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From: francois@yale-com.UUCP (Charles B. Francois)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: TZK Sequel  (slightly smoldering)
Message-ID: <2452@yale-com.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-Nov-83 11:30:15 EST
Article-I.D.: yale-com.2452
Posted: Tue Nov 22 11:30:15 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 25-Nov-83 09:41:40 EST
Lines: 62

Second of two articles on Frank Ripploh's "Taxi Zum Klo".

About one year later, one of the six film societies on campus showed
it, and I talked a nongay friend into seeing it with me.  To say that
it turned out to be one of the more uncomfortable 90 minutes of my life
is an understatement.  Now, I don't take back any of what I've said
about the movie so far.  It was not so much my thoughts as my feelings
that changed about the film on that particular occasion.  So the next
comments probably say more about me than they do about the movie.  

What happened is that I found myself looking at the movie through my
friend's eyes and seeing it in a different light.  Essentially, I
became more critical of Ripploh's actual character than I had been the
first time.  Back then, I had confined my attention to his abilities as
a filmmaker, and I didn't see any need to pass judgement on him or his
personal attitudes.  To each his own.  But amidst a nongay audience, I
couldn't help falling prey to the classic "minority role model" syndrome.  
Sidney Poitier in the sixties and the gay community's objections to
"Cruising" are different aspects of that syndrome.  In other words, when
members of a minority are first presented, say, on the screen, audience
members of that minority tend to prefer favorable portrayals over
unflattering ones, or, more exactly, individual members tend to wish for 
a portrayal in accord with their own idea of how they should be portrayed.  
And Frank Ripploh is simply not someone I would want the world to behold 
as a prototypical gay male.  

Of course there is no such thing as a prototypical gay male, and moreover, 
the essence of the movie is precisely to present a unique case history.  
Furthermore, there are other gay characters in the movie who are totally 
unlike Ripploh (his lover for ex