If
you realize that you are attracted to persons of the same
gender in a sexual way at age sixteen, what do you do when
you think that your classmates, parents, and teachers will
not accept you? This is the question posed in Get Real,
a 1998 British film that was released this spring in Hollywood,
based on the play What’s Wrong with Angry? by Patrick Wilde.
Directed by Simon Shore, the film takes place in Basingstoke,
England’s Brentwood. Skinny Steven Carter (played by Ben Silverstone)
is the schoolboy who realizes that he is gay but does not
know what to do except to search for someone to love. His
latest sex partner disappointingly turns out to be a married
man who wants only one brief encounter in a public toilet.
Linda (played by Charlotte Brittain), aware that she is too
fat to be desirable to boys at the school but desperately
and unsuccessfully seeking to seduce her male driving instructor,
provides emotional support to Steven, who at least is not
entirely in the closet as a result. Along comes masculine
John Dixon (played by Brad Gorton), who as jock of the school
is Steven’s dream date. John, however, senses that Steven
is gay because he is trying somehow to deny his own same-sex
impulses. John’s athletic pursuits are one way to deny his
desire for men, he dates the prettiest girl in the school,
smokes cigarettes (which are called "fags" in Britain), and
he throws Steven’s schoolbag on top of a building and even
on one occasion punches and kicks Steven to prove to his fellow
jocks that he is macho. However, one day Steven and John are
in two stalls of a public toilet, and they discover the truth.
For the rest of the film Steven pursues John, for love more
than for sex, and they enjoy each other mutually, but John
wants to stay closeted, while Steven wants to be more open.
The film also focuses on opposite-sex attraction, sometimes
for love and sometimes just for sex, but these traditional
pursuits seem quite boring compared to the passion uniting
Steven and John. Wanting more acceptance somehow, Steven anonymously
pens an essay on the difficulties of being gay for the school
yearbook, entitled "Get Real," but the essay is censored by
a male faculty member who lacks empathy. Eventually, shy Steven
turns out to have more courage than macho John. He jumps through
the hoops of coming out to parents, teachers, and classmates,
emerging triumphant and in the process liberating John because
he dared to challenge convention in a society that is now
ready to accept gays and Lesbians as normal people, or so
the film tells us. MH
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