Chancey’s Choice
A few years ago, I considered writing a script about a high school kid in Springdale, Arkansas who resents being white, middle class and straight, and chooses to be gay in order to have a more interesting identity and something to fight for.
He goes through a conversion process where learns to be attracted to men. It doesn’t actually work, but he deludes himself into thinking it did.
Previously clique-less, he befriends the gay kids at school, his favorite part because he gets to belong to a distinct group; even better, it’s an oppressed group. Now when he fights back against bullies, he’s not only defending himself, he’s protecting the rights of gay students across the world.
He gets his own fag hag and changes his name to the more fancy-boyish “Chauncey.”
He finds a handsome boyfriend (a “partner,” actually), but of course because Springdale is so conservative, and his parents ultimately faux-liberals, he has to keep the romance a secret from virtually everyone besides his fag hag.
This works out well for him, since the whole physical aspect of having a boyfriend makes him uncomfortable (because it’s new to him, he tells himself), and he can blame paranoia over his parents finding out whenever things get too intimate and he needs to escape.
But his choice falls apart when, against his will, he falls for the girl who is supposed to be his fag hag.
Eventually he has to come to terms with being straight and learn that being attracted to the opposite sex isn’t always inherently lame.
Superficially this is similar to the critically-despised “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry,” but the reason for those characters to act gay was monetary. Chancey’s reasoning is, to me, more compelling. He actually wishes he were gay, and tries to will it on himself, but it doesn’t work.
But not compelling enough for me to write this script. Instead, I wrote (and am still re-writing) a script with a totally different story that has the exact same theme of someone trying to change their personality and failing. For no particular reason, I seem to like that theme.
4 years ago