It is the end of the 90's, and most white gays have crawled out of their closets, at least in cinema, and so the good news of the joys of being gay have to be spread further afield. All that are left are those who terrify whites, especially gay whites. And not only that, while gays fear blacks, Latinos and Italians for their perceived macho image, they desire them sexually. A very unfortunate combination of messages is then conveyed in film: the "sex symbol" and the "fear-inspiring".

1996-97 has already seen three gay films coming onto the market which cry out for redress. In Love! Valour! Compassion! Randy Becker plays, in his second film, once more the role of a gay Latino lover, a bit weird, but good in bed, and with as many people as possible. Our review states how the film stirs up fear of the black man. After this excursion into a sub-plot, two more films arrive, entirely dedicated to ethnic minorities who are to learn how good homosexuality can be.

Indeed, Latin Boys Go to Hell and Kiss Me, Guido are amazingly similar. Both are set in New York, the former in Brooklyn, the latter in the Bronx; one is about the Latino minority, the other about Italian Americans. The ideas for both came in 1987, and it is surely no coincidence that finances became available ten years later. The directors both come from the respective ethnic minority groups, and both have adjusted themselves to the homo-friendly trend.

The white homo-friendly trend, that is. In the 90's gays are loved by many, especially the US American indie film business. When Ira Deutchmann, producer of Kiss Me, Guido maintains that, with his latest work, he did not have to be afraid of hurting his audience's feelings, he was talking about the clichés portrayed in the film, especially those about gays, but not about the function his Italians play. One laughs especially with the white men, but at everybody else, including women. "She needs a vibrator" is the most intelligent thing anyone can say about the landlady. The Italian Americans, known as "Guidos", are more-or-less nice characters, but the problem lies with their attitudes of, for example, gays; one gets the impression that, with these film characters, their testosterone has diluted their intelligence. True, the homosexuals are not the most open people around, but "heterophobia" is treated rather tongue-in-cheek, and the most obvious subject is left untouched: racism – although it starts explicitly with the search for a white flat-mate. Gays may disqualify themselves by their superficial chatter, but this was not intended. The film does not confront the fact (although it desperately needs to) that in real life, white gays either do not want any contact at all with their non-white comrades, or boast about having had another "chocolate bar in the mouth" or a "bamboo shoot by the ear", as the current Berlin white gay slang roughly translates.

Latin Boys Go to Hell concentrates not on intercultural friendship, but on the Latino man as a sex object. The film takes its name from an erotic photographic series, exhibited in the film. Even if this is a film without sex, with which producer Jürgen Brüning surprised the industry with after his last films (Super 8½, Hustler White, Berlin Techno Dreams), the film still does not do without sexuality altogether. This is not necessarily a bad decision. But in the context of the film, this reworking of "erotica" looks like an exploitation of the "Latin lover" theme. "You look as if I forced you." – "You did," begins one conversation in the film. That is exactly how the actors look. Not surprisingly: the director admits she wanted more sex in the film, but there had been problems with the actors. Instead of open sexuality, the director has to be content with creeping camerawork as the photographer in the film, Monica, takes her pictures.

Tony Vitale, director of Kiss Me, Guido, would have found a sexual relationship between the two main characters too flat, but that doesn't mean that Frankie is not pestered. In the name of artistic professionalism, the cunning homos force their way towards him on stage – Frankie had taken on a gay role on the stage.

Not all films should or ought to be politically correct. But one would expect films which have been a decade in the making not to be actually defamatory. Good intentions are not always enough to prevent damage. Audiences at the festivals in both Berlin and Park City took the same line. At the 1997 Berlinale director Ela Troyano was asked – by a white member of the audience, of course – why she didn't make more of the homophobia of the Latino community in Latin Boys Go to Hell, that had been his expectation of the film. Being a victim feels obviously somehow good.

Let us hope that this year we shall have films which are able to tell other stories of Latinos, gay films, that have more to say than who lays whom, and erotic films with mutually willing partners. But at the Panorama, the hope was stated that as many Berlin Turks should see Latin Boys Go to Hell, so that there would soon be a Turkish version: they are also to become more peaceable and willing. The question is, will Turks still be interested in associating with gays having seen a film like these?

Deutsche Version

Love! Valour! Compassion!

Latin Boys Go to Hell

Kiss Me, Guido