Interview with the soon-to-be leader of the Brown Fat Fag Revolution... Devon Devine
Dichotomy: Congratulations! You & Sarah Adorable wrote and directed Mala, and it’s brilliant. I’m a Malaqueerche junkie. I don’t think I’ve memorized this many lines from a movie (I know, me too. Laughs) since I first fell in love with Party Girl. OK, enough kissing up. Where did the concept Malaqueerche come from?
Devon Devine: It started at Evergreen State College-Evergreen’s attraction to students is that you can create your own curriculum. I was there for one quarter, took a bad gender studies class, and realized I wanted to create movies that had a strong foundation in gender theory. Nothing was being offered when I needed to register, so, I decided to create my own class. It was me, along with three close friends, and together we created a rigorous curriculum that wove together gender theory, queer theory, sexuality studies and international films. It was called “Roving Marauders.” For our final project, we each wrote scripts for twenty-minute movies that incorporated the gender theory we had learned. We did all this on our own, except for the script-writing portion and we were fortunate enough to work with Marilyn Freeman (Director of "Group," owner of Wovie Productions). She gave us amazing ideas/advice on how to develop story lines, characters and a script. That’s pretty much how Mala started. Sarah and I were living together in the same bed at the time. We would go down to the local bar every night and used the surroundings as an inspiration for what we wanted to write about. We wanted the script to be about queer gangs, but didn’t know about the names. At the bar, we flipped through a dictionary and came across Mohawk. I said one gang could be the Mohawks and Sarah said the other could be the Mullets. We wrote a really rough draft of the script in January of 2002. Then we put the script away, cause we didn’t think it would be made.
Why queer gangs? Gangs are not commonly associated with the queer community.
They’re not? Both laugh. At the time of the conception, Sarah and I had wanted to start queer gangs, cause we heard Olympia had them in the past. Also, I wanted to create some kind of community for queer people that was not mirrored after any kind of mainstream community. Unlike gangs that exist in large areas, these gangs are not about violence. They are about family, which I think is the concept of some gangs. For us, it was a fun way to create queer space and hang out with other people. We tried to start actual queer gangs to start some camaraderie within the queer community.
Is that when you started tagging?
Yeah. For my birthday, we tagged all the queer people we knew in town with, “The Vicious Adorables Will Pervert You.” The Vicious Adorables was the name of our gang.
That’s where Sarah got her name.
Yeah. And as far as Mala, we just hyped it up so much, doing this weird promotion for a movie, which we had no plans to make while we were promoting our queer gang and just promoting visible queerness in our community. We stickered Olympia like nobody’s business.
It reminds me of Fischerspooner’s hype…
We had many inspirations, especially the way Fischerspooner hyped themselves. Kind of like corporate America hypes a product, it’s the concept of art as a commodity. Also, a lot of inspiration came from the movie “The Warriors” and Pedro Almodovar’s first two movies. There are lines taken from these films in Malaqueerche.
Which leads into my next question…What/who were your inspirations for you and Sarah?
Fischerspooner for hyping up the project and Pedro Almodovar- everything, from the way he portrayed the Spanish 80s punk subculture in his early movies to the way he portrayed gender and sexuality in his later movies to his concert sequences. In the movies “Labrynth of Passion” and “Pepi, Luci y Bom y Otras Chicas del Monton (and Other Women on the Heap),” he included full concert sequences where they would sing full songs, which was something I wanted to do for Mala. (In the film, Romantic Retard Nation performs their song “Kissin On The Mouth” and Justin Timberlake’s “Rock Your Body”). Lastly, Mala was taken from things we learned, read about or watched in class. It’s also inspired by the concept of absolute transvestism. It’s a concept coming out of Japanese film theory, specifically with the 1960s film “Black Lizard” and actually someone we all love, Bruce La Bruce, recommended “Summer Vacation 1991.” I actually rented one of his movies tonight. One of the other huge inspirations was the show Popular (WB TV show that ran for two seasons).
