Tag Archives: James Duval

‘May’ Is a Grotesque Plea for Kindness

It’s October! That means it’s time to discuss one of my favorite Halloween Uterus Horror films, May. Released back in 2002, May was only the second feature film of writer and director Lucky McKee (The Woman, All Cheerleaders Die). As with many entries in this subgenre, the film didn’t have great box office success despite getting a fair amount of critical praise. Despite this, May is certainly one of McKee’s most iconic films, and it has garnered a cult following of devoted fans over the years. 

The film centers on a young woman named May (Angela Bettis). May suffers from a lazy eye. As a child, she was forced to wear an eye patch to try and fix it, which led to her being ostracized by her peers. Her only “friend” is a doll she got as a gift from her mother (Merle Kennedy) as a child. The day she received the doll, May’s mother told her, “If you can’t find a friend, make one.” And yet, the doll was too perfect and too special to play with, so since her childhood May has kept the doll safely in a glass case.

As an adult, May’s situation hasn’t changed all that much. She now has glasses that help fix her lazy eye and is getting contacts that will do the same; she also has a job working as a veterinary assistant. Inside, though, she’s still the same lonely girl. Despite her age, it’s apparent she has lived a very sheltered, lonely life with no close friends or significant others, except of course her doll. However, everything changes for May when she first sets eyes on Adam (Jeremy Sisto), a local mechanic. Seemingly the first person May has been interested in, she becomes fixated on Adam, but more specifically his hands. After a couple of dates, Adam decides May is too weird for him and ghosts her. This is only the beginning of May’s downward spiral.

With every social interaction she has, it becomes more and more apparent that May isn’t great with people. She didn’t gain social skills most children do because she was an outsider. May’s mother wasn’t much help in that department either, giving her a doll instead of helping her find ways to make real friends to play with. Now, all grown up, May constantly turns inward when around people. She’s shy and awkward, but seeing Adam makes May want to be more social. Her desire forces her to try and be more outgoing, venturing outside her comfort zone just to get to know a guy. One can imagine how much effort it would take to put yourself out there, which means it hits May even harder when Adam thinks she’s a weirdo – a freak – and he wants nothing to do with her.

May quickly experiences her next bit of heartbreak. The receptionist at the vet, Polly (Anna Faris), has a flirtation with May. This time, May is trying to find human connection while also exploring her sexuality. Polly seems receptive to May’s eccentricities, but not long after sharing a kiss, Polly moves on to another woman. After that, May comes close to befriending a strange punk kid (James Duval) at the bus stop, but when he finds an unfortunate surprise in her freezer, he wants nothing to do with her. May is already a late bloomer, both in terms of social interactions and sexuality. She doesn’t have the years of love and friendships and heartbreaks that help a person mentally process these kinds of rejections. Meeting Adam and being rejected by him throws May into a state of turmoil, leading her to experiment with her sexuality, desperately trying to find human connection, and eventually turning to drastic measures just to feel seen.

Among the many things May learned from her mother, the most impactful seems to be the importance of beauty and perfection. Even when May was a child, her mother told her to hide the eyepatch under her hair if May wanted to make friends. This is why the doll is a great representation of the “values” instilled in May. Beauty is what gives a person value, and perfection is something to strive for above all else. 

As May begins to try to connect with other people, she always fixates on one part of the person’s body: Adam’s hands, Polly’s neck, and Polly’s new girlfriend’s legs – even the punk kid’s arms – all catch May’s eye. Each person has one perfect piece, but the whole has flaws. Like mother used to say, “If you can’t find a friend, make one.” Between the constant rejection and the life lessons from her mother, it’s no wonder May takes those teachings a bit too literally. 

On Halloween night, May dresses up in a homemade costume that makes her look just like her beloved doll. She then visits each person who has rejected her to collect her favorite piece of them. Upon returning home, she uses her sewing skills to assemble all the pieces into a perfect whole, but upon admiring her work May realizes her new friend can’t see her. May sacrifices one of her own eyes for the friend. She’s finally created the perfect companion and the only friend she’ll ever need.

Many viewers who watch May will empathize with the titular character. Between children being cruel, and the life lessons provided by her mother, it’s easy to see how May would end up as such a shy and socially inept adult. She clearly has no idea how to navigate human interactions, and it’s largely because she missed most of the important social milestones. Her sheltered existence means she doesn’t know how to process rejection or heartache; she doesn’t understand what’s socially appropriate, and she doesn’t even understand her own sexuality. All May wants is a friend, and after years of having no one but her doll, it’s no wonder the extreme lengths she was willing to go to for a sense of companionship. 

