Last Sunday, I attended the Pride Parade in Toronto for the first time. I expected scandals! protesters! and mucho leather! But the most shocking thing I experienced was getting watergunned in the face, which was totally necessary because it was really hot on Sunday.
These are five movies that remind me of the Pride Parade.
Calendar Girls (2003)
Members of a local Women’s Institute in Knapely, England, raise money for a local hospital by posing nude for a charity calendar.
Calendar Girls is not the most exciting film ever, but I liked watching celebrated a cast of British actors (headlined by Helen Mirren and Julie Walters) say mean things to each other and hug it out after, because they’re so bloody excellent at it.
The way that their eventual success was handled – through crass sensationalism of the elderly women’s boobs rather than support for leukemia patients and their families – was very apt. Similarly, when I went to the Pride Parade, I expected more nudity, but really, most of the participants were families, corporate schmoes, and community figureheads. I’d say that 99% of the parade was no more risque or less family-friendly than Caribana. And I’m not exactly certain what the point of the modern Pride Parade is, but it’s probably solidarity and freedom of expression, rather than genital-waving. Yet press and Facebook images still focus on the tiny minority of scantily-clad performers, when the average parade marcher is a 38-year-old in a free t-shirt and medium-coverage shorts.
Spaceballs (1987)
Planet Spaceball has run out of oxygen, leading its President (Mel Brooks) to concoct a scheme to steal the air from the planet Druidia by forcing Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) to marry Prince Valium (Jim Bullock). But Princess Vespa escapes, and her father (Dick Van Patten) contracts the mercenary Lone Star (Bill Pullman) to rescue her.
How high is your tolerance for silly puns and slapstick? That is directly correlated to how much you enjoy this movie. I thought Spaceballswas okay. Watch it if you want to know how the heroes escape a certain Pizza the Hutt.
The reason that this movie is in this list is because it is full of ads for itself. When George Lucas gave his blessing for Mel Brooks to direct Spaceballs, he did it under the condition that Spaceballs would not profit off any lines of merchandising, like the movie it parodied – Star Wars. As a result, Mel Brooks flooded Spaceballs with fictional references to Spaceballs merchandise: Spaceballs: The Lunchbox, Spaceballs: The Colouring Book, Spaceballs: The Flamethrower, and so on. Similarly, the Pride Parade is full of floats sponsored by TD, and OPSEU, and Home Depot, and probably every single ethnic community association in the GTA. I guess it’s nice for Pride to be considered a legitimate family-friendly celebration and for corporations to pander to LGBT people like everyone else.
Milk (2008)
Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), a businessman, turns 40 and is swept into politics to improve the lives of gay people in San Francisco.
For a movie about a legendary politician and activist, Milk doesn’t have much direction or plot. It might be because Sean Penn delivers an excellent performance as a warm, shrewd, idealistic man, rather than a hero. While it makes his character more three-dimensional, without a plot or character to drive the movie in a discernible direction, one begins losing the motivation to watch it Milk.
As good as Penn’s performance is, however, I just don’t like Penn’s character in the movie. If he’s such an excellent politician, what does he see in dating the immature dude (Diego Luna) who hangs himself in the closet to get his attention? Why couldn’t he stay with James Franco’s character? Why does he flip flop on issues? Why would he have the gall to talk politics at a christening? Maybe I don’t understand Milk’s strategy because 1970s San Francisco is so foreign to me that I can’t even fathom a country where teachers might get fired for being gay or supporting gay teachers.
Milk was included in this list because it represents the politics thatweren’t present in the Pride Parade: there were only a few marchers with banners to “Keep Pride Political”, and a handful of sad and sweaty protesters on the curb. Pride is treats LGBT issues at arm’s length in favour of glitter-sprayed DJs. However the alternative is one in Russia, where marchers get lynched, or a few decades past, where political correctness didn’t stop anyone from openly condemning homosexuality.
C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005)
Zac (Marc-Andre Grondin) is the fourth of five children. His father, Gervais (Michel Cote) is terrified that Zac might be gay. Zac would like to be normal and not have asthma. Make sure to get subtitles.
Like Milk, C.R.A.Z.Y. meanders through a man’s life. Unlike Milk, C.R.A.Z.Y opts for tableaus and visuals over dutiful biographical storytelling, and for that, it is better. I understood how the characters felt at every point by looking at their body language, which is good, because my French is not so good. The subtitles, though, offer unique insight to and satire of life in 1970s Quebec – including gentle jabs against midnight mass, audiophiles, and Tupperware. This film also has some of the best and most realistic portrayals of adolescence I’ve ever seen, down to the flatulent teenager, asocial bookworm, and jerk. If this movie was filmed by a mainstream Hollywood studio it would probably be unbearably melodramatic and cringeworthy. Luckily, it was filmed in Canada, and I couldn’t take my eyes away.
Right. I included this movie because Pride Parade seems to be very family friendly nowadays, to the point of having loads and loads of kids swarming around: in strollers behind the floats, in folding chairs at the front of the crowd, on a parents’ shoulders.
Ben-Hur (1959)
Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) is a prince and merchant in Jerusalem. He gets on the wrong side of his friend, a Roman Tribune (Stephen Boyd), who sends his family to prison and condemns him to the galleys. Ben-Hur swears vengeance.
This movie is extremely long and it takes place partially in a desert, which is why it reminds me of the Toronto Pride Parade. Indeed, the length is Ben Hur’s downfall. It could have used some editing to build better suspense. And Charlton Heston’s is definitely not a contender for “Greatest Actor Ever.” However, its technical achievements still stand – particularly the chariot race at the climax – but it drags on and on like the that completely unnecessary barrel chase in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. It’s too bad. I wanted to like this movie. I wanted to enjoy the classic themes of vengeance and redemption.
Maybe the upcoming remake will trim some of the fat from this movie, though I doubt the Toronto Pride Parade is going to shorten itself. I wanted to stick around to cheer for the UW Engineering contingent, but after two hours I just couldn’t stand on my little square of asphalt any longer. Sorry, guys.
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