Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend dive into queer and queer-adjacent titles of the past that deserve a watch or a re-watch.
The Spirited: Straight Up
We fell in love with this indie comedy back in 2019 when we caught it on the festival circuit. It would seem many of our readers agreed: the film also took home the Queerty Award for Best Indie Film.
Straight Up follows Todd, (Writer/director James Sweeney) a 20-something gay man utterly afraid of gay sex and suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. His solution? Date a woman. When he meets Rory (Katie Findlay), a lonely, struggling actress, the two take an immediate liking to one another. They agree to begin a romantic relationship with one strict rule: never have sex. Todd’s friends think his relationship with Rory is a disgusting farce, but does a good relationship really need sexual chemistry?
Straight Up addresses themes of mental illness, loneliness, and stigmas around gay sex. It also features some very big laughs, sharp dialogue, and frank observations about life as an artist. Beneath the surface, Straight Up offers a meditation on isolation, and how the desire for affection far outweighs a need for sex. Though Sweeney writes, directs, and stars, the film never feels like a vanity project. Rather, it feels like a genuine artist trying to explore his own demons with naked honesty on the screen.
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Funny, personal and bittersweet, we recommend Straight Up to anyone who has ever felt frustrated by sex, dating, or both (and we know that includes most of you). What the film ultimately says about its main characters is as elusive as it is intriguing.
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Donston
It’s a solid movie with some funny moments. It’s also a bit shallow, a bit too cutesy and it’s frustratingly ambiguous. While the conceit of the tension is a lil aggravating. The lead is supposed to be a bit annoying with how dramatic he is and his OCD, but it’s especially annoying how he pretty much reduces male-male/same-sex passions as anal sex. There are many dudes who are into dudes but are not into anal sex. It’s not that unusual. Despite all of this, it is an overall okay flick.
And of course, it’s okay to hate sexual intercourse. Intercourse is not the be-all of “sexuality”. There’s a bunch of stuff you can do with someone sexually beyond intercourse. While “sexuality” encompasses attractions, arousal, desire, enjoyment, who you like pleasing, fetishes/paraphliacs, the extent of your sex drive, what you will and won’t indulge. Honestly, even though it may be viewed as potential “straight worship”, a more subversive idea is a guy who’s inherently heterosexual or sexually hetero-leaning and very much enjoys hetero sex but still wants to be with his sex. There are actually quite a few dudes out there like that, inherently hetero or sexually hetero-leaning but still overall homo-leaning when it comes to the rest of the spectrum. But of course, movies keep telling us that same-sex love and commitment is mostly about sex.
We do need more “queer” movies unabashedly confronting mental health issues, sexual disorders, gender/sexual fluidity, internalized homophobia, the gender, romantic, sexual, affection, emotional investment, relationship commitment spectrum. So, it is a step in the right direction, despite being filtered mostly through hetero dynamics. Unfortunately, pretty much all these types of movies are filtered through hetero dynamics and hetero tensions.
ShiningSex
a gay man hating gay sex is just self loathing.
now if a gay man doesn’t like to bottom or top, that’s not the same thing.
CastleSF
tTo many gay men are obsessed with sex and indulge themselves in reckless anonymous hookups with strangers. So yes if more gays start to hate gay sex, maybe gay men will become more decent and responsible instead of keeping spread nasty STDs like syphilis and anti-biotic resistant gonorrheas.
storm45701
Castle SF: You mean like straight people? Gonorrhea and syphilis is on the rise among straight people, including the elderly. So don’t blame gay men for the increase.
barryaksarben
It is progress to take a look at all our varied ways to find romance. Sex isnt the only thing although it is a human desire and I think very few people are actually averse to it. However, not all gay sex is anal. I have known many many men who are only interested in oral or even cuddling and kissing. There should be no shame to anything someone wants. But America was ruined by the Puritans and their anti sex beliefs that have hung on waaay too long in this country, Most of the anti sexxers are themselves sick in the head
daddytop
Why do you think the Puritans were kicked out of Europe? They had mental issues.
mark2029
If u r gay in straight marriage u might think straight sex gross
hansniemeijer
What does Ru Paul say at the end of Drag Race? “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love some one else? Can I hear a amen over here? That includes sexuality. If you don’t like / want sex it is up to you, regardless of your sexual preference. By the way, not all homosexuals are into anal sex. There are more ways to please each other. (massage, blow job, spanking, kissing, fetish)
C_Alan
RuPaul says: “can I get an amen up in here?”
Cam
If a straight man didn’t like vaginal sex would somebody make a movie where the solution was for him to “Date” a man and not have sex with him?
The premise seems self hating and ridiculous. He should have gone to therapy to deal with issues rather than what happened, but maybe that wouldn’t have made a movie plot.
Kangol2
It’s essentially what I posted before my comment was iced. It’s very heteronormative and hetero-targeted. There are many other options for someone like this in terms of potential film plots, but they probably wouldn’t appeal to a hetero audience, so this guy ends up with…a woman. Uh, OK.
MissTerri
Too many queens are obsessed with the whole idea of having to say whether you’re a top or a bottom. Some gay men dislike anal sex for completely rational reasons: it’s messy, there’s too much prep involved (if you’re the bottom) and most obviously it’s painful for the bottom because the anus is not designed to have things shoved up into it.
Cam
Sweetie you were on other threads trying to push your trolling. And now here you are basically claiming anal sex doesn’t work.
I challenge you to go out and find a bunch of “Bottoms” who will back you up that they don’t like it because it’s painful and the anus can’t take it. Stop listening to FOX News for your info.
daddytop
Oh PUH-LEEZ, Miss Terri. Join the 21st century. NO ONE “designed” the anus, and anal sex is NOT painful if you know what you’re doing. You would be surprised at how many so-called “straight” men are on Grindr, curious about anal sex. They LOVE IT.
MissTerri
You queens are Funny! Scrub-a-Dub-Dub!
Kangol2
Weird that my comment was thrown into “moderation” when I expressed a basic point consonant with Donston’s about this absurd film, but whatever. I mean, if it’s that controversial to point out the obvious on Queerty, what else is there to say.
Cam
You probably hit a word that they screen. Not sure if it still screens, but on here if you wrote the word rac-ist without the dash, it didn’t matter what your comment was about, it was screened out.
C_Alan
I’m not into anal sex or eating ass so I became bisexual since I had a little extra time accumulated.