McKee crafts a truly haunted piece of Uterus Horror with May. This intimate look into the mind of a fragile woman is compelling as is, but adding the horrors of dismembering people to collect their best parts, only to reassemble them into a perfect composite, is a disturbing way to emphasize her fractured state of mind. It’s obviously an extreme case, but May’s desire to be seen and loved is one most people can relate to on some level. It’s a cautionary tale not just for parents trying to raise caring, capable individuals, but it’s also a great reminder to be kind to those you interact with. You never know what they’re going through, or what they’re capable of.

How Gregg Araki’s ‘The Doom Generation’ Steered My Queer Identity and Filmmaking

Upon its release in 1995, Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation was lambasted by critics. It received a D grade from Entertainment Weekly, while Roger Ebert infamously gave the film a zero-star rating. Since then, it has become a cult classic, championed for its surreal production design, iconic costumes, and killer soundtrack. The Doom Generation influenced my burgeoning queer identity when I first saw it on VHS as a young teen and continues to inspire my filmmaking to this day.    

The second installment in Araki’s Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy, The Doom Generation follows juvenile lovers Amy Blue (Rose McGowan) and Jordan White (James Duval) as they pick up a dangerous, handsome drifter named Xavier Red (Johnathon Schaech). After accidentally killing a QuickieMart owner, the trio embarks on a nightmarish road trip punctuated by profanity, junk food, kinky sex, and comic book violence that reaches a tragic and shocking climax.  

Despite the subtitle, “A Heterosexual Movie By Gregg Araki,” The Doom Generation is inherently queer. Araki is recognized as a pioneer of New Queer Cinema, a term coined by B. Ruby Rich to describe a crop of films from the early 1990s—such as Araki’s The Living End—that seemed to share a common style and attitude. His not-gay-as-in-happy-but-queer-as-in-fuck-you sensibility fuels The Doom Generation.

“Teen is a Four Letter Word”

When the opening credits announce that a film is presented by “The Teen Angst Movie Company,” and “fuck” is uttered as the first word of dialogue, it is evident that subtlety is not the aim. And subtleness wasn’t what I wanted when I first saw The Doom Generation while coming to terms with my queerness. I was sick of the casual homophobia and GAP khakis prevalent in my suburban high school. Reading Dennis Cooper and listening to Portishead, I was alienated and sought an alternative representation of adolescence contrary to Clueless. 

The first “fuck” is spoken by Amy. With her perfectly painted potty-mouth, dark bob haircut that was definitely not inspired by Uma Thurman’s look in Pulp Fiction, and “Eat, Fuck, Kill” button, she is one of my favorite film characters. Amy is everything I wanted to be: assertive—literally and figuratively—behind the wheel, adventurous and unapologetic about her sexual desires. She also fucks Xavier, my ultimate 90s crush. When bullied, I drew strength from her confidence and attitude. At the film’s grisly conclusion, she is no damsel in distress. Amy emerges as the blood-splattered final girl, freeing herself, saving Xavier, and fiercely fighting back against their attackers. I pay tribute to her in my short film, Monster Mash, where a queer male character dresses up as her for Halloween. 

Referring to herself and Jordan, Amy observes, “There just is no place for us in this world.” This line is significant and resonated with me. Delivered with solemnity, it identifies Amy and Jordan as outsiders. Lacking out queer peers or role models, I felt the same way. Important enough to be included as the intro on the film’s CD soundtrack, the line also proves to be painfully prophetic. 

Araki and Sexuality

Xavier crashes into their lives as his body smashes against the windshield of Amy’s car. He is fending off a Gang of Goons played by Skinny Puppy, who pointedly use “cocksucker” as their insult of choice. This obscenity is noteworthy. It situates Xavier, Amy, and Jordan within a culture that views sex acts between two men as abhorrent and reprehensible. It also foreshadows Xavier’s gruesome fate. Oozing blood and bad boy sex appeal, Xavier hijacks Amy and Jordan’s vehicle. He is the most overtly queer character in the film and derails their monogamous, heteronormative-seeming relationship. With his seductive swagger and anarchic outlook, Xavier catalyzes sexual experimentation. He propels Amy and Jordan beyond the limits of mainstream society.  

