Mysterious Skin - an alternative to Hollywood

The components that define American capitalist ideology are:

- Capitalism
- The work ethic
- Marriage
- Nature
- Progress / technology / the city
- Success and wealth
- Portrayal of class
- Near compulsory happy ending
- Ideal male / ideal female
- Settled husband / father / the erotic woman

Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin is a film which most definitely does not conform to the Hollywood ideals. In this film none of the above components apply. Its plot contains a very unsettling depiction of sexual abuse on young children, and shows how the two young victims, Neil and Brian, react to this abuse in different ways as they grow up. The film can be very unsettling at times, and we are not left with an uplifting outcome. The fact that Neil actually enjoys his encounters with his baseball coach is unnerving, as is his attitude towards sex as he gets older. He also seems rather naïve which is highlighted when he moves to New York and by his lack of awareness about the dangers of casual sex. These issues, along with his prostitution as a means of earning a living are not the kind of themes that are usually explored in Hollywood, and this especially applies to this film as there does not really seem to be any moral outcome.

Brian on the other hand is described as being almost asexual, his reaction to his abuse is by forcing himself to believe that he was abducted by aliens as a child. He rejects his sexuality altogether and it is not until the two boys meet again many years later that they both begin to come to terms with what happened to them.

The amount of graphic sex portrayed in Mysterious Skin would not allow it to be recognised as a Hollywood movie. The idea that sexual orientation does not interfere with friendship, for example both Neil and Brian’s separate friendships with Eric, are also highly unusual.
Glyn Davis’s article discusses the idea of ‘camp’ and what camp really means. For me Mysterious Skin does not seem like a camp film in the way that camp is usually seen as meaning. Some of the examples Davis gives are the music of Kylie Minogue and the film Titanic.

Davis also talks about some of Araki’s other films in relation to Queer Cinema, though not Mysterious Skin, and points out that the five aspects of ‘queer campness’ which can be seen in Akari’s films are: 1. Performance style, 2. The role of trashy ephemera, 3. The use of parody, 4. Political aims, and 5. References to earlier ‘queer’ camp filmmakers.

I think all these elements are true of Mysterious Skin. The performances are quite over the top, especially those by Gordon Jason-Levitt and Michelle Trachtenberg, and there is an element of trashy which is displayed in the hair of the characters Eric and Wendy. I am unsure what the references to other queer filmmakers are but there are certainly film references to be found, such as in the alien posters on Brian’s walls.

Overall this is one of the best films I have seen in a while. Although it is unsettling, it leaves you with something to think about, which I think many Hollywood films do not.