Tennessee Queer

By: Raymond Murray
In-House Review - Sep 07 2012

A Southern comedy about LGBT rights battling it out in an entrenched culture of homophobia? Yes! From first time director Earl Goshorn, Tennessee Queer is a charmingly raucous low budget comedy.

After a few years up north in New York, "out and proud" Jason returns to his Tennessee hometown only to find things are as they always were. That is, gay rights are unheard of. So what better way to ignite the town's LGBT movement than with a pride parade down Main Street! Easier said than done when a scheming politician and a holier than thou minister, aghast at the prospect of a small town Sodom and Gomorrah, decide to publicly support the march. But it is only as a way to identify the town's youth who will march and send those teen queers off to an ex-gay camp! Will the dark win? Will there even be enough gays in town to march? Will Jason be run out of town before the march?

By: Amos Lassen

I am starting this review by telling you that I am a fan of Mark Jones not just as a person but as a filmmaker as well. I loved his earlier films-"Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island" and "Eli Parker is Getting Married" and have been waiting for quite a while to see "Tennessee Queer" which surpassed my expectations. From the opening credits until the end, this is Jones's most professional movie and one of which he should be very proud. The film deals with a difficult topic-gay life in a small Southern town. I think those of us who live in big cities have no idea how our gay and lesbian brothers cope with the situation of having to be marginalized and ridiculed and even treated with violence.

The film shows how religion, politics and sexuality collide. Jason Potts (Christian Walker), a former resident of Smythe, Tennessee returns home for what he thinks will be an intervention for his alcoholic brother but it turns out that his family has come together not for his brother but for him. They want him to leave New York where he has been living and come home, with his partner, Paul, (Jerre Dye), and live in small town America. Jason had been tortured and made fun of when he was in high school and has been living and working in New York City. He has a good job and a loving partner, Paul yet he feels that he should be a role model for the gay kids back home and now that he is out and proud, he goes before the Smythe City Council to request a permit for the first ever gay pride parade there and he wants it to roll down Main Street. Not thinking that this would pass, he was ready to return to Manhattan when his plan takes a different turn. He finds himself in charge of the parade but what he does not know is the reason that the permit was granted was so that a minister and a city council member who lobbied for it, plan to use the parade as a way to see who is gay and then send them off to an ex-gay camp.

The movie was filmed in Memphis (which is where Jones lives). There is one line in the film spoken by Paul which seems to encapsulate what the film is all about, "The universe has a way of working things out" and while at times it does not look so positive or even possible, this is exactly what happens. The film moves through time-it opens in 1967 at Smythe High School and we see two jocks participating in the sport of "fag bashing" with another student as their victim. The sport has gone on for years as we see the notices about gays being written on a wall in the gym locker room and even see that Jason was written about on that wall. When Jason's mother, sister, brother and brother-in-law try to get Jason to come home, they claim that the town is more tolerant now and since it is close to Memphis, they tell him that he can partake of the gay life as well since it would be like he had never left New York. Now comparing Memphis to New York is a bit of an exaggeration to say the least but I will say that when I lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, it was exciting to go to the big city of Memphis where there is indeed a very active and open gay community.

The movie is named "Tennessee Queer" but it could also be called "Arkansas Queer" or "Mississippi Queer" because the problems of Smythe are the same in other Southern towns. Here is why the film is so important-it speaks to everyone who lives or has lived in a small town. What we see here is that one person (in this case Jason Potts) can make a difference. It does not take an activist, it just takes a person who believes in himself and in making the world safe for his brothers and sisters and this is something that each of us should think about.