Love is all you Need?

Love is all you Need?, Wingspan Pictures, 2013, directed by Kim Rocco Shields. Starring Lexi DiBenedetto, Kellan Lutz, Camilla Belle, Abbie Dunn.

Watch the full film here: 

I, like the majority of the population, am straight. I like men and their manliness and I’m fascinated by how straight women indulge in billions every year on books and magazines for how to get a straight man to like you, as if sex and procreation is a relatively new thing we’re still figuring out. I don’t really care whether you are straight or not; you are who you are, and I like to think that the Western world is now somewhere that this sentiment is shared by the majority of people. So it’s interesting to watch this short film by Kim Rocco Shields where straight people are the minority in a homosexual society. 

In this is a world, heterosexuality is a filthy sin. There are some really nice touches, such as the ‘Marriage is Equal’ sign with two male stick figures and the heterophobic Bible verses in the opening credits – this is a world which ought to be similar, but with these roles switched. This is simple enough, but it is a compelling way to make straight people think for twenty minutes about what life could be like if we weren’t so assuredly in the majority.

We follow young Ashley, an 11 year old girl who likes boys, much to the horror of her teachers and the disgust of her classmates. She’s alienated and bullied mercilessly until she decides to take her own life rather than admit to her parents that she’s heterosexual. This is sad, and what’s made even worse is that all of the abuse Ashley receives is based on actual accounts of homosexual kids in America. So the name-calling, hitting, isolation and humiliation are an amalgamation of several children’s torment, and the idea that this would drive a child to suicide is both horribly sad and real. I don’t feel like I can comment on this angle of the film because I’ve never known bullying like this, nor can I understand the mindset of someone who thinks this is an acceptable way to treat other people. Ashley’s loneliness is heartbreaking and Lexi DiBenedetto is a naturally gifted actress.

However, I have serious issue with the treatment of religion in this film. There is a scene where Ashley’s family are in church and a female priest raving about how hetero’s who breed outside of the ‘season’ are hateful and will burn in hell. Now, I’m fully aware that there are some priests that do teach this about homosexuals, but guess what? They do not represent the majority of priests! Many, many priests see homosexuality as a natural state for some people to be born into and they teach that ‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud’. A lot of Catholics don’t believe that same-sex marriage should be allowed; they do not however, hate homosexuals, because 'not hating people' is sort of integral to the Catholic message. My point is that the hysteria generated around the priest and religion is just nonsense. It’s the modern world with iPhones and Facebook, yet the hysterical priest belongs more in the Dark Ages. This reversed interpretation bears no relation to the experience of church today and is just pointlessly provocative.

Love is all you Need? is an interesting ‘What If’ film, of the same sort as Kevin Willmott's The Confederate States of America, but it rings hollow. the film doesn’t give itself enough time to flesh out the nuances of a homosexual society, like the idea of a ‘breeding season’ and a female Pope, but everything else seems like it’s just swapped hetero for homo and made everyone about ten times more homophobic than in reality. The thing about people is that we don’t irrationally hate just one minority for one reason; we irrationally hate a whole bunch of other people for a plethora of reasons! If the adults in the world were irrational about other things as well I might buy it, but because they aren't, I can’t. If you want to tell the story of a girl who is driven to suicide because of the loneliness, the hostility and the complete lack of understanding she faces day to day, why not do that? The gimmick of a hetero minority ends up just being that – a gimmick which stops a powerfully heartbreaking story from really developing. Ultimately, the film lacked complexity and, beyond DeBinedetto's performance, nuance.