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On Location: The Making of “Beholder”

On March 16, out director Nisha Ganatra‘s new film, Beholder, will premiere as part of the ITVS/ PBS series FutureStates. FutureStates is a modern day Twilight Zone series for which ten filmmakers were selected to each make an episode that takes place in the future and explores a political idea in the realm of a fictional film. Beholder stars Jessica ParĂ© (of Mad Men and Lost and Delirious)  Elaine Hendrix (from Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion and Superstar) and Michael McMillian (True Blood), with Rupak Ginn (Royal Pains and Private Practice). In this article, the first in a series that takes readers behind the scenes in the making of the film, Ganatra writes about developing the screenplay for her episode and the obstacles faced when predicting an anti-gay future for a publicly-funded channel based in San Francisco.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had the fortune to direct a film with a majority of gay content. Since Chutney Popcorn it seems it’s been even more of an uphill battle to get a movie about lesbians made. So when ITVS called and told me that they were doing a modern day Twilight Zone series and asked if I had any ideas, I let my built-up gay frustration get the best of me. I immediately set my tale in a world where gays were the majority and we were voting on taking away the rights of straight people to marry, to adopt and to just exist in general.

OK, I have to admit that it was just really raw revenge fantasy and not a well-constructed story. The point I was trying to make was “Hey straight people! This is insane that you think you can vote on our civil rights!”  But the point that seemed to be coming across was “F–k you, straight a–holes that took away my rights!” So I set about writing another draft.

If you care about this journey, please read along and I promise to lead you to a place where you can see the final film, Beholder, and what I ended up with after network notes, gay feedback, lesbian processing, anger management and a lot of rewriting.

I have to say I’m really proud of the final product. So many times we hear a snippet of how this movie was conceived, but I thought maybe the readers of AfterEllen.com – so many of you being artists yourselves –  might enjoy riding shotgun with me on the road from conception to delivering a finished movie. 

After realizing that the old switcharoo concept was wearing thin even at the script stage, I had to set about cracking the story in a different way. The story broke open when I thought “What if Prop 8 isn’t the worst thing to happen? What if it was just the beginning?” From there, the future became a world where we had gone back to the 1950s, because the Palin Dynasty had ruled America for generations.

The central characters were a lesbian couple living intricately constructed closeted lives. (Think Far From Heaven but in the future) and when the couple finds out that the child they are expecting carries the marker for the gay gene — their relationship goes into crisis. One partner believes that they should get the inoculation and change the fetus to ensure it will be heterosexual. Why, she reasons, subject their child to the kind of secret and fearful life they have chosen to lead?  The other partner just can’t bring herself to deny the fetus the right to be who it is supposed to be just because our culture isn’t a welcoming place for people that are different.

That draft was better – it was getting to the heart of the issue – but it was still really not reaching the straight audience. And while I normally don’t give a crap about that, I also didn’t want to waste time preaching to the choir, so to speak. Especially since if I was just going to preach to the choir, I would have stuck with my revenge fantasy!

So I thought about how to include the straight audience. Let me be clear, I don’t think it’s our job or responsibility in any way  to educate or include ignorant audiences. I like to live in a world where people educate themselves and take it upon themselves to understand an issue without asking me banal questions about it. But that’s not the world we live in, not right now. And PBS has a largely non-gay audience, so this was a “teachable moment.” 

The problem is this: who the hell wants to be taught anything by a movie?  How can I get across the incredible hurt and frustration I was feeling without causing the movie to devolve into a preachy mess? I decided to get back to focus on the story – if the story is right and the characters are true, then all of this other stuff usually falls into place. So I must have a problem with my story. And I found it. There had to be suspense. You had to wonder if the main character was going to get the shot or not.  And if the main character was a lesbian, I found that almost no one believed she might actually turn her fetus straight.

The other problem was logistical. How does a closeted couple get pregnant in such a world? What did they think they were getting into? Well, one parent assumed the child would lie about their parents and the other parent assumed they would be out and suffer the consequences. That’s a lot of backstory to provide in 12 minutes. So I did the unthinkable. I turned the main character straight, had her face a true dilemma and explored where it would take her.

The feedback from the network was mixed. While they liked the story, they couldn’t conceive of a future where things were more conservative and not more progressive. I was told, “History has shown that society grows more progressive and not less.” So how could I justify this future? Even though I argued that Prop 8 happened in this very real “progressive” present, I failed to make the point that the future could be horribly conservative. Then the Arizona Immigration Bill passed. My telephone rang and it was the network. They called to say, “Clearly the pendulum is going to swing further right than we ever imagined before the future becomes the progressive haven we hope it will.” And with that fascist law, we got our greenlight to production.

Why the 1950s? Why do I pick on the 1950s so damn much? I’ll tell you why. I don’t think people are thinking when they say how great the 1950s were. The ’50s sucked for just about everyone, but for some reason friends I have continue to idolize the ’50s like it was some ideal era. OK, none of those friends were around for the ’50s, but here’s what I do know: we probably wouldn’t be allowed to be friends in the ’50s.  I couldn’t eat at the same restaurant as some of them in the ’50s and we sure as hell couldn’t go to school together.  So the next time you think the ’50s were so cool and such a “simpler” time – just remember – the 1950s sucked. And that’s why when I imagined a world in which generations of Palins got to make the world anyway that they wanted it to be, it looks like the ’50s. That’s how bad it sucked. Palin-level suck. Got it? They sucked.

In the next installment of On Location, we meet the actors that bring Beholder to life. Get to know what turns them on, what scares them at night and why the answers to both of those questions are sometimes the same.

Watch the trailer for Beholder:

Follow Nisha Ganatra on Twitter, and for more information on Beholder, visit the FutureStates website.

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