I've just got home after watching "Bear Nation" at the QFT. Part of the
Outburst Queer Arts Festival happening in Belfast at the moment.
The film has quite a lot of talking head segments and then footage of a couple of "bear bashes" (mainly one in Chicago, as far as I can tell). The talking head segments are guys who consider themselves bears or have an attraction to bear type guys. These guys seemed to cover a decent range of the different types of people who have found themselves connecting with the bear label and culture.
The film stays in the US for the most part, but there's a short segment of the London bear scene and then we fly back to the states. So Europe and the rest of the world is excluded, (though there is one mention of how the gay scene in Europe influenced the bear scene, but this is never delved into).
Some positive things about this movie:
When discussing "Community", there was a general consensus that it's not necessarily a group that welcomes all shapes and sizes. There are prejudices. There are people who consider themselves the elite. One guy made a very good point about how for him, there wasn't really a need for a "bear community" anymore, as he felt he was part of a generation of young people that are more accepting of gay people, so while he understood the need for this scene to exist, helping many gay men find a place for themselves, he found that his straight friends, both male and female, could all get along, understanding their own diversities and therefore didn't need the segregation.
The other very positive thing (and I know most people won't care) was the fact that the movie had a soundtrack of completely guitar based music! They interviewed Bob Mould from Hüsker Dü and showed some clips from his band: generally punk-y rock stuff. The film soundtrack had some lovely soft folk music in places, some lighter pop punk and some harder edged rock. Not a single cheesy dance beat or naff house track anywhere! EVEN when they showed clips of the London Bear Club, XXL in full swing and interviewed a couple of the DJs there. They didn't use the original audio from that footage, they overdubbed good-old-fashioned-rock and punk music over it.
That made me quite happy.
It bothered me that the film said XXL was responsible for the bear scene in London. That before XXL there was only 1 bar (The Kings Arms). This has some truth in it though: Before XXL there wasn't a big bear club, but there have been bear club nights all over London (and the rest of the UK) for years! But I guess, what more do you expect from someone who works at XXL?
Overall, it was good to see people relate to their experiences discovering they like big guys and how it was like "coming out twice" (once as gay, then again having to explain to people that you find big fat guys attractive!) and it was good that the film dared to reveal the bear world isn't some really positive, welcoming, totally accepting place, because it isn't quite like that. But it's made me realise that while I don't go to bear clubs or have any need to be part of it, I don't have to hold any grudge against it either.
I like big guys, I always have and I realised this when I was about 16 / 17. I, like many (if not everyone) in this film, discovered the term "bear" online and that was really exciting and liberating for me at the time: To know there were not only many other gay men who felt the same way I did, but also that there were enough of them out there for there to be a label for it and events for it!
As I got older (and after I lived in London a while) I found it all to be a bit superficial and dull: I didn't really have anything in common with the bear-type men I met, I really hated that bear nights never offered any alternative to the usual clichéd entertainment of the gay world: Tacky karaoke, or really bad drag acts, or just utterly shit pop and dance music.
I also found The Kings Arms, (a bear bar I frequented regularly, advertised online as being really friendly), to be anything but warm and welcoming! I was treated as an outsider there and ignored, probably because I wasn't a bear (I was a 'chaser' or an 'admirer'), I didn't have a beard, I didn't wear plaid shirts and I wasn't overweight or hairy. I went there often in the hope of meeting new, friendly people, as I was quite lonely in London, but I was snubbed. The film dealt with this through interviewing one particular guy who also didn't have any of the bear physical attributes and he spoke about how hard it was trying to find his place too.
Still, the long and short of it is: I like big hairy guys. I always have and probably always will. So whether or not the club scene suits me doesn't really matter, I still feel some affiliation with the "bear" label, even if only as a way of describing what I find attractive. I am glad the film drew attention to the different aspects of it all in an honest way.
