Okay, so The Stag has been out for a considerable time now, and the DVD release was almost two months ago, so I'm going to talk about this now because it's been bothering me for a while.
I realise a lot of people wouldn't even have known about this film if it weren't for Andrew Scott, and who knows, I might not have known about it either. I am really glad that it got the attention that it did; that because of Andrew's success, people worldwide have seen an independent Irish film. That's huge. We're such a small country, and our film industry is only beginning to really blossom, so that scale is incredible, especially for a film with so small a budget. And I adore Andrew, I do. Considerably. He's extremely talented, and so lovely on top of it, and I'm very pleased he's receiving such acknowledgement.
But this is where the problem begins.
I expected the attention to center around Andrew at the beginning. You know, seeing him as a main role on the big screen, very exciting! Naked Andrew Scott? More exciting! It's all good, it's understandable, but time went on and still the majority of the posts were about Davin. The gifsets, the photosets, the comments.
I'm going to be honest here, Davin is nowhere near the best part of the film. My personal favourites are the Kevins, and the Machine just makes it. I applaud Peter McDonald's performance. He was pure comedic genius. And he was a co-writer. Oh yes, The Machine's actor co-wrote the script. Which, may I just say now, was some incredible writing. I like to think I can say that with a bit of weight behind my words, considering I study Creative Writing, that I am one year away from a degree, and that I have also just spent my summer on a scriptwriting course working with professionals.
As for the Kevins; here we have finally been given what the majority of tumblr seems to hunger for: a long term gay relationship that is comfortable, affectionate and accepted (for the most part) by the other characters. There is no "coming out" dilemma. There is no gay panic. There are just two people who have been together for six years, clearly love each other, and happen to be in a same sex relationship.
The queer representation in this movie was done so well and I haven't seen anyone else acknowledge it. I want gifsets and stills of every moment of the Kevins interactions, but I scroll through The Stag tag and all I see is Davin Davin Davin. Neither Kevin is particularly camp, and even within their relationship, the general expectations are turned on their head. Little Kevin is portrayed as the one in control, the dominant, and big Kevin, with his beard and generally more masculine appearance, is portrayed as gentle, hesitant, and unwilling to engage in stereotypical "manly" behaviour, "I just know I'm not going to be any good at this."
All that aside, they're also fricken cute as frick. Did you know in the tent scene they have their sleeping bags unzipped so they can cuddle? Did you know that? If you hadn't noticed, I couldn't even point it out to you, because no one has gifed those cute lil shits for me to aggressively reblog.
I don't know if either of their actors are actually gay, but one of the writers is, and at least one of the actors is. The premiere was during the time Russia was bringing in a lot of its anti-gay laws, and everyone involved with the film wore buttons to the premiere to show their support. No one spoke about this.
No one speaks about how this film had such a low budget, or how beautiful the shooting locations are, or how it portrays male relationships in depth, with tenderness and affection and trust; that it explores men who don't feel comfortable pursuing activities that are stereotypically masculine. No one talks about how amazing the writing is, how there are just as many aching bittersweet moments as there are laughs. It's almost 3am, and I'm not entirely sure I'm making 100% sense, but I wanted to have my say. From where I'm standing, everyone just seems to get distracted by Andrew, and fails to give The Stag the full praise and acknowledgement it deserves.
Also, I know she's only in like three scenes, but Uli is one of my favourite characters. She's great, and the dynamic of her relationship with Simon is fantastic, and like the Kevins relationship they just defy expectations. But I'll not get into that or I'll end up writing another post. Just also consider Uli the next time you watch it. And how great she is. And how you should love her.