Boys Don't Cry
Review of Dottie Gets Spanked (1993)
Seen at The Screening Room as a double feature with *Out of the Past.*
There are two things happening in *Dottie Gets Spanked*. Little Steven Gale (J. Evan Bonifant), at six-and-three-quarters years old, is an avid fan of "The Dottie Frank Show," and of its star. He sits glued to the tube, drawing her horrendous visage whenever he can. His mother (Barbara Garrick, best known as DeeDee Halcyon Day in the *Tales of the City* series) is sweet and supportive of his quest to be Dottie's number one fan, while his father (Robert Pall) silently but strongly disapproves, and prefers to watch, you guessed it, sports.
Steven is a loner and is ridiculed by boys and girls alike, the latter of which tell him that he's "effimidum" (effeminate). It is made clear that Dottie Frank is "for girls" an d that his liking a show this intensely disapproved of by people in authority. Here, it's the Father.
What mars all this is the spanking nonsense. Steven dreams of the terrors of spanking; Dottie Frank's character gets spanked by her exasperated husband ( Adam Arkin plays co-star Dick Gordon); Steven sees a father hitting his son for talking to him the wrong way. But his parents don't believe in spanking.
The spanking dreams and images mar the movie in which it is very clear little Steven is getting an early mental spanking that will keep him in the closet for a very long time. The intense wide-eyed interest young Steven has for his screen angel is fixating enough, and the contrast to the treatment he is receiving makes it bittersweet.
The character name s are also symbolic or homages to other screen performances. The surname Gale is one that Steven shares with the fictional Dorothy Gale of *The Wizard of Oz*; "Dick Gordon" is clearly a reference to Lucille Ball's foil, Gale Gordon; "The Dottie Frank Show" is clearly an imitation of *The Lucy Show*, right down to her whine.
The final scene is the one that got to me.
POINT OF INFORMATION: A criticism of this sort of movie is that they are seen to be mistaken as "little boy wants to be a girl" movies. While this certainly is true of *Ma Vie en Rose*, the greater message, even in that movie, is that children who are different in a way that is disapproved by society immediately learn things the hard way, through ridicule, shunning, and anger. This is something that goes way beyond just being gay. The inherent sexism of a culture where boys admiring or imitating women is seen as ridiculous while girls are encouraged to be more like men all the time is apparent, and these types of movies simply reflect that back to us.
More movie reviews by Seth Bookey, with graphics, can be found at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2679/kino.html
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