An Accursed Creature With Wifi

val (the straight son) and armand (the dad and partner who is relatively able to pass as straight) have gotten themselves into dark suits and etc in preparation and albert, who spends most of his time in silk robes and pink blouses and gauzy linen, comes in, dressed identically to them.

he slowly sits down, and for an unbearable time val and armand just look at him. and he starts listing off the things he did right: the black pinstriped suit and sober hair and loafers and lack of makeup. he's done everything right! he should pass as straight! he should get the A! and val and armand still just look at him. and he's like.

oh. it's even more obvious this way.

he monologues a little, excuses himself, walks out. almost tearing up that he can't be part of the family tonight. without val or armand saying much of anything at all.

how heartbreaking it is that he just can't. he just can't pass. it doesn't matter how much everyone around you wants you to be straight, it doesn't matter how much YOU want to be like that, to do it for them, it doesn't matter how hard you try. you can do everything right, you can meet every technical requirement, you can check off every box, and it still won't work: you will never be the person they want you to be.

and the more you endlessly, desperately, massively try to be this person you're not, the more obvious it is to everyone else. the closer you get to performing the ideal, the more glaring the distance between the ideal and you. the millimeter-sized mistakes in the way you walk in a suit and move your hands and try to smile tell on you, somehow so much more than they ever did when you were a mile away from straight and half-dressed in a silk robe. bc putting on the costume of a straight person only highlights the acting, the desperation, the insecurity.

so no one has to say anything. they know; he knows; everyone knows that in order for this to be a good straight family, he has to be rejected.

in fact, in hindsight, albert has been expecting it, joking about it, play-acting it, hysterically attention-grabbing about it this whole movie.

he has a genuinely loving relationship and community with armand; in that safe space, he regularly acts out scenes of himself abandoned or forced to leave, plays up his mockable femininity, and most importantly, always tries to beat other people to the punch. rejection is not his worst fear; it is simply a constant fact of his life.

so he makes a joke of it, so well, so artistically, so eagerly, that you almost forget abt the cold reality -- that real rejection, always, is coming for him, and finds him when he's trying the hardest to be what other people want.

but i think arguably (also!) albert then gets the most beautiful victory in the whole movie. he puts on a whole costume and takes it upon himself to pretend to be val's straight mother for the night (which he actually sells!) he finds a way to be included using all his wonderful strengths in femininity and acting and wig-wearing. and then, when the whole ruse comes tumbling down, he says to the conservative family's faces, yes. this is who i am. and, frankly, the difference between me in that wig and me now is nothing.

idk. this whole movie's thesis seems to be articulated concisely by armand, close to the start: yes, i'm a middle-aged fag who wears foundation. but goddamnit, I know who I am, and it took me a long time to get here. no one else is taking that away from me. albert, of course, diva and performer and star, turns that into an elaborate show with costumes and wigs and a spotlight all on him.