Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!utcs!lsuc!pesnta!amdcad!decwrl!decvax!bbncca!sdyer From: sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer) Newsgroups: net.motss Subject: What, no comments on "Consenting Adult"? Message-ID: <1308@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Wed, 6-Feb-85 23:31:36 EST Article-I.D.: bbncca.1308 Posted: Wed Feb 6 23:31:36 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 8-Feb-85 07:41:50 EST Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 37 Gee, I wonder why there have been no comments at all here subsequent to the broadcast of "Consenting Adult". Was it really as good as I have been hearing from assorted friends and media? Or maybe everyone on the net who's seen it has simply been stupefied beyond comment. I thought it was poor, dramatically and thematically, completely compromised by the equivocating nature of network television. Most fascinating and disturbing to me was how little TV has advanced in 13 years: it still can't get past the sanitized sanctimoniousness that we saw in "That Certain Summer", which was retrograde even in its day. It was wildly erratic in its handling of gay sexuality, from the nadir of the kid's (whatshisname?) "first experience" cruising a guy in the diner and then accepting a "ride home", a scene filmed in an almost comically unsavory Rechyesque manner, to the apotheosis of a squeaky-clean relationship between the kid and an equally blond, WASPy student with straight, white teeth. Sex? They might as well be angels, so incorporeal their relationship. This must be safe-sex in the 80's. I'm not looking for extended petting scenes, of course, but it would be nice if TV could show casual affection between two men without aiming for either of these extremes. What's more, everyone's reactions seemed slightly out of kilter, as if we were looking at the 60's set in the eighties. "Mom, I'm a ho-mo-sex-u-al" just doesn't seem to ring true these days. Also, while I can grant that some gay teenagers are still isolated and alone, if this movie purports to present what is reality for most gay young people (and let's face it: TV movies aren't serious art, they are latter-day miracle plays), it would have been much more realistic to show him investigating his local campus rap group, maybe reading some local gay newspapers, to establish a better self-definition before coming out to his parents. Anyone else care to comment? -- /Steve Dyer {decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer sdyer@bbnccv.ARPA