Dirty Looks: Long Distance Love Affair

By JESS MCHUGH
January 24, 2012

When I showed up to the screening at 212 York Street last Thursday, I had not been expecting to spend my evening watching two blond farmhands have anal sex next to an emu farm.  And yet there I found myself, laughing hysterically as an emu kept trying to bite a man’s hand during fellatio.  The clip came from an untitled video (2010) by avant-garde filmmaker Glen Fogel.  Fogel’s piece was one of many queer experimental films featured in the roaming screening series Dirty Looks, which came to Yale last week.  Dirty Looks is a collection of short films from the late 1960s to the present day that explore themes of gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender sexuality.  According to curator Bradford Nordeen, the series aims to juxtapose modern filmmaking techniques with more historical iterations of the avant-garde.

In his introduction to the screening, Nordeen reminded spectators that in the 1960s in New York, for instance, films were often experienced in social settings rather than theaters or museum galleries.  Movies were meant to be discussed, not observed in reverent silence.  He expressed his hope that these films would not become “canonized objects” but rather serve as starting points for conversation between artists, filmmakers, and spectators.

This specific chapter of Dirty Looks was entitled Long Distance Love Affair and is a collaboration between New York curator Bradford Nordeen and his Los Angeles counterpart, Darin Klein.  The series brings works together from West Coast and East Coast filmmakers with greatly varying approaches and preoccupations—subject matter ranged from orgies to drug addiction to vintage erotica.  What was impressive within the series was not only the breadth of topics but the variation in styles between filmmakers.  People may often think of “avant-garde” as meaning something very specific, especially when used in connection with a “queer” aesthetic, but Dirty Looks refused to adhere to such strict confines.  Filmmaker Jonesy used elements of collage and animation in his film Beauty Must Suffer (2010), while Dani Leventhal employed more classical techniques of realism in Tin Pressed (2011).

In Laurie (1998), Cecilia Dougherty weaves the verses of poet Laurie Weeks throughout her piece on lesbian romance and drug addiction.  The juxtaposition of very simple video techniques with an often brutal narrative succeeded in creating a moving love story.  Dougherty attended the screening, and, along with Fogel, was available to answer questions afterwards.  The presence of the artists enhanced the experience of their work by allowing for the type of social exchange between artists and audiences that Dirty Looks encourages.

What was striking, too, about this collection of videos was their sense of humor.  Oftentimes in academic settings, sex (particularly queer sex) is either a taboo topic of intellectual debate or must be approached with the utmost seriousness.  Though a number of the videos were somber and some even violent, many highlighted the frivolity and joy of sexuality.  Mariah Garnett’s piece, Encounters I May or May Not Have Had With Peter Berlin (2012), recounts her strange and hilarious interview with 1970’s gay sex symbol Peter Berlin.  In addition to being thoughtfully filmed and original, the video examines the awkward parts of sex—flaccid penises, pubic hair, fumbling with clothes—that are almost never explored in mainstream film.  This is not the choreographed romanticism of Hollywood movies.

If you weren’t able to make it to last week’s showing, this touring series will stop next in New York City on January 25th with a different repertoire of videos.  May the dirty looks continue to be exchanged!

Jess McHugh is a freshman in Yale College.  She is a contributing writer for Broad Recogniton.