"It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives" (I will not mention the German title because it is so long and will give a dozen spelling mistakes) is a West German German-language movie from 1971, so this one has its 45th anniversary this year. It is an early career effort by Rosa von Praunheim, who was not even 30 at that point and he is still known today for being one of the most influential homosexual filmmakers, even if pretty much all of his works went under the radar during his long career. And the title here already tells you the subject of this mix of fiction and documentary movie. There are so so many gay-themed (short )films coming out these days 8and in the last 15-20 years) that still act as if homosexuality was a huge problem, but this is incorrect as the majority of people have grown really tolerant by now. But back in the early 1970s, it was completely different. Homosexuality was a complete taboo, so RvP (actually a Latvian-born filmmaker) had an outstanding opportunity to really make a difference on an important subject and show audiences the path of understanding and tolerance for the future. He did no such thing. The only intention I see here is probably to shock as many people as possible. There is not a single stereotype about gays that is not included here. This refers to leather police outfits, to cross-dressing, to causal sex at public toilets (ewwwwwww..) and more. The narration is not good, but the acting, especially the voice acting are way worse admittedly and make this almost an unbearable watch because the actors are (almost )all so so bad. Yeah well, I see von Praunheim here trying to be as controversial as possible and this is probably a reason (besides the title )why this film here is still relatively well-known today, especially in the LBGT community. The best thing about it, for me, is certainly how short it was, only slightly longer than an hour. I don't recommend the watch. Not at all.
