‘Are you a homosexual? Than God hates you. Right now, currently’
These words come out from a preacher’s mouth, who finds himself shouting against the participants of a gay pride located in a city of the Bible Belt.
‘Remember Sodom & Gomarrha’ is a threatening warning written on a big poster, proudly hold by three men who happens to be in the same place where both the preacher and the gay pride are.
At this point, three questions raise:
1) What is the Bible Belt?
2) Does God hate anyone?
3) Where is Gomarrha?
Let’s answer them one step at the time.
What is the Bible Belt?
The Bible Belt, like a real belt, hugs (very tightly) the U.S.A, dividing them in two different parts; in one part the blood run easily throughout the veins, in the other one, well, it does not run than easy.
The second part consists of much of the Southern-Eastern and South-Central States, namely: Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, part of Florida, Virginia and West Viginia. Quite a lot of states, isn’t it?
Inside the Bible Belt live and preach many fundamentalist conservative communities and, as you may imagine, their views about Christianity are often not that tolerant when it comes to diversities.
This subsequently leads to discriminations based on religious beliefs, which in return give birth to the misfits, the outcasts.
Does God hate anyone?
It is hard to answer this question. In my humble opinion, God does not hate anyone. But I am aware of the fact that other people, like the preacher we were talking about, do believe that God is capable of actually hating someone.
What we should focus, from now on, is not the answer to this question but rather the consequences and challenges a misfit faces while living in a place where there are people who do believe in a quick-tempered and vengeful God, who is happy to let His children live in the most miserable and forgotten places on earth.
In order to answer these questions, we may find it useful to analize Misfits, a brilliant documentary film directed by an extremely talented Danish director: Jannik Splidspoel.
With his camera in his hand, Jannik penetrated Tulsa, also known as ‘the buckle of the Bible Belt’. And it is not that hard to find out why: Tulsa has 400000 inhabitants and more than 2000 churches. Between two of them, there is also the one and only Lgbt youth centre of the city (a.k.a the only safe place for all those young adults who are constantly exposed to discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation/gender identity).
This centre’s activities are vital for many people in Tulsa, as the three protagonists’ lives confirm while sharing their life during the whole documentary. We see them trying to overcome their obstacles, which are in a sense more difficult than those faced by their heterosexual and cisgender peers.
Three young adults, three different stories. Three human beings who, every Saturday, gather themselves around this centre, where they can talk, laugh and share blood and tears with other human beings, who are now like a second family.
There is Larissa, 17, who stopped being a daughter after coming out to his mother. There was Larissa’s best friend, the missing protagonist of the documentary film, who took his life because of all the threatens and vexations he couldn’t no longer bear.
There is Ben, who, after some problematic moments and tensions with his family members (especially with his brother and father who at first had troubles accepting him and despised him for being gay), receives now all the support he needs.
And, at the end, there is D. He has no job, no high school diploma, no official birth certificate.
D. is the living proof of what happens when your family kicks you out of the household and you have nowhere else to go.
Probably, he is the misfit par excellence. However, is condition does not stop him from fighting against intolerance and prejudice, and he is now ready to -literally- riding his problems away on a bicycle.
-Mom, I think I am gay […].
-I have always known.
– I wasn’t getting support from my sister, from my husband or from my kids.[…] But you know, I just got to the point where it was like, well you know, maybe it is going to be me and Ben against the world.
– […]They said, Benny was gay. I looked at him an I said: I hate you. You are not my broche. I would rather see you die. […] *he cries*.
Jannik’s misfits are winners, they never give up, even when the world they were born into becomes oppressive and breathing becomes nearly impossible.
In fact, despite all the hate they get even from their parents, they find some time to express themselves, to fantasize about their future and to give a passionate kiss to their partner under thousands of lights.
Although the cornerstone of this documentary is let the world know how the Lgbt community lives in a backward-looking society which is, at the same time, ironically part of the so-called First World, Jannik focuses on the details which make the lesbian and genderqueer Larissa, the gay Ben and the bisexual D. normal adolescents who do their make-up, gossip and get excited for a night out with their friends – like any other teenagers would do.
These teenagers, who often face alienation from their society because of their sexual orientation, are in this case shown just for what they are: teenagers. They are no longer the lesbian, gay and bisexual ones, they are just teenagers who are trying to understand what they would like to do with their life. And they would love to have the support of their family and beloved ones, while doing that.
And that’s why Misfits feels like a punch in the stomach: it lifts the veil of discrimination, the same veil which leads some human beings to discriminate other human beings merely because of some social norms based on hate, hostility and ignorance.
Where is Gomarrah
First of all: Gomarrha does exist and it’s everywhere.
In spite of Gomorrah, whose historical circumstances may or may not believed to be true according to one’s beliefs, Gomarrah’s existence is undeniably accurate.
We may not count the exact number of its inhabitants, but we do know that Gomarrah’s citizens all have one thing in common: being intolerant (which unsurprisingly rhymes with ignorant).
Janniks Splidspoel’s ability to catch such an intolerance on camera is remarkable, and is easily spotted in the very first seconds of the documentary itself, when he focuses his camera on that ‘Remember Sodom & Gomarrha’ sign, which represents nothing but the hypocrisy of those conservatives who are not even able to spell Gomorrah correctly.
Misfits and Gomarrha
Too often, these two realities collide with each other. And too often, it is the last one that prevails over the first one.
Misfits subverts this rule, making it possible to hope for a better society, and instills that same hope in those who no longer think they have a reason to live.
Ben, Larissa and D.’s courage becomes ours, and we now have the duty to use it against discrimination, ignorance and intolerance.
