Photo courtesy
Logo
The new
documentary Bear Run, which kicks off a new
season of Real Momentum on the Logo network
August 2, gets points if only for putting chunky, hairy guys
on the queer cable channel. Real Momentum is a
documentary series that explores the lives of real or
"everyday" gay and lesbian people. But rather than
explore deeper issues and questions about the bear
community, Bear Run pretty much keeps it
at the "Check it out! Chubby gays with body
hair!" level.
Bears, for the
uninitiated, are men who have subverted the paradigm of
the gym-going, shaved-body archetype that's been
shoved down the gay community's throat for
decades. If advertising and magazines like Instinct
and (ahem) Out give us sleek, ripped, and slightly
androgynous gay studs as role models, bears hew more to guys
who look like they came over to fix the plumbing. They
are -- or are into -- men with a little extra padding
and body hair, often wearing flannel and denim.
Bear Run plunges us into the weekly circuit of
bear events -- they happen all over the country -- by
following three participants: Louie, who seems to
define his identity by the fact that he was named
International Bear Cub 2006; 50-year-old Mikhael, a former
trucker who reveals more and more surprising tidbits about
his past as the film progresses; and Mike, who found
solace among bears after being turned away from the
antigay church that had been central to his life.
While these
men's stories are interesting to varying degrees --
Mikhael could rate a documentary unto himself --
director Dan Hunt doesn't fully connect the
dots between his subjects and the larger idea of beardom
itself. Granted, 44 minutes might not really be long enough
to explore the various political and sociological
implications of the bear movement, but Bear
Run, pardon the pun, barely even tries.
Even if the idea
was just to focus on the notion of bear runs themselves,
the movie limits itself to two in New York and one in
Montreal (plus a brief stop at Bear Week in
Provincetown), hardly a representative sampling of the
many events that take place all around the country.
The movie also
shies away from the fact that, in addition to all the
bonding and brotherhood, lots of people go to bear runs
first and foremost to get laid. (Or as one friend of
mine recently noted on his blog, "Gay men +
cheap airfare - shame for acts committed in your
hometown = bear run.")
Kudos to Logo for
including bears in the network's ongoing coverage of
the patchwork quilt that is the queer community.
Here's hoping its next stab at this topic
yields a more thought-provoking inquiry.