The foyer

He has wondered for weeks what he is going to find when he walks towards the cinema, whether passers-by might know that it is a, you know, ... that kind of film that he's heading towards, whether they might put two and two together, stare at him and think, well, here's another faggot going to that faggot show. He's wondered how he would feel sitting there in the darkened hall, acutely aware of others watching the same show, maybe watching him, probably watching him, and he is sure he would be nervous, stomach a bit knotted, heart in throat, like that time when he was in Melbourne and popped into the XXX video shop, but …. but only after three back-and-forths outside, all the while pretending to be looking for something across the street and not noticing the neon sign right there in the window, wonder if anybody bought that act, and when he was sure no one was around to see him, switch 90 degrees on his heel, and dart through the door curtains.

But this is both easier and worse. Easier because it's not an XXX video, it's a legit showing in a film festival, but worse, it's in broad daylight and downtown in Singapore, I mean, the uncle's shop is just 300 metres away, for Christ's sake.

Anyway, this is D-day. He carefully takes the ticket out from the drawer, from under the pencil tray. It's a good place to hide little pieces of paper and this ticket is incriminating, if nothing else. The title of the film is on it, and the brother or sister can easily look up the synopsis from the film festival's website, and there, wham, bang, would be the 'G' word. But of course, if not for the 'G' word, he would not even have bought this ticket, wouldn't even have known about it, I mean, his heart skipped a beat when he saw it, God! (and that was not the 'G' word in question), has Singapore come this far? That film festival organisers can stick up the 'G' word on a website just like that?

Shit, it never fails, he says to himself, he's too early. Whether in eagerness or anxiousness, he can never time his arrival properly. Okay, walk around the block, don't hang around the cinema, browse the shops, get a drink somewhere. Which is fine, y'know, he's easy and he knows he mustn't look at his watch too often. He feigns interest in the CD's in the Half Price box outside the CD shop, and the T-shirts in Giordano, and, oh no, there are sisters here too. Don't tell me, he says to himself, they're also on their way to the cinema. And now that he's beginning to notice them, see there, the four of them crossing the road, they're definitely gay too, the T-shirt, the look, the talking with their hands, the sunglasses. Oh God, why must they be so obvious? This is what makes it so difficult to win acceptance. Why must they be so ... so gay, so queer?

And he has that sinking feeling that they're all going to congregate in the cinema foyer, which is where he himself has to go to in, like, 5 minutes, and people are going to see that he is walking to the foyer too, and it's a gay film and there are gay people there, and therefore, he must be gay too. And this is a shopping street, for goodness' sake, and the damn foyer is so open to the public view. What if somebody he knows walks past and sees him in the foyer? Like his girlfriend???

In fact, the foyer's worse than he ever imagined. It's crowded to overflowing, good heavens, it looks as if the show's sold out, there must be hundreds of people standing about closely here and just about 9 in 10 of them -- my God, they're almost all male! -- look gay. Well, actually, he's not so sure about the look thing, but they sure behave gay, so shamelessly gay. I mean, don't anybody care, y'know, about being respectable? They all seem to know each other, hugging each other promiscuously, circulating like in a cocktail party, ya, like cockerels in a cocktail party, exaggerated hand and finger motion, sunglasses perched ever so elegantly on the forehead, "Aunteeeee, Aunty Bertieee, where have you been?", and that trademark knapsack, the V-neck T-shirt, "Hey, this is not the same email address as what you gave me the last time? Oh, you have two? Plus that hotmail thing right? I know what they're all for, oh, you're such a slut!"

Well, to be fair, not everyone there is like that, only the louder ones. At least half are more subdued, chatting among friends, being introduced to new ones as they arrive. That's in fact the most scary and uncomfortable thing, that he is really an outsider standing about, lost among an insiders' event, with only the pillar for comfort. Yet he's being tarred with the same brush, that he is, y'know, 'G', since he's obviously standing here in this foyer waiting to see the same movie. He doesn't belong, he doesn't know anybody here, in fact, he's hating every second of it, this is not his scene ... but why haven't they opened the doors so he can get into the dark, what's holding them up?

He is shuffling around, partly behind the pillar, trying to keep half an eye out for faces he may have seen before and who may recognise him, yet trying not to look up and thereby risk making himself recogniseable, but so far so good, no one looks familiar. The greater danger, though, is the small group of 'normal' couples over there at the base of the stairs, they look 'normal', y'know, not gay, and I mean, they could be colleagues from the office or old school friends, and should anyone of them recognise him, God, life as he knows it would be over. Over! He'd have to make one of those avert-the-eyes-and-duck manoeuvres, and hope they don't have enough time to be sure that it is him, ya, but one can never be sure whether it works. And if they come up to talk to him, and ask why he's seeing this show, aw shit, he hates lying, he's never good at it. Really, he should get into the dark hall. It's safer there, but what's holding up the doors? This place is getting so damn hot and humid, it's not designed for, what?, eight hundred people? One thousand?

I was talking to Benjamin the other day, and we came to the topic of gay spaces in Singapore, like homes and pubs and discos, and I just had that passing thought -- my mind is an expressway of passing thoughts, leaving some of my speech incoherent -- that there are TRANSIENT gay spaces, and a cinema foyer for a gay-related film is one such example, a gay space for the 15 minutes before and after the film.

The problem with gay spaces is that it is exclusionary to non-gay people, the way English-speaking places feel unfriendly to the non-English-speaking. The general rule of course is that, if you don't belong, you would feel very alien in that group's space. But gay spaces are a notch worse, and that is due to the negative associations made of gayness. If you're heterosexual with no homophobia, that's fine, you don't have any qualms about being seen there. You KNOW you're not homosexual. But if you have homosexual inclinations, but don't want anybody else to know that, then you would feel it is extremely incriminating to be caught in such a situation. You have an underlying guilt complex.

Yet you have homosexual inclinations, or at least some deep-seated, slightly dirty, fascination with things gay, and a gay film is something you just can't let pass. You must see it; it's an itch you have to scratch. So you go, but naturally, so do thousands of gay people, for they are the group that identify with such films. For you, it's a stressful event and you come out of it with mixed feelings. Being a little scared and edgy is not something you want to go through again, but (unless the film was a flop) you ultimately did get what you wanted, and it's a small achievement nevertheless.

If it's any consolation, every one of the thousand people in that foyer went through that first step. It may not have been a film; it may have been, in their case, a gay party which a friend brought them to, or the first time they stepped into a gay café or pub, or a sauna abroad, or the first time they bought a gay book, with heart pounding away as they approached the cashier, timing it so that no other shopper was around.

It's called coming out. The internal coming out -- the gradual recognition within yourself that you are gay.

And you know what? All these people in the cinema foyers, all of them who look so practised in their gayness, so happy and extrovert with all their gay friends, they all remember their coming out. They can all still feel, just under the skin, the nervousness, the compulsion, the loneliness and the excitement they went through. Twenty years ago would still feel excruciatingly like yesterday, and for that reason, if there is one thing which just about all gay people have intuitive empathy for, it's the new boy in the foyer, hugging the pillar for security.

© Yawning Bread 

Footnotes

None

Addenda

None