I loved Popular.
Me too.
Where has Mala been shown?It premiered at the Capitol Theatre in Olympia and was shown at the Bendit Extravaganza, which was a queer youth art conference. (full listing of screenings at the end of the article) Unofficially, it’s been shown lots of other places, I’m sure.
How has it been getting into film festivals?
I don’t have a good feeling about sending it to festivals. It’s hard cause Malaqueerche is so specific, so Olympia. Festivals seem to be about corporate sponsorship- they want a polished, Hollywood aesthetic. That’s not what we were going for. I know there are film festivals out there like that, like Ladyfest, Homo A Go Go and this festival in Minnesota. We want the DIY festival circuit, really, but it’s really hard to find.
Tell me about the end inscription “this film is dedicated to all the queers that never fit in.” It really stuck with me…
We wanted to make a film for queer people who never see images of themselves on or in mainstream media and TV. I was a queer person that never fit into a mainstream idea of gayness, so I wanted my experiences and my queer culture reflected in Malaqueerche, the art that I make and the art that I support.
Later, I’ll get your thoughts on queer media. The music in Malaqueerche includes: The Gossip, Princess Superstar, Gravy Train!!!, Scream Club and Erase Errata to name a few….How did you get them all?
We just asked them.
OK.
Laughs. Well, The Gossip, Vicious White Lies, Half Seas Over and King Cobra are from Olympia. Olympia is a small town, so it was pretty easy to get a hold of people. And we sent our five-minute trailer to all the other bands. After watching it, everyone said yes. Actually, bands said yes before they even saw the trailer. It seems like they were excited to donate their music to a project that was about queer punks. Most of them agreed before they even saw a contract.
What advice can you give other people that are interested in DIY filmmaking?
Filmmaking seems like it’s a hard art form because it costs so much money, but you can make a film with the resources that you have.
You just need to throw a party, right?
Right, hype it up. If it doesn’t exist yet, you have to throw lots of parties for it and get the word out. In the end, if you really believe in what you’re doing you can get it out. Sounds cheesy, but it’s true. We had so much fun hyping it up and throwing benefits and that’s what made it work in the end.
In Mala, you hit on identities within the queer community (drags, fags, hags, dykes & clones). Do you think these established identities help or hurt the queer community?
I think they do both. I think that you need, or rather, I think that society needs some kind of label, even the all encompassing queer label, in order to function and maintain its sense of control. I think it’s the rigidness of sticking to those labels and applying rules to those labels that is the problem. “You are only a dyke, if you are a girl that has sex with other girls.” What does that role mean, you know? What’s your definition of girl? What’s your definition of sex? Why can’t dykes have sex with boys? Also, having that identity can be really empowering. I also believe in having flexibility with these labels and the way in which we identify ourselves. Especially when it comes to gender.
Tell me about the choice of making the Mullets be the drag “version” of the Mohawks…
We wanted to create a queer space in the film, where gender was completely fluid. This also includes the concept of absolute transvestism, which is a lot of theory I don’t want to get into…We wanted something that didn’t question the fluidity, but was just an accepted part of it. Very much a la Divine playing a housewife in Hairspray or Polyester. You have this gigantic drag queen playing housewife and no one questions the fact that there’s some sort of gender fluidity or gender displacement going on.
What are your thoughts about queer media? I think “Queer” TV shows are running rampant (Boy Meets Boy, Queer Eye, Will and Grace)- What’s caused their popularity?
I think different things about queer film and TV. What bothers me about queer film, is that the basic formula always starts off with a teenage kid thinking that they’re wrong/different for wanting to be gay. And the movie goes into a downward spiral, where they’re either killed because of their sexuality/gender OR they finally snap and realize they’re just like everyone else and being gay is okay. When I see a film portrayal of a gay bashing, I want to see the gay person pick up their bat and bash the shit out of the bashers.
