I don't know if I should be happy or embarrassed to admit that I prefer literature. Reading, creating the images from words and concepts, in my mind — to just passively look at films. Maybe that's why I make films after all, it's engaging to make the pictures - that's what I do when I read, make the pictures. So for me reading and writing and directing films are linked, they're connected, to me anyway, in that I do the construction. And because I like literature so much I tend to see film in terms of the complexity of literature.
I see layers and subtexts, and relish decoding the texts and concepts embodied in the film, narratively and visually. As a filmmaker I encode, embody, layer and subtextualise. Filmmaking is activism.
But I'm finding that as I make more films, that many of the queer subtexts I've placed in my films kind of get lost, and so I'm making the primary story - the ideas of the film - queer and clear... as glass. I'm getting away from literature and more towards something else. Not filmmaking as it's practiced in the mainstream, but something else. Something angry. Something with its emotions and ideas right there, right here, right now. I just don't need the subtexts anymore; I've got the text, hell I live the text, and I don't really care about fitting in.
I want to fit out.
Which leads to FAQS.
FAQS is a very simple story, very easy to see.
Driven by compassion and anger, the project asserts itself as a portrait of a kind of idealised queer culture, one that stands up and is quite willing to fight for its existence and values, but also quite realistically sees itself as under attack from a culture that the film identifies as 'heterocentric' to the extreme.
(Someone called my last film, Luster, an after-school special for a perfect world. I loved that; it was so clear.) FAQS also positions itself in opposition to both the apologists, enthusiasts for gay 'blending in' and the superficial stereotypes being promulgated in the American media through shows like Will and Grace, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
I don’t know if the characters are 'realistic'. They're people I want to meet, they're bold and brassy and they have an agenda. They recognise straight culture as oppressive and dangerous, and they're out to help other queers escape that culture, reject that culture and to survive that culture. They work together and together they find all the emotions they've been denied, and they create new human patterns of living and acting. They're very proud to be who they are and their synergy causes change.
The characters are queer superheroes. Everybody that they come into contact with changes. For the better. These queers enforce good, embrace sex and fight evil. If they could, they'd emigrate to a gay country and join its army, but since they can't, they mobilise to protect themselves in the middle of a hostile straight city. They don't back down and they're sexy as hell.
Even though I want to avoid subtext, perhaps one cannot avoid history. I have alluded to queer history in the design of the characters - street youths representing the energy of Act Up or Gay Power. Drag queens representing power anarchy, and the cutting edge of the Stonewall Revolution.
These character backgrounds aren't 'in' the film; they inform the characters, but since the characters are totally on the surface, their historical aspects are as close as this film comes to subtext.
I think what I really want with this one is kind of a riot; a riot of colour, a riot of movement, a riot of action, a riot of ideas piling up and mixing it up with the character's guns and clothes and skin and sex. Very direct.
Riotous in form and vision and clear as crystal in content and angry as hell in terms of civil rights.
FAQS is in a way, I think, my first film. This is a destination I've been working on for a long time and I finally see the place down the road.
More about sex and less about reading.
- Everett Lewis, 2005
India Meets Destiny in Everett Lewis’ Latest
By Gary Kramer
Published: March 16, 2006
Joe Lia is a queer homeless kid named India in FAQs Writer/director/auteur Everett Lewis’ films Luster and Skin & Bone explore the sexy side of L.A. life, and his latest effort, FAQs is no exception. The story of a queer homeless kid named India (Joe Lia) meeting his Destiny (Allan Louis), a drag queen savior, this nudity-filled tale of finding a family and battling homophobia is great fun. Lewis recently spoke with The San Francisco Bay Times and answered some FAQs himself.
(The San Francisco Bay Times:) OK, Everett where do you find the cute guys in your films, and how do you get them to take their clothes off?
(Everett Lewis:) Goodness! I cast in traditional ways, and I ask people if they know people to do this. I try to scare them by telling them that there is more nudity and pornography than there is, so when they do it, there’s actually less than they thought. Joe, the lead, I knew. Though sometimes it’s hard—like casting the Spencer character. [Getting naked] is just business. They can’t eat fat, so they can be skinny and attractive. [Actors] like it when they get going at it. It’s just the first time is a bit unnerving.
What is your fascination with the sex/porn industry?
Skin & Bone is where it started. The nature of movies is [watching and] identifying with characters who are sometimes undressed. Movies don’t have enough naked men. I am alluding to this by exploiting flesh and asking people to look at it
Your film tackles issue of abuse and homelessness and being ostracized. Why are these topics you want to discuss?
In Luster I wanted to show that people shouldn’t judge what other people like. [In that film, one character enjoys getting beaten]. He finds someone who likes to do that. In FAQs, I [present] a lot of bad experiences. This is the first movie that is not as preconceived as heavily as my others. It was intuitively written. That speech of Spencer’s [about being beaten] happened to me.
How did you create the characters in FAQs?
As abstract as it might seem, the [characters] are all people I know or have met. It’s very intuitive and direct. I wanted to show characters that didn’t buy into straight society and were very powerful in their reactions to straight society.
What about Destiny? Did you know Allan Louis beforehand?
I had been a heavy clubgoer for several years before I made the film. I used to see Allan perform elaborate shows with Alexis Arquette. I started looking for him when I wrote it, and he said he’d read it and said he’d be in it. He was excited about creating a layered character—someone with dignity and who gets a boyfriend.
Your politics are very prominent in this film. Do you find making a film with political overtones difficult than doing your previous work? Is this a new direction for you and your films?
It felt intuitively right. As a film viewer, I’ve not been interested in films with overt political content. But as a filmmaker…it’s a lot of work to make one of these movies. If the gay community realized how hard they were to make, they’d support them more. I am extremely angry at how gay people are treated. We are a political tool for people to get votes.
Your film clearly examines the difference between queers and straights. Why did this thread become so important in this film?
One thing I really like about being gay is something most people don’t like - that once you accept it and get into it, you can redefine what you are doing. The only boundaries you accept are the ones you pick. The characters here defend who they are very strongly. I tried to create a gay world I’d be interested in inhabiting.
Why did you choose the title FAQs?
The question I ask over and over is what is the problem with “straight” people? Why do they hate us? But that was a little too formal to ask: Why do straight people beat us up? I personally really liked the byplay with FAQ and FAG. I realize that there are not many questions asked in the film, but “Why do they hate us?” is asked repeatedly throughout.