Bros Before is the Film Adding the Fun Back into Trans Representation

Chicago based filmmaker Henry Hanson is making work for ‘trans people who are freakish, flawed, broke, gender nonconforming, gay, complicated, weird, and capable of being wrong.’ His new short film Bros Before follows Elijah and Billy, two trans men who enjoy jerking off together in a ‘straight way’ until Billy starts dating a woman and Elijah must come to terms with his homosexuality. It’s a fresh take on queerness on screen - a break from some of the tragic depictions of queerness we see in mainstream film and TV and instead a story that’s celebrating the unique experiences of transmasculine people, with a side of hyperpop.

Bros Before has a real Gregg Araki, 90’s DIY feeling to it - Do you think this style of filmmaking is able to come back into popularity? Like how Gregg Araki almost directed an MTV TV show ‘This Is How The World Ends’, it would be good if one day we could see that creative, queer focused stories and raunchy comedy can be back on larger platforms.

Thank you! Yeah, I was very inspired by Gregg Araki, particularly his 1997 feature Nowhere, as well as other work coming out of the 90s New Queer Cinema and Homocore movements. I'd be remiss not to mention Cheryl Dunye and Bruce Labruce as other major influences on this project as well.

It seems like people are really responding to the style, which has been so cool. Through sharing this work, I was able to connect with a lot of people who are already doing similar things and/or wanting to do similar things. One Letterboxd review literally says "damn, I wanted to be the first transmasc to rip off Gregg Araki." Well, I hope that person and everyone else who was thinking about doing it ALSO rips off Gregg Araki 'cause I want to watch more cool stuff. Everyone's gonna have their own unique take on the style and it's not like you can just watch one 20-minute short over and over and be satisfied.

But yeah, anyway, I think it's important to point out that even in their heyday these movies I'm talking about were still pretty marginal. I don't really foresee a future where low budget/DIY filmmaking is exactly mainstream but I think and hope it can continue to grow as its own little ecosystem growing out of a network of local and online scenes. If enough stuff like this is happening on smaller levels and becoming popular, it probably will get picked up by the industry to some extent. But also I think we don't necessarily need to wait for that in order to make and distribute the content we want to see.

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“I think just making fun, interesting stuff that has trans people in it does a lot more for building empathy and understanding amongst outsiders. Not that that's my primary motivation. I made Bros Before for myself and other trans people, to make us laugh.”

What are your thoughts on the current depictions of the trans experience on film today?

I actually wrote a whole zine about this which you can read for free on my blog. I think a lot of it is either edu-tainment geared towards cis people or trauma porn also geared towards cis people. It's pretty obvious why and how this happens when trans people aren't actually involved in the creation of the material, as has historically been the case. But in recent years, there's been another (IMO unfortunate) phenomenon where even when trans people ARE the ones making things it seems like they're still really burdened by the spectre of "good representation." Like feeling like they have to prove that trans people are horribly oppressed and/or morally righteous. I don't know, I just don't think that's very interesting and I'm not exactly sure who that's supposed to be for.

Paradoxically, I think just making fun, interesting stuff that has trans people in it does a lot more for building empathy and understanding amongst outsiders. Not that that's my primary motivation. I made Bros Before for myself and other trans people, to make us laugh. But if the storytelling and craftsmanship is good enough then it should be enjoyable for anyone.

I loved the hyperpop soundtrack - why did you go in that direction with the music?

Thanks! Well, back to the Gregg Araki influence, I've always loved his music cues. He has such a knack for capturing not just the mood of the moment but the larger zeitgeist with his soundtracks. I think hyperpop is the obvious choice for music that is both extremely transgender and unique to this specific moment in history. To me it captures the sort of emotional rollercoaster and sensory overload of going through second puberty while trying to date and find happiness etc.

The props and set design stood out a lot, why were these intricate details important to you?

I'm glad to hear that! Any mention of the set design I will preface with giving all due credit to my production designer Jade and set dresser Mac. Also, the actors who played Elijah and Meadow both contributed some of their personal items to the bedroom sets of their respective characters. Collaboration was a huge part of realising the vision.