Something similar happened in “Relax, It’s Just Sex…” and it was considered extremely controversial.
Yeah, I think that was so powerful and ahead of its time. I want to use film to create queer spaces that celebrate its diversity and uniqueness. Because mainstream America wants to homogenize everyone as much as possible and queer people are not like everyone else. And that’s the beauty of it all. And that also goes into my thoughts on TV. That’s what shows like Queer As Folk, Boy Meets Boy and Queer Eye For the Straight Guy are like- homogenous. On one side of it, exposure of the gay community to mainstream media is good, but it’s just a whitewashed version of what I want to see.
Do you think these narrow depictions have to do with society’s comfort level?
I think society’s level could be pushed a little. It’s definitely easier for them to see depictions of gay white men, rather than people of color in positions of power, like lead roles on TV. I’m disappointed by the portrayal of all gay men as being Will-esque. I laugh at Will and Grace but it’s not real. Where is the reality and where are all the people of color? These media sources are all owned and run by men and showing a rich, white, man is less intimidating. But there’s also this rich, white, gay, male audience that are watching and more importantly, putting money into supporting images that reflect their experiences. Similar to the rich, white, male component of hetero society they only represent a small percentage of the gay community.
And one of my questions is: where are all the women?
Ellen Degeneres and Melissa Etheridge are the mainstream ones.
That’s not enough. I want more.Can you think of any shows that are real depictions of queer life? Pause.
No. I think Boy Meets Boy and Queer As Folk try to pretend they are, but they’re not.I guess, I think Karen (from Will and Grace) is, in the sense that she is a caricature of a classist, rich, white, female. Karen can be classist and racist and we can laugh at her, because we are laughing at what we don’t like in society. But, I mean, how many price brackets is she really away from Will, a lawyer, and Grace, who owns her own interior designing business? And those two are not caricatures. They are all part of a class system that oppress other people.
I know that you have a little idea that Karen represents the queer community on that show.
I think she embodies a definition of what queer means. Maybe she doesn’t, oh but she does. Being queer, for me and for other people, extends into class, race, sexuality, gender and a critique of how mainstream society views those issues. And you can argue that Karen embodies that critique in some way. But what I would rather talk about is Popular, because Popular was a very queer show. I think it brilliantly takes concepts of queerness and high camp and wraps it all up into the awkwardness and the cattiness of being in high school.
I think that could have been a promo for Popular. Both laugh.
I mean Delta Burke was in it, what could be more queer than that? Except maybe Dolly Parton? Or one of the Golden Girls?
Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about Mala?
Right now, Sarah and I really wanted to get Malaqueerche seen. We’re trying to put together a night of queer underground films that we can tour around the country at independent film theatres. I just want to put the word out, so if anyone wants to include their movie or knows some place that we can screen them (cities, colleges, etc.) let us know.
On a final note, I’ve noticed Malaqueerche is becoming popular on the Friendster circuit... how amazing is it that Gravy Train!!! listed Malaqueerche as one of their favorite movies?
I think it’s only that popular because I asked all my friends to put it down as their favorite movie.

Malaqueerche is now available
For rent: Leather Tongue Video San Francisco, CA
Lost Weekend Video San Francisco, CA
Cinefile Video Los Angeles, CA
Rainy Day Records Olympia, WA

To buy: Phantom City Records Olympia, WA
Video Vertigo Seattle, WA and soon will hit video stores in Chicago.

If you’re interested in a copy of Malaqueerche e-mail the writers at: malaqueerche@hotmail.com or visit the Official Malaqueerche Website

Malaqueerche hit the screening circuit not long after its debut at the Capitol Theatre in Olympia, WA. It has been screened at Outflix in Memphis, MIX in NYC, the Queeruption Benefit in Amsterdam, Bend It Youth Extravanganza in Seattle and was up for competition at Slamdance (alterna-Sundance) in Park City, Utah. It soon will be touring worldwide with JUNK.