“Honestly, I don’t really care”: why Gregg Araki embraces being a polarising presence in cinema
As one of the leading filmmakers within the new queer cinema movement, Gregg Araki has indelibly shaped the landscape of modern cinema with his explosive and experimental style. He is perhaps best known for the captivating and devastating Mysterious Skin, a film about two young men whose lives intersect through one’s search for UFOs and the other’s experiences as a sex worker in New York. Araki had previously established this style in his 1990s films Totally F*cked Up, Nowhere and Kaboom, creating a punky and disjointed style that became synonymous with the vibrancy of queer cinema and the disillusionment of the modern youth.
However, despite finding his own niche within the film industry and a devoted fanbase, the director has also been subject to criticism about the controversial subject matter explored in his work, always maintaining a bold and precise vision that doesn’t shy away from what he wants to say.
When Araki was asked about the divisive reaction to his work, the director said, “There are people that get my movies and love them. It speaks to them, to their heart, and it’s so gratifying to me. And then there are people that don’t get my movies. I’m used to my movies having these very passionate and sometimes divisive reactions, and honestly, I don’t really care. If you get my movies, they’re for you. If you don’t get them, they aren’t for you. That’s why I make these indie movies”.
The work is certainly not meant to appeal to mass audiences; it was about providing a voice to this that hadn’t been seen before and not tailoring it to the comfort of conservative audience members who wouldn’t relate to or understand the stories he was sharing. Araki expanded on this idea, explaining, “My movies aren’t meant to be all things for all people. They’re not fucking four-quadrant Marvel movies or like ‘Star Wars’. They’re not for everybody. They have a very strong point of view. And I’m so gratified that somebody likes them. I love them.”
The director has touched on something vital that most production companies and studios are trying to avoid – if you make a movie intended for all people, what is it really saying? If you’re intentionally trying to create something that appeals to everyone, then you’re only trying to appease your audience, not challenge them.
Araki is not trying to comfort his audiences with his stories; he wants to be polarising and to provoke conversation, to spark change and creativity that will go against the status quo. We are so lucky to have filmmakers like Araki who aren’t bothered by mass opinion and trying to make something that exists purely as ego fuel that will numb the brains of global audiences – he wants to make art, and this is what he does.
His upcoming film I Want Your Sex is currently in post-production, a psycho-sexual drama starring Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman, which follows a young man who becomes the sexual muse of a renowned artist, taking him to a whole new world.
