Gay film fest still fab
by Brian Jewell
arts writer
Thursday May 1, 2008
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The annual tradition of the Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival at the Museum of Fine Arts is always accompanied by the annual tradition of queer film buffs grousing about the Festival selections. And why shouldn't we grouse? The Festival is only 24 years old, but it's about due for a mid-life crisis. Long gone are the days when we'd eagerly embrace anything with queer content, no matter how badly it was made. Long gone, too, are the days when a gay film fest was our best bet to see any LGBT work at all. And yet, a number of the films in this year's festival have little to recommend themselves beyond the mere fact that they're gay, or that they trade on familiar and thus comforting stereotypes about queens and butch dykes; while the most interesting films are the ones that look beyond the queer community to examine our place within larger communities.