I
knew
I
was
attracted to men
before I knew I was
Attracted To Men.
It began at my summer
camp,
a
small
wooded
refuge
tucked
away
in
northern Wisconsin. There,
one or two hundred boys or
so, from age 9 to 15, played,
swam,
canoed,
sailed,
crafted, cooked, gathered,
laughed, cried. I crushed. (I
did those other things, too.)
I didn’t know how to
describe it, so I didn’t. I
let it smolder, carrying on
summer after summer as
I
approached
hormonal
adolescence. We had our
social with the girls’ camp.
I flung a frisbee around
with my friends. We talked
about girls back home. “Ah,
I’ve got no one,” I said.
I had my eyes on the older
kids and, more commonly,
the counselors — those
who were spending their
first one or two summers of
college in rural Wisconsin,
often
sweating
and
shirtless. In recent months,
as I sorted out my sexuality,
both privately and publicly,
I realized that maybe the
reason why I didn’t like
camp as much as the others
was that, quite simply, I was
surrounded by people I was
attracted to. That’s pretty
hard for the 36 weeks in
total I spent as a camper
there.
There’s a strange little
movie that came out in
the mid-1950s called “Tea
and Sympathy,” which was
adapted from a successful
and
controversial
play
that set its aim on crises
in masculinity and gay
panic.
When
the
film
moved from the stage to
the screen, MGM, which
had won the buying frenzy
when the film’s rights were
up for sale, struggled to
adapt the subject material
to something that would
pass the stringent censors.
Ultimately,
the
film’s
focus changed from a gay
student at an all-male prep
school to an effeminate, but
ultimately straight, student.
I don’t want to pass
judgment
on
the
film,
mangled
by
the
stifled
politics of the conformist
1950s,
but
“Tea
and
Sympathy”
portrays
a
spirit and mentality rarely
captured so painstakingly
accurately. Protagonist Tom
Lee’s crippling interiority
— he is psychologically
tormented
for
his
femininity into submission
and silence — far exceeds
in severity my experience,
but there are some similar
strands. I kept to myself,
feeling
psychologically
terrorized by the presence
of the hyper-masculine.
And like Tom, I found
myself in a strange place
in a homosocial setting.
I was rarely the object of
derision, yet I couldn’t help
but feel out of place in my
cabin. Everyone was so
straight. And not only was
I not (though I didn’t quite
have the word for it, and
I didn’t grasp it), I was an
introvert in a small space.
There wasn’t much room
for me.
One of the centerpieces of
“Tea and Sympathy” is the
very homoerotic (or at least
sounding) hazing sequence,
in which the older boys
at the school run around
and tear off the pajamas
of the new students (how
heterosexual!). Tom, called
“sister boy” by his peers, is
“protected” at the event by
those who are quicker to see
him as a woman than a man.
I was included in activities,
to be sure, but often my
avoidance came from a
sexual fear I could not at
that time articulate. On
the final evening of camp,
my penultimate summer
at least, the ninth graders
(the oldest campers) played
a naked basketball game. I
avoided it at all costs.
That’s why, after watching
“Tea and Sympathy,” I was
surprised to find myself
gravitating more toward
another film, “Everybody
Wants Some!!” Put simply,
though the two films take
place in similar settings,
“Tea and Sympathy” is
told by an outsider and
“Everybody Wants Some!!”
is told by an insider, a
freshman in the baseball
house at a Texas college
enjoying his welcome week
in 1980. Jake is the perfect
freshman for (most of) the
guys in the house: He is
jovial, funny, pokes fun at
the older jocks and hangs
with the cool older guys.
And yet he knows his place:
He submits to the hazing
rituals of his house, at the
risk of losing his ability
to have children, and he
follows
the
older
guys
around.
But Jake thrives. And the
best part is: He does it with
his reserve. After the older
guys strike out flirting with
some girls moving into the
dorms, one, played by Zoey
Deutch, approaches their
car, points to Jake and
notes, “I like the quiet guy
in the back seat.”
“Everybody
Wants
Some!!,”
perversely
I
suppose, was a sort of wish
fulfillment — an alternate
reality in which I was
well-liked, I was the heir
apparent to the masculine
reign, instead of the quiet
kid in the corner who was
largely
ignored.
It
was
fantasy, it was fictional, it
was false. It was freedom.
2B
Managaing Statement Editor:
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Deputy Editors:
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Wednesday, November 15, 2017 // The Statement
The picture stays in the kid: ‘Tea and Sympathy’
BY DANIEL HENSEL, DAILY FILM EDITOR
statement
THE MICHIGAN DAILY | NOVEMBER 15, 2017
ILLUSTRATION BY ERIN TOLAR