Small spoiler warning!
On Friday, December 2nd, my group showed the grade a film called Trevor. It is a 20 minute film about a boy named Trevor. He is a 14 year old gay kid in the 1970’s. He loves listening to Diana Ross and he loves the theater. Trevor goes to school like a normal kid and has a really great friend, Pinky Faraday. They are great friends until something happens. Pinky gives Trevor a letter telling him he is gay and he can’t be his friend anymore. Trevor is devastated. He tries to commit suicide. He doesn’t succeed, but it is still really sad. He learns to live on with his life and he learns that things get better. We showed this to our whole grade, and then after, we asked them some questions. We asked them if they noticed any stereotypes. Trevor was obviously a stereotypical gay kid. We asked them why they thought they did that. Some people said that they were confused about this. When our group discussed the questions beforehand, we said that they wanted to make it really obvious. I am still trying to exactly figure out why they wanted to do that. We asked them if the film was made today, would they change anything. A lot of people said that they would use less stereotypes, some people said there would be more support, and some people said he would try to kill himself another way. My group said that we didn’t think much would change. I think they made the movie in that way to kind of make people laugh a bit. There was a lot of humor surrounding the stereotypes and the way he attempted suicide. We discussed this aswell we said that like in the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, dark and sad parts were covered up with humor. This gives the watcher a coping mechanism. It was really interesting hearing our classmates responses to the movie. I liked the film and discussing it.
