The Act: A Documentary Film-in-Progress

• In Event: Homonationalism, Imperial “Harm-Reduction,” and Pinkwashing Zionism

Abstract

The Act is a documentary film-in-progress which takes the life and death of my elder brother, David, as a plot device through which to examine the effects of anti-Arab racism, sexism, and homophobia on queer Arab Americans. My older brother David was found dead in his car in San Francisco in late July 2021. David had lived on and off the streets of San Francisco for the better part of twenty years. I mostly knew him as a violent and abusive drug addict and alcoholic. Unsure how to grieve for him, I turned to old family photos to make sense of things. Among a cache of photos in which he is either conspicuously absent or appears moody, dissociated, or stoned, I stumbled upon two unexpected photos of David circa 1984. He is fourteen years old, holding baby me on his hip, and gleefully grinning ear to ear. He is donning a brunette wig and wearing a short, sleeveless baby blue dress. Wherein the other photos in this family archive show a brooding teen marinating in a stupor of anger, drugs, and alcohol, in these photos David is energetic, lighthearted, and radiating joy. It was not until after his death that I understood my brother’s life for what it was: an act. The toxically masculine persona I knew of him functioned as a defensive performance of heterosexuality and whiteness, an elaborate act to distract from his queerness and his Palestinianness. While the film is currently still in production, I will present a short paper elaborating on the theoretical and historical contexts which inform my approach to making this film. The paper will address some of the themes addressed in the film, such as assimilation, homonationalism, diaspora, the politics of cultural authenticity, and shame. I will also address the stakes and challenges of making such a film while trying to avoid it being taken up in the service of pinkwashing. While reading the paper, I will also show silent excerpts from the film so as to give the audience a sense of how the film is taking shape.

Author

• Umayyah Cable, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor