By Mishara Canino-Hussung & Bill Hussung, co-directors of documentary film Chasing the Devil
(from the 2008 Seattle's True Independent Film Festival) More than four years ago, we set out to document the journeys of people belonging to the most politically incorrect subculture in America. The result is Chasing the Devil: Inside the Ex-Gay Movement, a documentary film.
Ex-gays are the people who claim to have changed their sexual orientation from gay to straight. Their stories first caught our attention as filmmakers with the 2003 publication of a study by America's most influential living psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Spitzer of Columbia University. Dr. Spitzer gained fame in 1973 by spearheading the effort to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness. But in 2003, he infuriated most of the psychiatric community with the publication of a study based on phone interviews with ex-gays concluding that most of them had experienced some change in their sexual orientation. Dr. Spitzer reported that 11 percent of the ex-gays seemed to have undergone complete change.
Documentary filmmakers hope to take viewers places they've never been and expose audiences to viewpoints they might never consider. At first blush, the ex-gays looked like perfect material for a subculture documentary.
Spending time with those who claim to have changed their sexual orientation from gay to straight can be a bit of a paradigm-rattling experience. We accept that identity is largely self-defined and acknowledge that sexuality can be fluid. Mick Jagger switched back and forth between men and women for much of the 1970s and defined jet-setting chic. Self-defined identity and fluid sexuality are both left-of-center beliefs long associated with urban elites and secular progressives. Folks like most of those in the documentary film business. But there's a disconnect when this paradigm butts up against the ex-gay movement. If we really believe identity is self-defined and sexuality fluid, then there's nothing surprising, or offensive, about the ex-gay ministries and reparative therapists claiming to "heal" homosexuals of their unwanted desires. But we are surprised. And often offended.
Our premise for the film was partly rooted in our ignorance. We believed the movement was interesting and newsworthy because it was so clearly out of touch with public opinion. We assumed a majority of our documentary viewers would start from the premise that homosexuality is not a choice but something more innate. That's certainly what all our friends in New York City believed. But much of America seems to have a more nuanced view. A recent USA Today poll found 42 percent of respondents believe homosexuality results from upbringing and the environment, while 39 percent believe people are born gay. That means more people accept the intellectual underpinning of the ex-gay movement than don't. Ten percent of the poll respondents said that both play a factor, which is the position of most reputable medical professionals.
The ex-gay movement can be divided into two major branches: the ex-gay ministries offering a faith-based approach and the reparative therapists offering a more secular view of how to suppress and change same-sex attractions. In the course of making our film, we contacted close to a hundred ex-gays, and the responses were generally hostile and uncooperative. The vast majority refused to be interviewed or take part in our film. They argued that our documentary wouldn't be fair and honest.
The ex-gays may well feel vindicated in their claims of bias when they see the film. We present new information, often unflattering, about the backgrounds and practices of major ex-gay leaders. Documentary filmmakers are not stenographers; at some point we have an obligation to provide context, and we feel we've done just that.
Objectivity is never easy, and it's never perfect. We've done our best to honestly present the stories we found during the course of our filming. A YouTube trailer for the film has already drawn criticism from ex-gays claiming we used our footage to make fun of them.
The central underpinning of gay identity is the belief that people are born gay and can't change. The ex-gays challenge this belief. Their claims of having changed from gay to straight challenge our understanding of identity and tolerance. But are they living a lie? We made this film to answer that question. -MPM Images courtesy of Coqui Zen Entertainment, LLC |
