Someone
ought to write this down
Gay author Dennis Hensley's new novel blends real-life
movie-viewing parties with his friends' witty repartee
Gay men and
lesbians everywhere know the routine. They sit around
with friends, probably half in the bag, making
all sorts of remarks at "Queer as Folk," "Sex
and the City," "Will & Grace" or some
movie that's so bad it's good.
And
creative types in more sober moments remember those nights
fondly, thinking that the commentary was so funny
that someone should write it all down.
Well,
someone has officially beaten those lofty thinkers to
the punch. That someone is gay author Dennis Hensley,
and his new book is "The Screening Party," which
follows his successful gay novel "Misadventures in
the (213)." The author makes an Oct. 15 stop
in the Washington area to read from his latest work.
When
the editor for the British version of Premiere magazine
asked Hensley to write a column about the
movie "Jaws" for
the film's 20th anniversary, Hensley had to admit
that he had never seen the movie. Rather than passing
up a
chance to have his material in print, Hensley pitched
the idea
to sit around and watch the movie with his friends
and write about that. The piece wound up being
really funny,
and interesting, and the editor asked for more
of the columns.
What
followed was a regular series of parties where Hensley
and his friends got silly with movies.
"
It was just sort of my friends, the more close friends
who I do this kind of thing with anyway, with awards shows
and pageants and stuff," Hensley says. "The
idea of sitting around yelling at the TV wasn't a foreign
concept
to any of us. As I worked on the book, more people would
come, different people would come."
Though there were different people at the real-life
party, the book follows Hensley and five other
characters: comedian
Lauren, psychologist Dr. Beaverman (who refers
to herself in the third person as Dr. Beaverman),
token
straight
man and movie buff Ross, down-home attorney
Marcus (who always
brings baked goods), and catty queen Tony.
The book not only consists of the characters
sitting around and watching movies like "Pretty Woman," "The
Sound of Music" and the gay classic "Cruising." It
also presents the stories of each person, how they become
close through the shared movies and the changes in their
personal lives.
"
The people are composites of different people, and some
of them are pretty close to who the people are. I knew
I was going to have different people at the parties, so
I came up with these characters, so I could feed the people
into similar personalities," Hensley says, adding
that most of the witty remarks and catty comments in
the book were really said.
"
I did have all the parties, and I would say 75 percent
of what is said in the parties was said by someone there," he
says. "Then I fudged and tweaked and added things.
Some of the story line stuff is sort of true, and some
of it I made up to give it more of a story."
The
result is something of a novel, a book of essays and
a running commentary on classic
and
current
films all rolled
into one hilarious tome.
"
In bookstores, sometimes they put it in film studies, which
seems accurate but isn't the whole picture," Hensley
laments. "Sometimes they put it in the gay section,
which is accurate but not the whole picture. I don't
care where they put it, I just hope people can find it."
Hensley
says that gays are better at mass ridicule of pop culture
than the
average
audience.
"
I guess straight people do it, too, but with football games," he
says. "But with us it's like 'Divas Live' on VH1.
Maybe these parties are our version of the Super Bowl."
Not
only is "screaming at the TV" fun and interactive,
it's also a way to bring friends closer together through
shared experience and laughs.
"
It's like being able to gossip about somebody, but in a
harmless way," he says. "It's like gossiping
about the neighbors, but the neighbors are Kim Bassinger
and Mickey Rourke, and they have sex all the time in
the kitchen. It's dishy and fun, and it feels a little
bit
naughty."
As
for the movies in the book, its fun to see them through
new eyes
— and to
let the
narrative
arc
bring readers
into other people's lives
at
the same time. It's a bit
like the old "Mystery Science Theater 3000":
The comments are fun and funny, but it's the characters
that
bring readers
back.
But
unlike "MST3K," you've actually seen the
movies in the book — OK, hopefully not "Glitter."
"
I like to pick movies that have a big impact on the culture
at the time when they were released, that were part of
their zeitgeist," Hensley says. "Maybe they
weren't huge hits, and maybe they weren't that good,
but they touched
a nerve in people, so it's fun to look back at them.
"
For gay people, I think it's fun to watch the movies that
first turned us on," he says. "Mine would be
'The Blue Lagoon' or 'For Ladies Only.' Those are fun
to watch with other guys. It's fun to be able to say
out loud
what you couldn't say out loud back then." |