Production design is an underrated and really powerful storytelling tool. A picture's worth a thousand words, right? Like, because of the stuff in Elijah's bedroom, I don't really need to do any exposition about his personal history in the dialogue. You see all his Riot Grrrl posters, the overflowing sharps container, The Well of Loneliness on the bedside table, and trash everywhere: this character hasn't uttered a word of dialogue but you kind of get his whole deal. I think most people use pop culture as a shorthand for communicating things about themselves to the world and connecting with others, and I've always loved when films use this to their advantage by incorporating lots of internal references. It just makes the whole thing richer and more alive.

How did you go about casting the film?

At first I tried to use legit casting services but there were like no trans people on there. So instead I just made Instagram and Twitter graphics as well as a Lex post, which is actually how I found Meadow (Grace). I asked everyone who was interested to record themselves delivering a monologue and send me the video. Then for the Billy and Elijah parts I did in-person callbacks and tried out different combinations of actors to see who had the best chemistry. For Grace, I just cast Meadow off the self tape cause they expressed a really strong connection to the script and nobody else really had the IT factor like they did. Meadow and Rad (Billy) turned out to have great chemistry, thankfully.

How do you think the throwback, indie style of filmmaking can be applied to new conversations?

I thought a lot about the way influence works when planning this project because I was pretty committed to making it an homage to queer 90s films while still feeling fresh and timely. I didn't want nostalgia to become a crutch. So I tried to really pinpoint what it was about those 90s movies that gripped me and try to apply those techniques to this story set firmly in the present. The way I would describe what I like about those movies is that their storytelling uses artifice, hyperbole, and a heightening of reality to express an emotional truth. From this jumping off point, I tried to cultivate an overall flatness -- executed in the lighting, production design, dialogue style and blocking -- that gives the whole thing a 2D cartoonishness. I think the effect of the flat/cartoon vibe is a larger-than-life whimsy as well as an archetypal quality to the characters and situations that allows a lot of people to see themselves in the story and use it to think through a variety of situations in the real world. This flatness/cartoonishness feels like a hallmark of 90s queer cinema, but I think it's a set of techniques that can be applied in a lot of cool and interesting ways in other contexts.

But yeah, to go back to the initial question in a more general sense, I think it's really hard to make new, innovative art without studying what came before you. If I don't know anything about the history of filmmaking I'm probably just going to do something boring that's been done a million times. But if I know how and when that thing was done in the past, I'm probably at least going to have my own unique angle on it. Thinking deeply about a piece of older art on its own terms and in its own context is actually more likely to make me right here and now in 2023 think of a new idea.

What was the process of writing the script like? Was it improv at all?

When I first started writing it, all I had was the idea of two trans guys having a homophobic homoerotic fantasy together. I wrote down that first scene, giving myself permission to be as over-the-top and absurd as I wanted mainly through taking inspiration from the genre conventions of pornography. Then after I had that first scene I just tried to let the story unfold naturally and build off of the last thing that had happened. If the idea of two people having a shared fantasy is going to turn into a story with a plot, it seemed obvious to me that the next thing would be a misunderstanding about the fantasy outside the context of the bedroom. Obviously one of them has to get a girlfriend and that's gonna cause a bunch of drama. I don't know, I really wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel with the story, I intentionally used tropes as much as possible.

The script had gone through a few rounds of edits and was locked when we went into production but there were a few moments when the actors had an idea for something to add while we were shooting. I think I ended up including all of their additions and the movie is definitely better for them. For example, it was Rad's (Billy) idea to sing Detonate during the awkward weed-smoking scene. That was hilarious and so perfect for that moment. Or like at the end when Elijah says "have fun with your boyfriend" it was Meadow's (Grace) idea to quietly say "boyfriend?" to herself. So yeah it was mostly stuff like that, like the precise little details that make the characters feel so alive.

What are your plans for the next creative project?

I'm actually already in the middle of making my next movie. It's funny you brought up improv in the last question because this next one is fully improvised, which required a totally different creative process but was super fun to do. I don't want to say too much about the premise because I'm not ready to make an official announcement about it yet but I will say that I'm very excited about it. It's really different from Bros Before in terms of its style and vibe but it shares the sort of earnest yet dark sense of humor rooted in emotionally complex interpersonal conflict. I'm incorporating some different influences with this one, too. It's like Hong Sang-Soo meets Larry David. But very queer.

I also wanted to say thank you so much for giving me the space to talk about this movie, it means a lot to me! And make sure to check out the rest of the stuff on The Otherness Archive.

See updates on where to watch Bros Before here.

Words: Charlotte Amy Landrum