John Custodio:

      The Rendez-Vous du Cinema Quebecois kicks off this Wednesday and our guest on tonight's program is Montreal-based filmmaker Owen Eric Wood. He has two short films in this year's festival and he joins us now to talk about them. Welcome to the show.

Owen Eric Wood:

      Thanks a lot.

John Custodio:

      Let's talk first about your video called Made Up, which the festival program tells us is about masculinity, being a man, and what those questions mean for faggots like us.

Owen Eric Wood:

      Well, I wanted to make Made Up as kind of a reaction to an observation I made among the queer community, mostly in terms of what gay men want in each other. In the video, I become what I am criticizing. I become this gay man who is being interviewed about what he is attracted to in other gay men. I talk about physical things like race and eye colour and height and things like that, but then I eventually say, "I like guys who are masculine." For me this was always kind of an irony because, I mean, we're gay. We're not supposed to fit some sort of social norm or social behaviour of masculinity and femininity. We sleep with men. How feminine could you be? Or how non-masculine could you be? Yet I observe this among gay men, where that's what they are attracted to. They want their gay partner to be masculine as if they are not allowed to be feminine at all and this is very ironic for me because it is denying our feminine side as gay men.

John Custodio:

      Is it just ironic or is this harsher than that? Is it critique? Do you find it sad?

Owen Eric Wood:

      I don't know. I never thought of it being sad, but it is definitely a critique. But it's done in a way that's... I don't like to stand on a soap box and criticize the gay community so in this video I am criticizing myself because I become the object of my criticism. While I am talking about and saying, I think, really offensive things like, "I don't like guys who are too gay. I don't like guys who act gay," well, what is that? We are gay, so whatever we do is so-called 'acting gay.' But I like to think I undermine what it is I'm saying through the visuals. I think you saw the videos.

John Custodio:

      Parts of it, yes.

Owen Eric Wood:

      In the visuals, while you are listening to these sort of offensive statements, the visuals show me going through a transformation that denies my masculinity. I don't want to give it away, but that's what I'll say.

John Custodio:

      I think it's a question that we all had to face fairly early, right? We're presented with so many models of how to behave and at the point which we come out, what models of masculinity do you want to adopt?

Owen Eric Wood:

      That's exactly it.

John Custodio:

      Did this raise those questions? Because to some extent we don't deal with them every day. I'm hoping we don't deal with them every day the way we did when we were closeted, on the verge of coming out. That's when those questions were most pressing, most vexed and you didn't know exactly where to go with this. Now I know people and kids in my high school who were very gay from the out set and really felt this was just what they needed to be, and I have always in a way kind of envied that because part of me always had to watch and police myself, lest the secret come out. But the one thing that never did happen for me was that I could never adopt their self presentational styles. That, too, felt false. I couldn't just turn on a sort of fabulous drag queen.

Owen Eric Wood:

      I think that's the complex issue.

John Custodio:

      It is, isn't it?

Owen Eric Wood:

      After years of either repressing yourself and trying to not be gay, now maybe once you deal with it, suddenly you are allowed to be gay, and then, well, now who am I? Am I the extremely flamboyant gay or am I more reserved, quote 'straight acting?'

John Custodio:

      Right. And which subculture of the subculture do you want to align yourself with? Am I going to be out there or...

Owen Eric Wood:

      And what I want to criticize here is, I don't have any problem with a gay guy only being attracted to quote 'masculine' gay guys. What I have a problem with is there seems to be this sort of, it's in fashion, it's in style, where it's not okay to be attracted to gay guys who are feminine. It's like everyone has to be masculine. So suddenly we have this social pressure within the gay community to be something that we not necessarily are.

John Custodio:

      It's funny that you say that because one of the things that always strikes me about a certain period of novels, in particular, okay I'll be clear here. There is, for example, a Michel Tremblay novel about the '70s in which I think he writes something along the lines about being attracted to a guy and how it was so not the kind of guy that was in fashion because he was too masculine and in fact at that point the androgene was what was in, so somebody who was a little too masculine wouldn't have cut it. Given when I came out and what has been around since that is surprising to me, that is so historically the other. Yes, there was the new wave androgene. That kind of androgeny was around, but certainly all of the porn and everything else [in] gay culture that I was exposed to and since has privileged...

Owen Eric Wood:

      I don't think in terms of porn it has really changed that much because the vast majority of what you see is a certain body type, a certain ethnicity and [sound of two fists slamming each other]. That's all it is. That's sex.

John Custodio:

      What is that? What's that sound? What do you mean?

Owen Eric Wood:

      That's the definition of what you see them doing. They cut out any sort of foreplay, any sort of romance, any sort of sensitivity or femininity, and it just becomes this physical insertion action. That to me is the irony in that by nature gay people defy what is normal, what we're supposed to do.

John Custodio:

      Exactly.

Owen Eric Wood:

      So then to be gay and then subject yourself to a very specific, narrow definition undermines all the work that we've done.

John Custodio:

      Right. But it still doesn't solve the question of, "How do I want to be?" "How should I be?"

Owen Eric Wood:

      For me it's a personal choice. For me, it's about acknowledging that there are some gay people who are extremely quote 'flamboyant' and there are some who maybe still aren't comfortable with their sexuality even though they know they're gay, and a whole spectrum in between and this is what I have to choose from in terms of what I'm attracted to. It's basically about consumer choice. It's about understanding to listen to yourself and going, 'This is what I'm attracted to.' So for me, I'm attracted to guys who are both, who are masculine in some ways and feminine in some ways at the same time and somehow defy those terms, because I think they are just social constructs anyway. So that's what I'm attracted to, and I close my ears in terms of what I'm supposed to be attracted to. You have to listen to yourself, and I don't know how to teach people to do that. I guess it's a personal journey. You have to figure it out.

John Custodio:

      Have you found that a difficult search? Are those guys out there for you? Or do you find...

Owen Eric Wood:

      I currently have a boyfriend who recently told me that being together with me he doesn't feel like he's in a gay relationship; he feels like he's in a relationship. For me, that means a lot because it defies sexuality.

John Custodio:

      That's adorable. That's so sweet.

Owen Eric Wood:

      Yes, it is adorable.