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After meeting a young man from Arkansas, Oscar Wilde is reported to have said, "I should like to flee like a wounded heart into Arkansas." I have often wondered what that young man told Mr. Wilde about our fair state (or maybe Wilde just thought he was hot). As a young gay boy growing up in the rural South, I often felt like a wounded heart that should flee out of Arkansas. Early on I knew I was different -- not like the other boys. So flee I did.
Now in my 30s, I haven’t lived in Dixie for more than a decade and most likely will never move back. However, I will always consider myself a Southerner and an Arkansan. I can’t bear it when people attack or belittle the South. That duality is the heart of my documentary, Out of the South.
The idea for the film began to take shape in early 2006. By then I was living in Los Angeles with my partner, Troy (yes, he’s a Southerner too -- of the Mississippian variety). Many of our friends and coworkers are like us: gay and from the rural South. We also have an entire group of friends in New York who are gay Southerners. Turns out I wasn’t different from all the other boys...only 9 out of 10 of them.
Anyway, it was as if we were all Southern exiles -- strangers in a strange land. We were all raised to love our mamas, fried okra, and Jesus. No matter how far you are from the Mason-Dixon line, you get two Southerners together and the “y'all”s and the “fixin’ to”s come out of the woodwork. We all loved our families and our homes, but for one reason or another we had to leave. One friend told me, “Yes, my parents know I’m gay, but they aren’t about to tell their friends. It’s just something they’re not comfortable talking about.” Another friend said he felt so self-conscious, he had to find someplace he wouldn’t stick out so much. I wasn’t the only one conflicted about the South.
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