A Straight Man in a Gay Man's World
Thursday, August 14 2008 | Comments (0)
In this show, which aired during the first season, a right-wing veteran from rural America visits flamboyant, rainbow-clad San Francisco to spend 30 days inside gay culture.
In this episode that aired during the first season of 30 Days, Morgan Spurlock was able to find a Christian man from the Midwest who was willing to live with a gay man and immerse himself in gay culture for a full month.
Ryan was from a small town in Michigan called Oxford. He’s an Army veteran and a recent college graduate. He lived on his family’s farm and has had very little experience about homosexuality.
“With growing up playing football and doing the military thing”, he said in his interview, “It was just something that was beat into my head…that it is wrong.”
Before he headed out on his assignment, his family threw a little barbeque going away party. In attendance were also some of Ryan’s friends, including his best friend Jake. His mother expressed concern about his trip.
“I don’t want you to come back wearing pink shirts or anything”, his father remarked.
“I believe that homosexuality is a choice”, said Ryan. “It clearly says in the Bible that God made man and woman. It doesn’t make sense that He would make people homosexuals.”
Ryan’s destination for his 30 day journey was the Castro district of San Francisco, which is considerably famous for its homosexual denizens. His roommate was Ed, a middle-aged marketing consultant who lives in a nice apartment.
“I have no idea what to expect”, Ed said in his interview.
Day 1- Ryan arrives by taxi to Ed’s apartment building. Ed meets him on the sidewalk and they shook hands. Ed then took Ryan upstairs and showed him the apartment. Ryan was particularly surprised by the large painting of a naked man in the bathroom.
“It seemed like an appropriate place for someone to be naked”, said Ed with a chuckle.
Ed offered to make a toast to Ryan’s arrival with a bottle of champagne. Ryan was reluctant but took a sip of the bubbly nonetheless. Ed informed his new roommate that they were going to have dinner out with 12 of his friends. “I don’t mean to be rude”, Ryan asked, “But these are twelve gay guys?” Ed said that it indeed was. After an uncomfortable silence, Ryan excused himself.
“Well he is going to get a lot of attention”, Ed remarked. “In this city, I hope he knows what he is in for!”
Before dinner, Ryan walked the streets of the Castro with Ed and was amazed by what he had seen. “When I was walking through the Castro for my first time”, he said, “I kept thinking that this is pretty outrageous. Knowing that the majority of the people walking past me are gay… it is a little intimidating.”
As to be expected, during dinner, all of Ed’s friends asked Ryan questions about his hometown, his service in the army and if he knew any gay people. He answered their questions but at the same time made it clear his views on homosexuality. “Marriage for homosexuals is wrong”, said Ryan.
“A lot of people tell us that we chose to live this lifestyle”, said one of Ed’s friends. “But to be persecuted and yelled at and them saying ‘you are a bad person’…why would I want to chose that?”
Realizing that he was expressing his anti-gay philosophy to an entirely gay audience, Ryan began to feel uncomfortable in his position. “I wouldn’t want to wish this on anyone”, he said.
Day 2- Ryan had then experienced his first twenty-four hours in the nucleus of gay San Francisco after he got up from his bed in Ed’s guest room. “The first thing we did was go to ‘gay church’ which is basically working out. They refer to it as church because so many homosexuals go religiously because they are really concerned about their looks and their figure.”
After they worked out a bit in the gym, Ed told Ryan that he came to the truth about his sexuality while he was a pubescent. Although he never was open about it during high school, he came out of the closet after a visit to a local gay beach. “I went down there one day accidentally and I was like ‘Well, this seems to be the place for me!’”
“At this point I still think that Ed chose to be gay”, said Ryan in his interview. “Just with my religious beliefs and what I learned from the Bible, I can’t fathom the idea that anyone was born gay.”
Day 4- Ryan attended Metropolitan Community Church in San Francisco on Sunday morning. “I am open to hearing what they have to say”, he remarked before service. “But I don’t think my views will change.” The church was headed by a female pastor, Penny Nixon and the church pews were filled with gay people willing to be filled with her guidance.
Day 5- Ryan ventures out in the Castro district to find employment. He applied for work at a cheese shop nearby. “It’s all gay workers”, he said, “and all the customers would be gay.” David, the store manager decided to give him a shot as long as Ryan was willing to learn about the cheeses and wine that the store offered. When Ryan agreed, he was offered a clerk job on the spot.
Outside the shop, Ryan had received a text message from Ed. “How is the job search?” he read from his phone. “If you get a job at a place that sells lube, see what discount you can get me.. hahaha’”.
Day 7- After a full week of being in what he called ‘the gayest place on Earth’, Ryan sat and had a talk with the minister of the MCC, Penny Nixon. He had more questions about the validity of homosexuality after her sermon last week. Reverend Dr. Nixon lent him a book to read so he could ask her questions from that book at another time. They had a discussion on being gay and being a Christian.
“I recognize it as a sin”, Ryan said to Rev. Nixon. “From my opinion, I think that it is something homosexuals need to recognize.”
“If I were to really take that on”, she replied, “I would have to break up my home of 13 years and leave my partner…I think that God is more concerned about what we do with our resources than what we do with our genitalia”.
Day 10- Ed initiates Ryan into the gay night life in the Castro District. They visit a gay men bar called “Daddy’s” which was complete with wild dancing, booze and men with their shirts off.
“This is NOT my type of place”, said Ryan frowning at the revelry around him. “This is the most uncomfortable place I have been in so far.”
