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Todd Haynes Interview
by Blaise DiStefano
August 15, 1995
OutSmartMagazine.com

Thirty-four years ago on January 2, 1961, the film industry gave birth to a gifted writer/director. Of course, at that time, neither the industry nor the director himself had any knowledge of the event. The writer/director, Todd Haynes, would become somewhat conscious of his talent when he was playing with dolls with his sister; the film industry would become aware of his talent BECAUSE he played with dolls with his sister.

"We used to go into my sister's room," Haynes tells me, "and put a blanket over her bedroom table and create stories for each other. We would sort of take turns making shows for each other under the table, using all of her international dolls and her little plastic horses.

"All the stories that I did for her were about these little girls who would fall in love with their horse, then the horse would run away or get shot, and my sister would cry. I would spend a lot of time with the lighting—I think that's where the whole Superstar idea came from ultimately."

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story is a short film in which dolls (some of which are Barbies) were used to portray the characters. You may not have heard of it, because shortly after its release in 1987, Karen's brother Richard Carpenter put a stop to it. Haynes used the Carpenters' songs without authorization from A&M Records, and "that's where the problem lies," says Haynes. "Richard Carpenter is basically given full authority over the Carpenters' cuts."

This "Barbie-doll" story of Karen Carpenter is told in a very nontraditional way, and if you haven't seen Superstar, it may seem inconceivable that it could be a positive portrayal. However, says Haynes, "it's actually a very, very sympathetic film about her. It takes some issue with the family and ultimately paints Richard Carpenter more critically. If he did see the film, he could have objections along those lines. Whether he's seen it or not, there are a lot of reasons why he would react this way."

And how did Mattel react to Haynes' use of Barbie dolls? Mattel was the first company that created some problems, according to Haynes, "but there's no real way of knowing for certain how many Barbies are in the film. And, in fact," Haynes continues, "a lot of the dolls are dolls I got from thrift stores." Mattel was offered a credit or disclaimer according to their needs, but they didn't respond, Haynes says, "probably because they realized they didn't have a very firm case."

Probably because he played with dolls, I assumed he is gay. So I ask Haynes if his parents were accepting of his homosexuality when he was a child, at which point I immediately apologized for the assumption.

"It's been previously published that I'm gay," Haynes graciously offers, and without missing a beat, he continues to answer the original question: "They were eventually very supportive, yes."

Eventually?

"I really didn't know I was gay when I was growing up," Haynes tells me. "I knew when I was in high school, but I didn't know when I was a child, or I didn't call it that. It was tough on my parents—their difficulty was more the difficulty that very progressive, liberal-thinking parents encounter when their own child brings information home that they've always been saying is completely fine. People you expect to have the harder time with it, like your father, often surprise you and are much more solid and supportive from the beginning. Mom had the hysterical period, but it was short. My grandparents were incredibly supportive. I'm very lucky. I can't complain."

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Poison

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Haynes also couldn't complain when his first feature film, Poison, won the Grand Jury Prize at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival in 1990. In fact, he "was very surprised and shocked."

Others were shocked, but not for the same reason. It seems that Haynes received partial funding for the film from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which prompted Donald Wildman of the American Family Association to write a letter that targeted Poison, even though he had never seen the film.

"It was based completely on hearsay," says Haynes. "Wildman called the film Homo, which is actually one of the subtitles of the four sections of the story. He described it as a feature film about men having sex in prison." I ask Haynes if he thought Wildman was more upset about the funding or the homosexuality.

"It was absolutely the homosexuality," he replies, "the homosexuality of his imagination, actually."

Wildman wasn't the only politician freaking out over Poison. Senator Dick Armey (who hadn't yet called Barney Frank "Barney Fag") appeared with Haynes on Larry King Live. Similarly, Ralph Richardson (spokesperson for the Christian Coalition) shared the spotlight with Haynes on The Today Show.

I wonder if these people just HAPPENED to be guests on these shows at the same time as Haynes.

"They would have me on with somebody form the far right who basically opposed the idea of NEA funding," Haynes says. "Most of them hadn't seen Poison, and they were objecting to the film abstractly. Armey, for instance, took the libertarian perspective and was like, 'No, no. I think a film like Poison SHOULD exist—it just shouldn't be funded by the NEA. The NEA shouldn't exist, because it's invariably a biased association.'

"So it was this weird, false conversation we would have," Haynes asserts. "I'm not from the NEA, and I can't speak for the NEA—I'm just an artist who received a grant. He's someone who didn't see the film. So we spoke very abstractly."

While on the subject of politicians, I ask Haynes how he feels about politicians being outed. He is all for outing for those politicians who promote anti-gay legislation, but "I've never really condoned outing as a project," he says, "particularly how it's been so focused on the entertainment world, where I think the emphasis is a little bit misplaced. There's so many people in politics and in positions of power who misuse their homosexuality—or their denied homosexuality—in all of these ways. If we're gonna target public figures, it seems to be a more appropriate direction to do so. But I think the problem is larger than whether gay people are in or out of the closet, and we have to work on things that go beyond outing to really make a difference."

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Beyond Outing

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Haynes has made a difference with his latest film Safe, which is about as safe as toxic fumes are to one's health. There are no car chases, though the fumes from cars' exhaust systems do play a major role. There are no bombs going off, though the fumes from those roach bombs we occasionally set off would enter into Safe's realm. And there is no violence per se, though some of the film's characters do have violent reactions to the 60,000 chemicals that have become part of our environment.

Safe, then, is about environmental illness.

Haynes didn't know anyone with environmental illness before he became intrigued with it. He researched it, started thinking about the story, and then he began talking to people with the illness.

"The more I learned about environmental illness," he tells me, "the more I was struck by its many parallels to AIDS. The difference is that environmental illness has a known origin—chemicals. It is a disease that is embedded in the very fabric of our material existence."

Does he think that these same chemicals might contribute to the AIDS virus, or at least the breakdown of our immune systems?

"Certainly," he says. "I think the chemicals that make people ill—that we all encounter, but that certain people develop extreme sensitivities to—must affect the immune systems of people who have debilitations. It seems inevitable to me."

Also inevitable is Todd Haynes' success as a writer and director. Though he came out of a more experimental background as a filmmaker, his films have actually crossed over and found larger audiences than one usually associates with experimental films.

"So, in a way," says Haynes, "I've been forced into a more commercial venue or perception than I may have otherwise, and so I feel like I have a foot in each world—I have a foot in feature filmmaking with stars like Julianne Moore [Safe's star] in telling dramatic stories, and then I have a foot in a more experimental tradition that tries to keep stretching the envelope of how we tell stories in films.

"I'm proud that Safe got made," concludes Haynes, "because it was a very difficult film to get made, to interest people in financially, and ultimately I think it's a demanding work of filmmaking more than it is a message or a story or a piece of entertainment. And to have gotten it made and gotten this far is a miracle."

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Nothing

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Though it might be more appropriate to conclude this interview with that miracle, a somewhat more personal ending seems fitting. Hey, I figure if Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich can be asked if they wear boxers or briefs (Clinton answered, "boxers"; Gingrich replied with something like, "I'm not gonna answer that! What a stupid question!"), maybe Haynes wouldn't mind.

So I ask him if he wears boxers, briefs, or nothing. His reply: "During the day or when I'm asleep?"

Curiosity begged for answers to both.

"During the day, briefs," he continues, "and when I'm asleep, briefs or nothing."

Sweet dreams. And play Safe.

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