The filmmaking language of The Doom Generation emboldens my work. Techniques of classical Hollywood cinema are subverted or reappropriated to serve the queer narrative. Araki positions Jordan and Xavier closer than two males are typically seen together on screen. It always looks like they are just about to kiss. The male figure is eroticized and admired, where traditionally, the female body is objectified in cinema. Though Amy’s breasts are bared throughout the film, the scale of nudity is balanced with Xavier displaying his muscular physique for most of the movie. Amy’s buttocks are glimpsed through her coveted transparent raincoat in the penultimate scene, whereas Jordan bends over and exposes his naked ass twice, and Xavier reveals his ass once. 

Rose McGowan and James Duval hit the road in Gregg Araki's 'The Doom Generation.'

In Amy’s absence, the camera slowly pushes in on the young men. Jordan and Xavier are framed in a two-shot usually reserved for the heterosexual leads of a rom-com love scene. Jordan interrupts this charged moment to urinate, but it seems to have aroused him enough to enable the consummation of his relationship with Amy. Subsequently, Jordan and Amy’s passionate bathtub sex inspires Xavier to masturbate. In a series of sensual close-ups, Xavier pinches his erect nipple. The camera lingers on the dark, coarse hair of his treasure-trail. When he closes his eyes and leans back to ejaculate, the image drifts dreamily out of focus, enhancing the swooning ecstasy of this release. The carnal sequence concludes with Xavier licking his semen off his hand. 

Flickering Myth claims, “I could have happily gone through life without having seen James Duval’s arsecrack and ballbag and…certainly could have gone decades of happy years not watching Johnathon Schaech eating semen.” But this was just what I wanted to see. Araki’s favoring of the male form—and his subversive approach to depictions of sexuality onscreen—revealed my own desires. His queer gaze made me feel less alone and implied the existence of other viewers like me.

The sex scenes in The Doom Generation are galvanized by a dynamic editing rhythm, shifts in perspective, and various framing choices, but the camera is never predatory. The actors are not ogled like the cast of a Larry Clark film. Self-pleasure serves as a means of identity exploration, and sexual fluidity is celebrated. Araki’s approach to sexuality in The Doom Generation informed the masturbatory fantasy sequences in my short film, After.

 Araki and Horror

Seven and Kids may have scared audiences in 1995, but The Doom Generation contains the year’s most horrifying and disturbing scene. It occurs at the climax of the film. On the lam, our Bonnie and two Clydes have confronted chaos at every rest stop, leaving a trail of maimed limbs and broken hearts. Played by sets of identical twins costumed in matching suits, the FBI is also on their case. The weary band of outsiders seeks refuge for the night in an abandoned warehouse. 

Here, the garish, saturated lighting of the rest of the film is replaced by the warm glow of a campfire. Hyper-stylization is traded for subdued realism. Jordan, Amy, and Xavier have finally escaped the relentless threats of the outside world. The prospect of a pansexual, polyamorous utopia seems possible, if only within the protective ring of firelight. Unlike the animalistic coupling earlier in the film, the ensuing throupling is treated tenderly. Crossfades beautifully blur bodies and faces together. The soundscape is stripped bare except for an undulating mix of sighs and panting. Unfortunately, the call of nature interrupts again. Amy exits to urinate, leaving Xavier and Jordan together on a dirty mattress. 

Gregg Araki's 'The Doom Generation' explores sex and violence with its queer characters.

The screen boldly goes black for 46 seconds as a menacing, echoing male voice recites a homophobic rhyme. A flickering strobe light reveals that three men have invaded. They previously harassed Jordan, Xavier, and Amy in a record store and now appear naked, aside from tube socks over their genitals and swastikas painted across their chests. Amy is raped first by one of the men, then with a religious statue. Jordan is castrated with a pair of gardening shears, and his severed penis is shoved in Xavier’s mouth. The sexual outlaws are punished for their transgressions. Only Amy and Xavier survive.

Desensitized by the preceding farcical violence, the viewer is utterly unprepared for the extremity of this bloodbath. It is devastating and made overwhelming by Araki’s barrage of horror cinema techniques. The disorienting strobe lighting harkens back to the swinging naked bulb of the cellar reveal in Psycho. Paired with the layering of Jordan’s shattering, amplified screams, the scene also recalls Laura Palmer’s strobe-lit murder in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me released just three years earlier. The Doom Generation deserves more credit for its effective horror elements. The anger and urgency that drive this scene similarly motivate my short film, Family. 

