Jp in SD

With all this brouhaha over Netflix' pricing changes, and the just released details of how they are restructuring the company, and that one of their streaming providers (Starz) will no longer be providing content for them after January 28th, 2012, I decided I should probably start watching some of the nearly 100 movies in my instant queue.

Tonight, I watched a movie I haven't seen since college: The Naked Civil Servant. The movie follows Quentin Crisp's early life in London. Crisp is a very effeminate gay man, and he doesn't hide it. He pretty much takes it on himself to be a silent, if flamboyant, constant reminder to the people in pre— and post— WWII London that homosexuals exist. He was a one man Act Up. Just by walking down the street, he was letting everybody know "I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it (and please don't beat me up)".

After watching the movie, I was really struck by just how much he did for the gay movement, without really doing anything other than living his life out loud.

When the movie was done, Netflix showed a list of other movies I might be interested in, including a movie called An Englishman in New York, which has John Hurt reprising his role as Quentin Crisp, but many years later when he moved to New York in the early 80's. As an aside, the the song "Englishman in New York" was written by Sting about Quentin Crisp.

I found this movie to be even more entertaining. It's almost a new twist on the fish-out-of-water story. Here we see an aging queen of the old guard who existed by being flamboyant, now living in a city where most of the gays looked just like the "great dark man" that he so wanted when he was younger. Flamboyancy was out, masculinity was in.

In one of his performances, he said something that really dropped him out of favor with the public. They address that in this movie, and some really interesting insight into his character and what he really meant by the statement. If any of you remember the incident i'm talking about, I really recommend watching the movie.

In the end, he makes a really really interesting statement:

"you should make no effort to try and join society. Stay right where you are. Give your name and serial number, and wait for society to form itself around you, because it most certainly will. "

In other words: live your life, be proud, be happy, and don't try to "blend in". The rest of the world will, eventually, accept you and welcome you. But they can't do that if they don't know you are there.

I was really moved by this. I had kind of written off Crisp as a relic of a different age, out of touch with where gay life was now. Turns out, he really was in touch with how the world works.