He made it very audibly clear to Ed that he was not happy there and it didn’t take long for trouble to manifest in the form of a couple of drunk men who, sensing his tension, challenged him on why he was there. Eventually to keep the peace, Ryan left the bar.
Day 12- Ryan was getting a little homesick as he spoke to people back in Michigan on his cell phone (“Yeah, you can’t go more than a hour without seeing a couple of guys kiss!”) and he grew tired of the gay scenery. Ed took him to a neighborhood baseball game filled with gay men. Ryan felt better about doing something athletic, even if he still was out of his element.
“It was nice to see Ryan having fun and letting loose”, said Ed in his interview.
Day 14- Having spent a full fortnight within the Castro, Ryan was getting a crash course education from his boss David on cheeses from around the world. “Uh, there is definitely a lot I need to know about cheeses and wine”, Ryan admitted in his interview.
Day 15- Ryan had a second meeting with Reverend Dr. Penny Nixon at the church to discuss more about how homosexuality and Christianity are relevant to one another. Ryan still felt that they had nothing in common.
“For one moment just say the Bible said that it was wrong for a man to sleep with a woman”, the Reverend said. “So the way to go, would be for a man to sleep with a man. Could you change so you can do that?”
Immediately Ryan responded: “Not a chance.”
Day 16- In his apartment, Ed was curious to see how Ryan’s meeting with Reverend Nixon went. Ryan responded that it didn’t go well.
“When you take your opinion”, said Ed, “and condemn somebody else for behavior because it doesn’t follow a code of conduct that you chose to follow…”
“How am I condemning her behavior?” Ryan interrupted. ‘It’s just my view saying a murder is wrong; homosexuality is wrong.”
Ed was appalled. “A murder? I mean someone who kills somebody?!”
“Look at it this way”, Ryan reasoned. “In God’s eyes, there is no sin greater than another sin.”
Day 17- For Mother’s Day, Ed took Ryan on a short road trip to visit with his family. They all bonded over a meal and discussed with Ryan their views on Ed’s lifestyle. “Ed is a good guy”, said his mother. “I don’t ask him about his sex life, he doesn’t ask me about my sex life.”
“My family showed him that they were proud of who I am”, Ed remarked in his interview.
Day 18- Ryan attended a meeting of the gay chapter of the American Legion in San Francisco. He met veterans that even fought in the second World War and they told him what it was like to be gay in the services then.
“World War II”, an elderly, decorated veteran told him, “a person didn’t dare to be open. He’d be crucified instantly.”
Day 24- Jake, Ryan’s best friend from Michigan had some free time and was invited to stay a couple of days in Ed’s apartment. Ryan was happy to see him and was eager to show him around. Ed, some of his friends and Ryan take Jake on a night life tour of the Castro district. Ryan suggests that they stop into Daddy’s to check out the scene inside. Ed was understandably concerned.
“It’s the one place he’s had a bad time and he wants to go back in”, Ed said to his friends. “And I think that he is looking for a little trouble.”
Once they were inside, Ryan and Jake got boozed up and eventually got on the stage inside the club, took off their shirts and began to dance. Ed looked on from a distance.
“When you do something like dance with your shirt off in a gay bar”, he said in his interview, “people might assume you are gay no matter what you say.”
Ed chastised the two friends once they all were out of the club. “It clearly wouldn’t be an issue if you could walk these streets and not be offended”, he said to Ryan. “If you were there, I would care less about it. You are not there yet.”
Day 26- After the night of partying, Jake headed home for Michigan and bid his friend Ryan goodbye. He had one last meeting with Reverend Nixon at the MCC and she asked him what would it take to change is mind about homosexuality. He replied that it would have to be spelled out in the Bible the same way he learned that it said that being gay was wrong.
“But it also said do not kill”, the pastor countered. “And didn’t you carry a gun when you were in the Reserves?”
Ryan said that he did. She also asked if he had to shoot someone would he do it. Ryan said that he would for his country.
“But the Bible says ‘don’t kill’”, Reverend Nixon said.
“Are you saying that the military shouldn’t defend this country?” Ryan asked her.
“I am just going by your system of what the Bible says”, she replied.
Day 28- Upon Ed’s suggestion, Ryan visited a chapter of PFLAG which is a support group of friends and family members of gay people. While there, an elderly man named Sam told Ryan of when his daughter came home from college and told him that she was gay. He said he asked her how she knew. His daughter asked him how he knew that he was heterosexual.
“And I got it”, Sam said. “I know that’s just who I am and I understand that is just who she is. In my truth, my daughter deserves all the same respect, dignity, and receives all the same privileges, rights and obligations as her two straight brothers.”
Ryan was touched by that statement. “To hear Sam say that with so much love in his heart”, he said, “… it’s hard to sit there and say ‘I disagree with that’”
Day 29- Ryan was busy on his last day of his 30 day assignment by hosting a garden wine and cheese party. Many people that he had befriended in the Castro came and applauded his acquired knowledge of the different assortment of goodies thanks to his boss Dave.
“In the last 30 days, I think that I have become more open-minded”, stated Ryan in his interview. “I think that it has made me a better person.”
Day 30- Ryan was all packed and ready to leave S.F. for his home in Michigan three thousand miles away. He and Ed waited curbside for the taxi and as a gift: Ryan gave Ed a picture of them together. They gave each other a hug, Ryan got into the newly arrived taxi cab and Ed soon was waving good bye as the cab headed for the airport.
“Ryan is now one of my good friends”, Ed said in his interview.
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