For this show, we take the phrase ‘mixed-bag’ and make it a reality by celebrating the return of one of our favourite local film festivals, review two television shows that highlight two gay men’s experience of dealing with two very different battlefields – one being the US Marine’s boot camp and the other being the hellscape known as the American High School campus, and we revisit a queer highlight from the ‘Black Mirror’ anthology.

With TILDE returning to Melbourne from October 31 – November 2, we welcome back their CEO Ro Bright to discuss this year’s program and find out why the festival’s theme “Bites Back” is a celebration of creative defiance, self-determination, and the power of storytelling to challenge dominant norms and reclaim space on their own terms. We also reviewed the new series ‘Boots’ a Netflix dramedy set in the 1990s that follows Cameron, a closeted gay teenager, who impulsively joins the U.S. Marine Corps with his best friend. Based on Greg Cope White’s memoir ‘The Pink Marine’, the series explores themes of identity, friendship, and resilience as the recruits navigate boot camp, a dangerous environment where being openly gay meant severe consequences. We then moved on from the Marine’s boot camp to another battleground that is well known to many of us – the teenage warzone known as high school. ‘English Teacher’ is a comedy series from Brian Jordan Alavarez who plays Evan Marquez, a gay man who finds himself at the intersection of professional, political, and personal aspects of working at a high school in Texas. We finished by revisiting ‘San Junipero’ from the critically acclaimed and much-loved British science fiction anthology television series Black Mirror. This episode premiered on Netflix in October 2016, and the story begins in 1987 in a beach resort town named San Junipero, where the introverted Yorkie meets the more outgoing Kelly. Many felt that this episode marked a cultural shift in relation to the portrayal of lesbianism on television, or proof of concept that works dealing with queer characters need not be tragic.

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