‘Family’ and Araki

Family mobilizes elements of the horror genre to critique heteronormative ideologies of family. Film theorist and critic Robin Wood observes that in horror cinema, “normality is threatened by the Monster.” Throughout film history, queer people and people of colour have been characterized as the abject or monstrous “others,” representing a threat to white, heterosexual normality. Family resists and reverses this convention as does The Doom Generation. 

In Family, an interracial gay couple is presented as the norm, terrorized by a grotesque representation of traditional family values that threatens to absorb and erase through assimilation. The monster is the nuclear family, and its intrusion is rendered violently in the film. When the gay couple is physically attacked and the lead is struck in the head, the film itself suffers a blow, abruptly cutting to black. Using darkness and manipulating sound as in The Doom Generation, the viewer viscerally experiences horror and the damaging effects of normative social influence with the characters. 

Araki’s rebellious spirit and unapologetically queer approach to filmmaking encourage me to defy expectations and challenge conformity in my own work. Genres can be blended; labels can be abandoned. My films similarly focus on outsiders searching for love in hostile environments while inspiration is drawn from Araki’s use of music and his provocative visual stylizing.   

Conclusion

Entertainment Weekly wishes viewers “good luck searching for meaning” in The Doom Generation beyond “blood and epithets.” Yet, the brutal conclusion makes a powerful statement. Araki unsubtly condemns the oppressive, conservative ideology and homophobia of an America intent on annihilating unconventional sexuality.    

The film has been criticized for its nihilism, and I agree that the ending is heartbreakingly bleak. Shellshocked, Amy and Xavier drive toward an uncertain future as Slowdive’s haunting “Blue Skied an’ Clear” rises on the soundtrack — one of cinema’s best music cues. But I accept Araki’s defense in Filmmaker Magazine that The Doom Generation is “also very much about love and its transcendent power.” For Araki, naïve and sensitive Jordan embodies the “purity and idealism” motivating all of the characters. “That’s why he’s the literal lamb of the slaughter at the end,” Araki explains, “because he personifies the kind of unselfish innocence that’s doomed in a cynical world.” 

At a time when I was reluctant to rent a video with suggestively queer cover art for fear of being outed, The Doom Generation was my gateway to queer cinema. Veering far from the middle-of-the-road, it is the wild ride I wanted to take as a young teen. Like the best (road) trips, it was transformative, steering my queer identity and filmmaking.  

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The Alien Horror of Gregg Araki’s ‘Nowhere’

In 1997, Gregg Araki’s Nowhere unleashed a loud contemporary soundtrack and rowdy teenage behavior on unsuspecting video stores across the country. Its minimalistic cover didn’t tell you much about the film; in fact, one might think it just another Soderbergh-esque indie about taboo subjects. Instead, the film is a hybrid genre weirdo, a mix of Angel (1984) and Fire in the Sky (1993). Nowhere manages to be corny and disturbing, with an emphasis on bodily horror. Your body has been tampered with; it is no longer your own.

In the decades before Araki’s films, queer representation was often tied to the horror genre. Queer themes and characters hid beneath the surface of films like The Old Dark House and Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker. As the genre suffered post-slasher, many filmmakers moved to theater-safe thrillers. Meanwhile, queer creators took their shot at being taken seriously with more reality-based films. While the late 80s/early 90s boasts a robust canon of dramatic cinema, queer horror fans were left wanting.

Representation being what it was, Araki balled-up the quiet pain of queer folks into art he could hurl back at Hollywood. Araki’s punk sensibilities spit in the face of a queer “mainstream” scene increasingly-dominated by straight actors. Much like the UK’s Derek Jarman, Araki used film to show how these citizens were made to feel like aliens: unable to exist except as a special effect or performance. Araki gave the victims of the AIDS crisis names and faces. He also gave them knives and guns.

Released in the wake of New Queer Cinema—an early ’90s movement of independent films made for and by the queer community—Nowhere was the final entry in Araki’s “Teen Apocalypse” trilogy. The Doom Generation is the most well-known of the three, thanks in part to its iconic cover featuring Rose McGowan. McGowan sets the tone for Araki’s universe, pointing a skull ring straight at you from the VHS case—a promise that Queers were as scary and strange as TV evangelists wanted the masses to believe. Doom Generation, the second film in the trilogy, resonated with a searching counterculture reeling in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s death. 

