by Clyde Petersen

In the winter of 2014, Clyde Petersen and Paul Shin began the overwhelming task of watching and reviewing every film in the GLBTQ section of Scarecrow Video. While Paul and Clyde have only made it through a few hundred of these films so far, it’s fair to say they are slowly becoming historians in the art of the DIY Homemade Homosexual Art Films. This series will highlight a select few standouts. Find out more here: http://queerfilms.tumblr.com.

Pedro (2009)
Director: Nick Oceano
Writer: Dustin Lance Black (Screenplay)

Who knew that eight years after Dustin Lance Black made the horrible film On the Bus, about a bunch of young twinks that go to Burning Man, he would write the screenplay for the Academy Award-winning film Milk and this acclaimed MTV film. He finally seems to have found his calling.

We cried and cried watching this movie, and that, perhaps, is its only fault. It is relentless. Brutal. I thought this was going to be a documentary. Nope. It’s an MTV biopic. I love MTV and VH1 biopics. Have you seen the TLC biopic from VH1? Holy shit.

Much like the TLC biopic, you know what’s going to happen, and you re-live the death of Pedro, step by step. You see his family, his stint on MTV’s The Real World San Francisco, and his lover. There is an introduction to this film by BILL CLINTON! Bill F’ing Clinton is at the beginning of this DVD telling you about the AIDS crisis. What a 180 degree turn-around of the white house from that a**hole Reagan and his reign of terror!

In the film, they recreate and reenact The Real World. Whoa. Meta. They literally cast people to recreate scenes from The Real World! It’s situations like this that make me feel like the world is truly a brutal place. People are homeless, hungry, dying and somewhere there is a director casting people to recreate scenes from an MTV reality show.

I really wish they would put The Real World out on video. Like, yesterday. But I know it’s like The Wonder Years, full of potential lawsuits because of the music. In the end, The Wonder Years replaced the music it didn’t have permission to use for digital release. Which is ok, but kinda weird when it isn’t Joe Cocker singing the intro anymore.

The point is, why can’t MTV find a way to release The Real World online? And watch this amazing movie Pedro, because it’s brutal and wonderful and it will crush your heart.

Clyde Petersen is a Seattle based artist, working in film, animation, music, installation and fabulous spectacle. He is a member of the transgender and queer communities in Seattle. He travels the world with his punk band Your Heart Breaks and hosts the TV show Boating with Clyde in a small handmade boat in the Washington Park Arboretum.