AN OPEN LETTER TO INTERESTED PARTIES IN AUSTRALIA AND ELSEWHERE CONCERNING THE CANCELLED QUEERDOC SCREENING OF DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER

My name is Tony Comstock. I am an American filmmaker, and the director of the documentary DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER, a film that explores a gay relationship with an unusual level of candor, sentiment, and sensuality.

Last July it was my privilege and honor to be invited to show DAMON AND HUNTER at Queer Screen’s 2006 queerDOC festival. Unfortunately, in mid-August, the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) denied Queer Screen’s request for a festival exemption to show the film.

Since the decision, there has been some speculation that the OFLC might grant an exemption to an altered version of DAMON AND HUNTER, and that this altered version might be screened at queerDOC. This is not to be. On August 31 I informed Queer Screen that I could not alter the film to meet the OFLC’s demands.

As there are already people who have purchased tickets to see DAMON AND HUNTER at queerDOC, I thought an explanation of my reasons was in order.

First, I would like to thank David Pearce, film programmer for Queer Screen for putting his professional reputation on the line by selecting DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER, and I would like to thank Lex Lindsay, Queer Screen’s manager, for putting his festival on the line to fight for his fellow Australians’ right to see this film. Making a film means nothing if people cannot see it, and I am ever grateful to David, Lex, and the Queer Screen organization for their efforts to try and put this film on a screen, in a cinema, so that it could be experienced by each viewer as a part of an audience. There is something magical about being in the dark, with a group of people you’ve never met before, responding to the film as one. It’s amplifying and affirming to your own emotions, and it’s a shame that people in Sydney have been denied the opportunity to experience DAMON AND HUNTER in this way.

Conversely, I am deeply disappointed by the OFLC’s refusal to grant an exemption for DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER to play at queerDOC, which is the world’s only film festival devoted to gay and lesbian documentary films. Through their actions, the OFLC has needlessly inflicted financial hardship on an already under-staffed and under-funded organization, and has almost certainly ensured that this film will never legally be seen in a legitimate venue in Australia.

The OFLC’s X-rating of DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER means the film cannot legally be screened publicly anywhere, save a video peep booth in Canberra. The OFLC’s X-rating means the DVD cannot legally be used by gay men’s health organizations (as is already being done here in the US). The OFLC’s X-rating means the DVD cannot legally be sold in Western Australia, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, or New South Wales. And of course the OFLC’s denial of an exemption means a film festival cannot legally screen DAMON AND HUNTER. This is nothing short of a ban. For the OFLC to suggest that it is anything else is disingenuous at best.

By statute, the OFLC holds, and has exercised in the past, wide discretion in the ratings applied to sexually explicit material, and in the granting of festival exemptions. In this instance, for reasons known only to them, they’ve chosen to hide behind the letter of the law, rather than honor the legislative intent, which is their ultimate charter. I would offer that their decisions, in particular their refusal to grant a festival exemption to for the queerDOC screening is heavy-handed, serves no legitimate purpose in maintaining civil order, and is wildly disconnected with the wishes of the vast majority of Australian people.

Since the film’s release, I’ve been overwhelmed and delighted by the enthusiastic response Australians have given DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER. The film has received good reviews, festival laurels, and a warm audience response, all of which confirms my own experience and belief that Australians and Australian society are tolerant and progressive. I’d venture if you asked 100 Australians if an audience of adults, mostly gay men, should be denied the chance to watch a film that celebrates the very essence of what it means to be gay, the overwhelming majority of them would be horrified at the thought. They’d probably go on to say “Thank goodness we don’t do things like that here in Australia!” That’s the insidious thing about censorship; unless it’s done with a thick black marker, most people never realize it’s happened.

There has been some suggestion that an accommodation with the OFLC might have been reached, that the film could have been shown with the sexual content removed, while preserving the artistic and political intent of the film. Indeed, in the past weeks I have spent many hours and thousands of dollars in an attempt to re-cut the film in accordance with the OFLC’s instructions. But in the end I could not reconcile my reasons for making this film with the demands made by the OFLC.

I made this film because I believe depictions of truly joyous and wholesome sex, depictions that represent the overwhelmingly positive and important role that our sexuality plays in our humanity, are all but absent from the cinematic landscape. Moreover, in an age where it is easier than ever to see sexually explicit imagery, it is harder than ever to find imagery that reflects the common reality of sex: that sex is nice; that sex is normal; that sex is good. I made this film because even today, here in America, in Australia, and elsewhere, the state’s role in the most intimate aspects of the lives of its citizens remains an open question.

To show DAMON AND HUNTER as demanded by Australian censorship laws, with all of the sex obliterated would have been to cut out the very heart and soul of this film. It would be a disservice to every person who came to the screening in the hope of seeing a film that would acknowledge their sexuality as something wholesome and noble. To show this film with the sex obliterated is to lend weight to the still pervasive and profound belief that there is something shameful about the giving and receiving of sexual pleasure. To do so under government threat would be to capitulate to everything that I have struggled against, and would acknowledge that the state has ultimate dominion over our minds and our bodies. To do so would be to concede to values regarding freedom and human dignity I find alien and repugnant.

