MEAN PEOPLE AND MARRIAGE: Bruce C. Steele

You wouldn't think a movie about four teenagers who decide to get even with the school bully would be a good place to look for an argument in favor of marriage equality. But mixed up with everything else that's going on in the terrific indie film Mean Creek is a simple lesson about how marriage discrimination makes kids suffer through no fault of their own. ...

Clyde--the skinny, well-behaved kid who declines to indulge in doobies and beer--has two gay dads, and both his friends and George the bully tease him about it repeatedly, his pals in "good fun" and George viciously. ...

Estes didn't have to show [the gay couple] at all, but I think he decided that after making them the albatross around their son's neck, he needed to depict them as the harmless, ordinary people they are. The scene also serves to establish that Clyde's relationship with his dads is no different from any other teen's interaction with the parental units: He loves them, they mean well, and they just don't get it. ...

Whatever you think of the institution of marriage and whether gay people should be chasing after it, the fact is, marriage normalizes relationships. In this country, people know what "married" is supposed to mean: love, commitment, family unity. [Any] other kind of arrangement--whether it's straight folks shacking up or two lesbians getting a Vermont civil union--falls short. It requires explanation. It varies from couple to couple. It isn't normalizing. People don't get it.

...Kids have an instinct for finding out what makes other kids different, and they use that knowledge as a weapon when they spar with their peers, whether playfully or angrily. As long as Clyde's dads can't get married, he'll always be more vulnerable to bullying than are his classmates.

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posted by Eve at 7:46 PM | link

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