Back in 2006 writer and director Todd Stephens created a film that was quite different to his previous works.
Stephens had found success with his script for the 1998 semi-autobiographical film Edge of Seventeen and had made his directorial debut Gypsy 83 in 2001. Both films are set in his hometown of Sandusky, Ohio. Later he would return to the location to make the acclaimed Swan Song with Udo Kier.
For his second work as a director he created Another Gay Movie, a camp over-the-top that brought a shamelessly queer story that riffed on popular teen movies of the time like American Pie, Road Trip and Sex Drive.
The film followed four friends who had recently graduated high school and took up a bet to each lose their anal virginity before the end of the summer. Two years later he created a sequel that saw the four friend reunite for a spring break trip to Florida where they get involved in more outrageous shenanigans and sex-capades.
While the sequel was not as successful as the box office as the original film, many people remember it more with it’s cameos from adult film star Brent Corrigan, Colton Ford, Perez Hilton, Amanda LePore and many other queer icons.
With the film being released on major streaming platforms, director Todd Stephens chatted to OUTinPerth’s Graeme Watson about making the film, and the works he created after this pair of teen comedy classics.
Another Gay Sequel – Guys Gone Wild. This is such a memorable movie. I haven’t watched it for a really long time, but I didn’t need to go re-watch it, because I remember everything about it. Why do you think this film is so stuck in our brains?
Because you were traumatised by it, and it’s burned a hole in your skull and your brain. I don’t know, I don’t think there’s a lot of movies like this. There’s things in it that are insane and I think we tend to remember those things.
I’m maybe slightly traumatised, because I always live in a fear of a terrible sex accident involving super-glue. How do you look back on this film years after you made it?
I watched it again a few days ago, and I hadn’t watched it in many years. Part of me is like, “Did I make that?”
It’s just amazing that I did that. I’m very proud of it still. It was a tricky the making that film, we had a couple things happen that made the production of it a bit of a challenge. Mainly that two of the original stars that were going to be in it dropped out a couple of weeks before we shot, so it was a tricky shoot.
That said we still had tons of fun. I look back at it, there’s some things that I cringe at, that I would like to ideally remove, or maybe go away, or would do differently now, but overall I’m proud of it.
I think it’s very sex positive, in your face, it’s stupid, it’s ridiculous, it’s over the top, it’s raunchy, it’s all the things that it was meant to be, and it still packs a punch.
I’m proud of that. I made those movies to press push people’s buttons and get them talking. Some people were like, “God, this makes us gays look like all we care about is sex and all that kind of stuff”. We knew people would say that, but then there’s other people that appreciated us being able to laugh at ourselves, and that was the other purpose of it, to not take ourselves so seriously.
“Not every movie needs to have being queer as a big conflict that one agonises over. These kids just want what every other teenage boy wants, to have sex. So I thought that still holds up as being pretty cool.
Both the films have this lovely cavalcade of celebrities who pop up. It’s interesting looking back now, because some of them have become bigger and huge, and others we will have to remind younger people who they were as they’ve faded away a little bit, but it’s such an interesting collection of people.
How did you go about putting them all together?
I wanted to celebrate out queer celebrities, at the time there weren’t that many, it was a different world then.
Graham Norton, Scott Thompson, RuPaul, Lady Bunny. They were my idols. I really looked up to them. I wanted to pay homage to these people that were legendary and had the courage to be queer openly, and that had a big influence on me.
We we started asking them, and were shocked that they said yes.
I remember we tried to get Charles Nelson Riley to do Grandpa Muffler in Another Gay Movie, and he wouldn’t do it. That crushed me because he was one of my all time favorites, but for the most part, most people said yes. As you noted some of them have grown in prominence. Especially RuPaul, she’s become Queen of the World!
These two films, in comparison the other films you made, they’re quite different. Edge of Seventeen I think is one of those really landmark films. I remember as a young gay man being in the video store and seeing queer content, you know, grab this, take it. And it is your story.
Then at the other end, more recently, we’ve seen Swan Song, which is just a beautiful film.
How do you compare these two films to the other ones you make? Because they are quite different.
The only explanation I have is, I’m a Gemini, and I have these two different sides of my personality. The Ohio trilogy of Edge of Seventeen, and Gypsy 83 and Swan Song that that’s more me, more my heart.
My heart is in the ‘Another Gay’ movies as well. They were really done as acts of rebellion. I had a lot of trouble getting Gypsy 83 distributed, because distributors said it wasn’t gay enough, or “who was going to watch a fag-hag movie?”
It pissed me off. They were like, “It’s not gay enough. I don’t know what the movie poster is.”
I thought, you want something gay, I’m going to fucking make the gayest movie ever made! I’m gonna make the most shocking gay movie ever made. I started with the movie poster, I knew what the movie poster was right away. It was done originally as an act of frustration. It was also a conservative time politically with the Bush administration.
It’s interesting that two of of your films are about being a certain age, Edge of Seventeen is about being young and excited, and Swan Song is about being at the end of life, of being older. There’s something very interesting in those two bookends of films you’ve made.
It makes me think that I really need to make a film about being middle-aged.
Another Gay Sequel – Gays Gone Wild is available on major streaming platforms now.