I have been a photographer my entire adult life. In the name of bearing witness to the human condition I’ve documented unspeakable suffering, violence, and death; and for that I’ve been praised as a courageous witness. When I review the scope of people, places and events that have passed before my lens, I am unable to comprehend the censor’s rational for “protecting” adults from photographic images of sexuality. Adults have the capacity and the right to choose for themselves what sort of images they wish to see. They do not need to be protected from images of sex, and least of all from a film like DAMON AND HUNTER. In the face of horrific images we are exposed to each and every day, the OFLC decision is not only unfair, it is perverse.

DAMON AND HUNTER is a film about the joy love and sex brings into our lives. DAMON AND HUNTER is about our manifest right as adults to experience that joy, regardless of whom or how we love. DAMON AND HUNTER is about the dignity we find when we are true to ourselves in the face of adversity and oppression. DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER is a film about what’s best in all of us.

Very sincerely,
Tony Comstock

Success begets success (which can seem so unfair when it’s happening to someone else!); we are more than happy to take our good luck and roll with it. A round of poster and handbill re-design, press-release re-writes and all the rest of the falderal that goes with properly promoting the film. It is both exciting and exhausting, exhausting not because it’s hard work, but because it causes hopefulness, and hopefulness causes me to begin to steel myself against disappointment. (I’m surprised to find out) I’m fragile that way.

For most of my professional life most of my work was on commission – please makes us a picture of X to accomplish Y and we will pay you Z. It’s all very tidy, at least by comparison to making films and then hoping people will like them, hoping people will buy them.

One of my favorite things to say when I want to sound shrewd is that expectation management is the key to a successful low-budget film. But what do you do when something succeeds far beyond any of your own (well-managed) expectations – when hopefulness is feed log after log, and perhaps a dash of gasoline now and then? It’s a bit dizzying, but I hope I get the chance to get used to it!

Below is the press release for queerDOC, in all its self-aggrandizing glory. Longtime readers will recognize bit and pieces from previous blog posts. This journal keeping is proving useful! (Thanks Professor Wenger!)

Syndey, Australia Fresh off its win at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (Best Documentary), Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together moves on to the 2006 edition of queerDOC, the world’s premiere queer documentary film festival. This year’s festival will feature two screenings of Damon and Hunter, to be held at the Dendy Cinema King Street Newtown. Show times are Tuesday 12th Sept at 9.00pm and Wednesday 13th Sept at 7.00pm

First held in October 1998, queerDOC has subsequently become established as an important event on the Australian and international gay and lesbian film festival calendar. queerDOC remains the world’s only documentary film festival focusing on queer (gay, lesbian transgender, transsexual, intersex etc) documentary films. As such it has a worldwide reputation and has access to the best of queer documentaries from around the world.

Somewhere back in the very early days of the World Wide Web I stumbled across Blowfish.com, and as it turned out, it changed my life. Blowfish.com is where I discovered sex wasn’t stupid or gross, or rather it’s where I discovered that the sex business doesn’t have to be stupid or gross.

Blowfish is where I saw, and then purchase my first silicone dildo. Blowfish is where I first saw the work of Julian Snelling. Blowfish is where I found Bodywise lubes (the only lube other than Eros Bodyglide that Peggy and I use). And Blowfish is where I started to wonder “Why aren’t there sex films as nice as all these other very nice things they sell? Why aren’t there sex films that made me feel as happy and sexy as these dildos and buttplugs and lubes?”

Not too long after that, Peggy and began shooting the studies that became the foundation for Comstock Films, and some five or six years later, Blowfish became the first American retailer to stock Marie and Jack: A Hardcore Love Story. Now they’ve added Damon and Hunter to their selection of video offering, and we couldn’t be happier with what they have to say about the film:

“We like Comstock films because they are documentaries about real couples who really like each other and really like sex. And we get to see the couples not only having sex, but talking about sex. They also talk about love, romance, how they met, and all sorts of other very personal, intimate things. It’s regular porn, and communication porn brought together.

“Consider yourself warned. The first half of the film cuts back and forth between long scenes of Damon and Hunter talking about their lives and quick Nouvelle Vague style jump cuts of them having sex. It’s sort of like a Godard film with a hard on. The second half is the hottest boy on boy sex you’ll ever see. They just seem like real people and not porn stars, because of course they are real people. But just for the record, they are real people who have great sex. These two boys are so yummy they pretty much transcend gender and sexual orientation. We’re pretty sure they will appeal to just about anyone.”

Blowfish gets it. Blowfish gets that passion is the key to great sex, whether that’s sex with your lover or the business of sex; and Blowfish is passionate about finding, appreciating, and promoting passionately made sex products. Just yesterday one of Peggy’s friends, upon seeing the Blowfish review of D&H said, “Oh wow! Blowfish! They’re picky!”

