Pretty Boy: a less than pretty depiction of intolerance
Pretty Boy sees one father’s attempt to have the ‘gay fucked out’ of his son backfire. This short is a long’un, but it’s worth watching the whole thing because it’s so thematically important.
Sean did not have a hand in picking out his birthday present this year. After weeks of watching his son come home from school bruised and battered, Sean’s father tries to address the matter and disguise his solution as a gift (two birds, one stone, aye?)He rents a motel room and kits it out with a prostitute, whose job that night is to remind Sean that he is straight, which sex will surely convince him of. It’s nice that it’s in an effort to protect his son from future torment, but therein the problem lies. Sean’s father knows he’s a target because he’s gay, and to him that is his son’s issue, and not the issue of the bullies. This has consequentially impacted Sean’s own self-worth, whose warped sense of identity is made clear in one of the opening scenes as he stares despondently and questioningly into a mirror, examining the scars that his sexuality etches. It’s an iconic image and
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At least since his mother passed. She takes on this motherly role, as Sean displaces her own currently unreachable baby, who she works only to provide for. Kate demotes herself from prostitute to kissing mentor, as she advises Sean imagine it’s his crush, David. It’s a touching and powerful scene. Sean appears genuinely happy, finally, and the events with Kate inspire him to come fully clean to his (already well aware) father. He’s given the confidence to do so on account of what Kate encourages: “Walk out the door if the family you were born with aren’t who you should be with. Because there’s a family out there for everyone, even for you, my pretty boy.” So, either his father will be there for him in his honesty, or he