By the time Nowhere was released, Araki was already known for his color-bathed teenagers that either stand doe-eyed or punch and fuck anyone within reach. As the trilogy’s closer, Nowhere’s story revolves around Dark (James Duval), an aimless kid who seems to have survived the aggressive world that Doom Generation built. If that film was the apocalypse, Nowhere is the aftermath, a bleak landscape where nihilism is resigned to the occasional cat-call. Adolescent sex proves an unreliable escape; in keeping with the New Queer Cinema tradition, sex can kill you via partner or possession. Araki’s films are lush with pastel vibrance and beautiful figures, but the results are as ugly as they should be when someone is hurt.  

During its runtime, characters make earnest requests for love while others brutalize their peers. Heads are pulped with blunt weapons; one scene features a particularly memorable use of a tomato can. Characters are eviscerated across bed sheets with rigid legs pointing towards the sky. Look close, and you might spot a space lizard grabbing a beer from the fridge. These tonal shifts from heartfelt desires to tragicomic violence sent signals to queer youths who could recognize the sadness behind the absurdity. If you were going to die, you might as well laugh yourself into the grave.

For context, films showing a same-sex kiss were marked NC-17, which meant most theater chains would not carry them. Gay Panic was all-too-real; early in his career, actor Will Smith requested special effects for a same-sex kiss because of its damage to his reputation. No movie featuring a male-on-male directorial gaze was going to place high in a US cinema—not that Araki cared. This is especially the case for a film as weird as Nowhere. Throw in a few cosmic lizards, and Araki seemed hell-bent to deliver upon Midwestern fears.

On the surface level, Duval, a mainstay in Araki’s films, seems ripped from the violent but serene world of My Own Private Idaho. For many queer viewers, Duval’s turns as Jordan and Dark provided an iconic vessel, one destined to fail in a straight-binary world. Duval’s earnest delivery and innocent charisma made that ill-fated journey somehow easier to bear.

Dark bounces from conversation to conversation as others relate alien abduction stories. Having been burned by his FWB love interest (Rachel True, The Craft), Duval discovers a connection with Montgomery (Nathan Bexton), another boy who seems to have insight into Dark’s problem. Surprisingly, the chaos leads to Dark and Montgomery finally alone together. It’s a peaceful moment. The audience lets out a sigh of relief because the horrors have passed.

But this is a Gregg Araki film. Boy meets boy. Boy tries to kiss boy, but boy violently explodes into goo as a giant insect emerges from Montgomery’s body. “I’m outta here,” it says. 

While TV adverts were declaring the dangers of premarital sex, Araki knew teens didn’t need any help conjuring up fears. Forget the inevitable Kafka interpretations—this scene parodies how queer narratives must end in tragedy, with Araki delivering a horrifically comical end to his film. Nowhere thumbs its nose at tragic story conventions, devices that straight directors continue to use as punctuation for queer tales.

To clarify, this isn’t to suggest that Araki’s films damaged the LGBTQAI+ community by playing up conservative fears. Realistically, these horrors were going to be present regardless, and many were used to it. Queer viewers had to find onscreen representation alongside the violence and humiliation of those characters. It was typical for gay characters to experience sexual assaults or emasculation, reinforcing the idea that punishment is an inevitable outcome (2018’s Knife + Heart addresses this trope in a way that Araki might appreciate). 

Even while straight-made films like Cruising drew outrage in San Francisco for stereotypes, isolated viewers searched out this same content because it was the only way to see yourself onscreen. While Crusing offers a strong lead performance, it’s precisely that: Al Pacino dons the make-up of a gay man in the same way Lon Cheney becomes a werewolf (or mummy, take your pick). A prestigious film does not make the real horrors or homophobia any easier to accept or understand. You’d have a better chance spotting a UFO than reckoning with anti-queer motivations.

Araki’s legacy is one of queer representation that stood up to the stereotypes of a weak, dying breed. Doomed or not, there would be a fight. Californian aesthetics aside, the alien horrors of Nowhere are especially relevant to anyone living in Bible Belt areas with no Act-Up or community centers to offer teenage guidance. Nowhere captures a critical time in both LGBTQIA+ history and the evolution of Hollywood. Some of us grew up on The Breakfast Club, but me and mine grew up on Gregg Araki. Nowhere is proof that hands-on representation will find an audience, no matter what planet they’re from.

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