I still think about one random person I was messaging who got really defensive because I said I didn't think it was hugely likely that David Cronenberg was queer. Not out of the question because he's fairly private, more that he's over 80 and has been making feature films for 50 years, which is kind of like spending 50 years with the biggest concentration of nosy gossipers on the planet. I think there'd have been at least the hint of a whisper of a rumor or something. Like anything is possible but it mostly doesn't seem like his own life concerns his films, a few exceptions to the side. He's a person who makes very strange films who in all other ways expresses himself as otherwise conventional. It's a rare case but I would almost say Cronenberg being trans or queer would be less interesting, because that would almost immediately consume the interpretation of his work. A straight, cis man digging so deep into themes that are easily relatable to the queer and trans experiences in ways that feel unfettered by social niceties, being personally disdainful of social and political proscriptions against sexuality and the body is to me fascinating because if he gets it, and hasn't got anything personal invested as far as sexuality and gender go, that means it's like. Anyone can get it.
Cronenberg is like the metric I hold everyone else to. The guy who seems to have struggled zero amount to accept fundamental human equity and the flexibility to allow for widely ranging lives experiences. He's just some fucking guy, and if someone is blowing a gasket over trans lives, I look at Cronenberg who's position was just quiet positivity and I know. I know the person flipping out is the fucked one, the deviation. Being fine and undisturbed by people who are different from yourself is the baseline. Screaming and rage over differences is a thing people choose, or let happen. I love his films, I hope he never turns out to be anything but bland as fuck.