Blowfish is picky. They’re picky because they’re passionate; passionate about the idea that the sex business doesn’t have to be stupid or gross, and that it doesn’t have to be medicalized self-help education either. At Blowfish sex is fun, sex is play, sex is pleasure, sex is passion. And we’re so very happy that our films have a place at Blowfish!

The true meaning of porn, especially bad porn, continues to be discussed in the little corner of the blogosphere I wander (did I use “blogosphere” correctly), and no discussion of porn would be complete without a detour into taxonomy and/or semantics – what is porn, when is porn art, where’s the line between porn and erotica – that sort of thing.

My films get labeled all sorts of things: couple’s porn, women’s porn, erotica, amateur (on film?), pro-am (wha?), docurotica, pornumentary, all sex, educational (ouch!) and most recently “artisan porn”. Mostly I don’t really care what people call my work, so long as they buy in sufficient quantities that I can pay my bills, continue my work (which I like very much) and put some money away for a rainy day. That said, I don’t really like the word porn, and wish there was some other word for the films I make.

I don’t like porn because I think for too many people the word (rightfully) connotes a film or video that is going to demand the viewer lower their expectations with regard to conception and craft below tolerable levels. Make no mistake, expectation management is the indie filmmaker’s first and most important skill. But porn has leaned too heavily on the idea that the audience will forgive almost anything to see a little pussy. I won’t do that, and a lot of other people won’t do it either.

Another reason I am uncomfortable with the word “porn” is because for many people, porn means something is going make them feel bad if they watch; they’ll feel bad about themselves, or bad about the people on the screen, or bad that they’re aroused by something they know is cheap and shabby, made without care or craft. That last thing in the world I want my films to do is make people feel bad, and it breaks my heart a little that my films are (deemed to be) part of genre that makes so many people feel bad about themselves or bad about sex.

This is why I don’t like the word porn. It’s too laden (justifiably) with all sort of negative baggage, and more than that I think it keeps my films from being seen by people who would enjoy them.

So then how about erotica?

Well yes, almost. I like the word erotic, so erotica should be fine. Except it’s not, not for me at least.

My awareness of the word “erotica” goes way back to when Dworkanites and social conservatives first banded together and began together began to float the idea that “pornography” did all kinds of bad things to people and society (rape, murder, that sort of thing), and that it should be banned, or at least more heavily regulated. Up until then, porn was chic (remember pornchic?); no need for a euphamism, porn was porn.

But by the early 80s, the video camera was already sucking the creative life out of porn (you’ll never see The Opening of Misty Beethovan ever again) and the moral tone of the country had changed. Now porn was bad, and something needed to be done about it. (I still have a picture of Ed Meese going into a Times Square porn shop burned into my memory – talk about erototoxins!)

Anyway, “erotica” became code for “porn that fits my moral code”. No one ever wants the sexually explicit stuff that they like banned, so it becomes erotica. Erotica is fine, but nasty stuff that other people wank to is porn. Ewww! This always made me think, “Oh, so if you diddle your clit while reading erotica, it’s okay. But if I want jack to pictures of a buxom brunette with her ass in the air, that’s not okay. That’s porn.” That sort of parsing of what turns people on didn’t fit my moral code. (It also probably had something to do with the fact I am a photographer and took exception to the idea that there are things you can write about, perhaps even paint, but can’t photograph.)

And then as the Meese Comission cloud descended on the erotic landscape, and Penthouse and Playboy started dispearing from 7/11s, “erotica” became a code for sexually themed photos or videos you hoped would be explicit, but never were (*cough*skinamax). “Erotica” was about knowing there’s no place in descent society for cunts, cocks and cum.

And so just as I don’t want to use a label that makes think our films are going to make them feel bad, I don’t want them to think they’re not going to get to see cunts and cocks and cum in a Comstock production, because absolutely you will. Our films are about cunts and cock and cum. So sorry “erotica” is out. Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m still pissed the Dworkinate for making me feel like I should be ashamed of loving ass so much, or still pissed at Skinimax for not delivering the goods, or maybe I’m still pissed that of all the truly horrible things I’ve trained my camera on in 20 years of photojournalism and documentary filmmaking, the thing that gets people the most upset is a nice pink pussy. But whatever it is, I don’t like the word “erotica”, so it’s out.

So then what should you call Comstock Films? If you enjoyed Xana and Dax and you want to tell a friend about it, what kind of movie should you tell them it is? I say I make sex films, or films about sex. Hardcore love stories could work, but I think somebody is using it.

Maybe we don’t yet have a word for the kinds of films I make. (Ack doesn’t that sound pompous!) But I am absolutely delighted with the words that people use when they say why they like my films; words like “passionate” and “tender”, words like “real” and “raw”. That’s what I feel when I have sex with my wife. Isn’t that what we want to feel when we watch a film about sex?

-TC