factory inspo

“In the pantheon of gay male icons, of traditional gay male icons, I think River Phoenix really stands apart. And it’s very interesting, insofar as he’s not as messed up by the closet, isn’t as dependent on the closet as Montgomery Clift, or James Dean, or countless others, right? There was a certain outness about River Phoenix. Whatever his sexuality might have been, he did not mind being read, quoted, and performing queer”

Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois, 60062. Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us - in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That’s the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed.