Shadowboxer

Since I've been shadowboxing this damn book lately, haven't really had time to keep the blog as updated as I should. But I have to surface at least long enough to gasp at the sheer lunacy that is Shadowboxer, the debut feature of queer black director Lee Daniels.

I'll spare you the plot summary, which is ludicrous anyway, and seems vaguely cribbed from a 1970s John Waters feature. Something about incestuous, interracial paid assassins dying of cancer and the gangster molls who love them. The film is perfectly ri-donk-ulous, as Ryan Cabrera might put it, although no more so than your average thriller.

Actually less so, since with ludicrous casting choices (like twink Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing a doctor) there is no chance that this movie is going to take itself seriously. Its too high budget to be campy, and therefore will probably fall between the cracks, getting neither a gay audience or a teenage male one.

But it is indeed fascinating that Daniels is getting as far as he is in Hollywood, and that someone greenlighted a mainstream film as not-so-subtly queer as this one. Halfway through I began to suspect that Daniels and his partners in crime in casting were simply taking the piss out of William Lipz's noir-ish screenplay. See it, if only for Stephen Dorff (the poor man's Peter Saarsgard) sporting only a condom and a smile, and for Mo'nique and Macy Gray in supporting roles that, let's face it, would get a white director accused of racism, but are mesmerizing to watch as they skirt just past the edge into minstrelsy.

Actually, by the way, apropros of not much really, I just saw this great performance at PS1 by rising star Kalep Linzy and had the following thought, which I will phrase as a discussion question. Drag is minstrelsy. Discuss.