I finally (three years late) caught up with Pariah, the first feature of writer/director Dee Rees. It's good. Really good. Too flawed to be great, perhaps, but the direction, cinematography from Bradford Young, and lead performance by Adepero Oduye are all thrilling achievements.
The thing is, Pariah is the most cliched gay story imaginable: the coming out story. When it was new and anyone at all was still talking about it, the unoriginality of the film came under some scrutiny: "sure, it's good, but it's just another one of those. Can't we get a bit more creative?"
I resent this. I don't dispute it: the coming out story is not original. It was, not too long ago, but it isn't anymore. No, I dispute the idea that it should be more original. The coming out story is as original as romance. Or tragedy. Or a coming of age story. Because, effectively, it is a coming of age story. We've had millions of those. We will have millions more. The thing about a coming of age story (or any other broad plot structure), is that it's basic. It's a common experience upon which infinite variations can be played. There can be as many coming of age stories as there are adults; as many romances as there are couples; as many coming out stories as there are people who come out.
The exciting thing is that the coming out story is uniquely gay. Sure, the language has been co-opted to mean any time anyone reveals something that was secret, but that doesn't make it less gay... that just makes our culture that much gayer. Romances can be straight, gay, whatever. Coming of age is something anyone can go through. Coming out? That's gay.
Unique among minorities, the LGBTQIA community is not visually separated from the dominant culture, but internally separated. It's a great, terrifying, empowering, painful moment when an individual finally leaves the closet. Can't we treat that moment with respect? Can't it exist in infinite permutations, being told and retold again and again and again? No one should silence a lesbian from telling her coming out story just because they've heard coming out stories before. That's prejudice disguised as aesthetic judgment.
Hopefully, in the future, the closet becomes less of an issue. As society grows more tolerant, it becomes easier than ever for younger and younger people to come out. This doesn't negate the coming out story: it transforms it. No longer the slow, extended torment of the closet, of double lives and lying. Instead, the sunny confusion of adolescence, the alternating timid and brash explorations of sexuality and identity, the multiplicity of LGBTQIA experience. What other character study (a coming out narrative is, fundamentally, a character study, since by necessity it kind of has to be more about character than plot) is devoted almost exclusively to our community?
It seems like every time another celebrity comes out these days, they are greeted with cries of, "eh." On the one hand, this is a sign of tolerance, that whether or not you're gay is not your defining quality, that sexuality isn't an important issue. It's progress. Inevitably someone will say some variation on "Big deal. Who cares?"
I care. Because sexuality may not be a big deal anymore, but it's important. Because sexuality does not define us, but it is part of us. Because there can never be too many coming out stories.
As with most story structures: the key is not "do it differently." The key is, "do it well."
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