let appear on TV without some "equal time": I can just
see the execs talking in the back room, chomping on their cigars, saying,
"No, you need a scene where the kid returns to the guy's apartment, claims
that the guy exploited him as a father figure, only to find a creepily cynical
boy of the same age in the guy's bedroom, telling him what a chump he is..."
Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt there are kids and chicken-hawks like that.
A better script could have done something interesting with such a
confrontation: as it is, this and other scenes come off as a pastiche,
a parade of good-gay/bad-gay sequences without any organic point of view.
This makes for good advertiser relations, but bad drama.
Also, the events just didn't jibe with my sense of reality: like most
TV movies about gay people, you have the feeling that they haven't
caputured What's True about being gay, and what is on the screen rings
false. Here are a few which bothered me; perhaps this might start a
discussion:
o Bobby tells his girlfriend and best buddy about his
gay experiences with the older guy. Very very hard
to swallow.
o The math teacher's coming out to Bobby as an expression
of support, after he sees the extent of Bobby's ostracism
and hazing in school. Makes a good story, but I am sure that
would be the LAST thing any closeted gay teacher who feared for
his job would do.
o This "I am what I am" sentiment was passable in "La Cage aux Folles",
but it's really tiresome, especially in the mouth of a 16 year old.
If this is some kind of new slogan, I'm resigning from the club.
One last point, it was unsettling to see the actor playing Cleary, Bobby's
straight buddy, simply rehash his role as the bodyguard in the wonderful
film, "My Bodyguard." It makes me respect his original performance less.
--
Steve Dyer
dyer@harvard.HARVARD.EDU
{bbncca,bbnccv,harvard}!spdcc!dyermanis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vince Manis) (03/02/86)
In his reply to my posting re "Welcome Home Bobby", Steve Dyer raises a couple of points with which I must disagree. First, Steve points to TV having "ruined" the portrayal of Bobby's relationship with an older man. The man is indeed not presented as a child molester, and Bobby indeed becomes involved with him of his own free will. Yet it becomes apparent in the movie that this relationship is not entirely beneficial to Bobby. Perhaps I'm just becoming an old fuddy-duddy, but I'm inclined to say I agree with the position the movie takes. It becomes apparent that Bobby comes from a troubled family, and has an (apparently) unsympathetic father. Bobby's lover (unconsciously) trades on that, and becomes in Bobby's mind the father he never had. The lover acts sometimes like a father, and sometimes like a lover. This can hardly be good for any adolescent, let alone one as confused as Bobby. (This has nothing to do with gender: I'd feel the same way about such a relationship if Bobby had been Bobbi). Regarding the closeted gay teacher who comes out to Bobby: I agree that this is unlikely. (But, then, so's the plot of Hamlet.) Nonetheless, I too was a closeted gay teacher ten years ago. I had a student who I should have come out to, but I didn't, for a number of obvious reasons (including the conservatism of the district in which I taught). Perhaps, no matter how unlikely the actual event, its depiction might cause some teachers to think carefully about their professional obligation to their students, and how that relates to coming out. Perhaps by the standards of film, "Welcome Home, Bobby" is not great art. Nonetheless, by the standards of an industry which has presented "My Mother the Car", "Gilligan's Island", and "Saturday Night Main Event", it's not half bad.
jimb@drutx.UUCP (Jim Bryant) (03/08/86)
I'd like to agree with Steve's comments about the CBS movie
"Welcome Home Bobby", and carry his disdain even further.
To me, this movie was little more than high octane fuel for the
average homophobic parents concerns of keeping gays away from
their children.
As I imagine nescient parents watching this movie, I see them
able to blame the gays for all the problems Bobby goes through.
I envision them watching this movie, and afterwards having the
feeling that "if he hadn't been seduced by the older man in the
first place, he would never have gone through the ordeal", and
that "if he hadn't received support from his gay teacher, he might
have gotten 'over it'."
The movie did little to enlighten the viewer on the subject.
The one notable exception to this was the scene when Bobby
dresses up in drag for dinner. That was at least one blast at a
stereotype.
I wholly agree with Steve that the scene in which Bobby returns
to the man's house and finds him with another young boy, was
entirely unnecessary, and just added more mud to the face of
homosexuality.
Again from the parents perspective, I feel it looked like the
gay teacher was "pushing" Bobby to accept his homosexuality.
I know that for me, having had someone offer me support like
that would have been a great help. My complaint is that this
movie did nothing with it. In the end, Bobby is still as confused
as ever, and never shows any appreciation for the support he received.
On the subject of plausibility, I found his speech at the awards
ceremony implausible to say the least. The "I am what I am"
and "I might be this way and I might be that way" statements
were about as dilute as any I can conceive. I'm surprised the
editors didn't go ahead and have him 'decide' he was not gay.
Throughout the movie, his confusion was portrayed as though he
must 'make a decision' as to whether or not he's gay. I think in
reality, it's more like 'come to accept' that you're gay.
I'd like to know how many people that go through the confusion
he went through end-up being heterosexual.
As much as I wanted to find good in this movie, it was nearly impossible.
When I then consider my pro biased outlook, I conclude it was exactly
the thing the uninformed homophobic parent wanted to see. I can only
wonder if CBS had any purpose to producing this movie other than $$$$.
Thanks CBS.
at&t information systems/denver colorado/jim bryant
...!{ihnp4,ulysses,mtuxo,pegasus,whuxl}!drutx!jimb