Review of Humpday (2009) by Dave G — 11 Dec 2009

Mom, if you're reading this, I promise this movie is NOT a porno!

In fact, there is very little sex in Humpday--just a lot of talking about it.

Humpday is the latest in what can accurately be described as the "mumblecore" genre of film. The mumblecore movement (as you will see if you read the Wikipedia entry on it) is characterized by low-budget, realistic films featuring non-famous actors, handheld cameras, etc. I kinda like these types of movies, but they take a lot of patience and lowered expectations. Mumblecore isn't for everyone.

Anyway, on to Humpday. Humpday is about two straight guy friends (Ben and Andrew) in their 30's who reconnect, go to a drug-addled party, and (in the depths of drunken debauchery) dare each other into making an amateur gay porno together to submit to "Humpfest" a (real) indie sex film festival put on by Seattle's independent newspaper, The Stranger (Woo! Dan Savage!) every year. After they wake up the next day and realize what they've planned, they must decide if they are going to go through with it, despite being heterosexual and the fact that Ben is married.

What Humpday is REALLY about though is this weird, brave new world of modern, liberal, hipster masculinity. Andrew and Ben dare each other to make a sex movie together and then...ironically?...neither one can back down for fear of being perceived as "pussing out". So basically, rather than use sports or drinking or other traditional masculine domains and achievements to compete with and one-up each other, these guys are trying to prove that they are brave, manly men by out-gaying one another. Even though they aren't gay. Make sense so far?

I'm not sure this brave new hipster "gayer than thou" masculinity has reached MY corner of the world yet. Maybe it only exists in liberal oases like Seattle and New York. But the male posturing and passive-aggressive "open-mindedness" of Ben and Andrew was pretty familiar to me. Our hapless heroes are two guys who desperately want to be hip and modern--but they're really out of their element here and have to face up to the fact that they're more square and conventional than they thought they were.

In the end (har), Humpday's message is that you don't have to have gay sex (or any particular kind of sex) with your best friend on camera in order to be considered "cool"; and that the coolest thing to be is true to yourself--even if you're a hopelessly heterosexual, domesticated 30-something male. Awww!