Johnny, Are You Queer?
—David Heckler, Director. Color. Post Sync, 16mm. Comedy. A mock educational movie done in the style of 1950's classroom epics. Poor Johnny. He's seventeen, young, nubile, and obese. He hasn't been feeling himself lately. He feels as though he is driven by urges from within to like other
boys. What is this demon seed? What is this curse that has befallen poor Johnny? It is the curse...of homosexuality. This was another student movie done sometime after Chaser. It was another film that was not just simply an exercise. What I had to work with was 16mm color film. The film ha
d to be shot silent. All sound had to be edited in afterwards. I figured that with the film stock and sound limitations I might as well do something that almost mocked what I had to work with. This was also my middle finger at Columbia College, because of what I went through with Chaser. There's
only so far you can go with a Bolex camera and cheap audio equipment, so I made this film into a comedy that mocks both the equipment, and the gay community at the same time. Think I'm being cruel to poor Johnny? Well, perhaps it sounds that way. But in reality, I've known guys like this. And i
n the real gay world, a guy like Johnny wouldn't be able to survive. There's so much emphasis on looks and personality that a guy like Johnny would probably kill himself. It's the truth. We place so much of ourselves on our looks and feel awful when let down. And yet, in the end, when that one g
uy responds to us...it isn't that bad. This film went all over the place. It was at the Chicago Queerfest, the 24th Chicago International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, a whole bunch of Chicago screenings, and it even left the city. It went to New York, and headed to New Orleans. This one was ch
osen for the Take One Film Festival at Columbia College, but obviously because of its content, it didn't get in.

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