[Pride 2021] Heavenly Creatures & The Euphoria of Queer Friendships

It was 2015 when I had my first glimpse into “the Fourth World”.

2015 was a year with a lot of milestones for little old me: I moved out on my own for the first time, I got my first professional job working the retail circuit, I went back to community college after dropping out the prior autumn.

It was also the year I started telling people I was gay.

I had realized I was queer a couple years prior, something I can thank witnessing Patrick Wilson wearing the hell out of some slacks in The Conjuring for. I hadn’t verbalized it until then though, beginning with one of my close female friends, Bren. I told her in one of our plentiful text message exchanges that I felt I was more into guys than I realized and maybe I was more gay than bi, like I had assumed. To her credit, Bren responded as she usually does: Comforting, but with a touch of humor in the form of, “Yeah, I kinda figured you were more into guys since you have so many celebrity boyfriends, but no celebrity girlfriends.”

After coming out to all my almost entirely female friends, I finally reached out to my lone male friend at the time, Alexander. We had met through the social networking website Tumblr when I crossed paths with him via our mutual fondness for the television show American Horror Story. While we had known each other since the end of 2013, we didn't really start to get closer until midway through 2015. We were both going through it at that time. He was still dealing with the aftermath of a nasty falling out with a former "friend" of his, while I was dealing with the transition of moving back home and preparing to start school again. That was when our previous bond take form and solidify, especially after a late night conversation we had in which we both assured each other that we had the other's back

I remember the long nights I spent talking with Alexander as if they were yesterday. We spent many hours talking about our fantasy AHS seasons and casts, creating our own elaborate seasons that would scratch the itches we didn't feel the show itself would. We discussed our celebrity crushes in depth. He was very staunchly determined to marry both Jake Gyllenhaal and Lady Gaga at the same time, while I was keen on becoming Mr. Oscar Isaac myself. We also debated about our favorite pop singers: His was, again, Lady Gaga, while I had become a big fan of Marina Diamandis, especially after seeing her in concert. 

Eventually, this talk about our tastes in pop culture led to "real" talk. We began to share our personal experiences in our respective corners of the world. He told me about his life with going to drag shows with friends in New Zealand, wearing makeup and acquiring the right clothes to serve the right looks to express himself, all while navigating the road that came with being an out bi man. I told him about my lack of any sort of proper queer community in suburban Iowa; that I had no idea how to express myself properly and that I still didn’t know who I really was. I never envied my friend’s place in his journey though, because, through him, I was finally getting a glimpse into a world that I only imagined having access to and felt totally removed from otherwise.

I've had several other queer male friends besides Alexander over the years: There was Lito, whom, after an encounter through our shared fondness for cinema, took me under his wing and taught me about the values of Looking, Stonewall, Scruff, and the art of how to kiss a guy. Next was Erik, a friend of Bren's who became a confidante to me when I had my first round of unrequited love for a guy, an artist I knew who only seemed to give me attention when I was feeding him validation and reassurance. Then, there was Evan, a Spainard I approached online due to our shared thirst for the actor Raul Castillo. Evan and I bonded over our love for what we deemed under-appreciated famous men, as well as my interest in him teaching me about his country's culture. While most of these men have come and gone (I'm still friends with Evan, but fell out with Lito and Erik long ago), Alexander has always been my rock and the one who truly helped me begin my journey of accepting myself.

Which brings us to December 5, 2020 when I finally acquired a copy of a film I had long sought after: Peter Jackson's 1994 film Heavenly Creatures. I had originally learned about the film through a Simpsons parody when I was younger, and was reminded of it due to becoming a fan of Creatures's leading actress Melanie Lynskey and seeing that this was what had launched her career. I had searched for it high and low before finally finding a used DVD of it for sale on Ebay. I was stunned when I watched Creatures, which follows the real life story of Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, best friends who eventually come to the decision to murder Pauline's mother. Rather than focus on the crime itself, Jackson's film chose to focus on the love and friendship these two girls had for each other, as well as devoting a good chunk of screen-time to the Fourth World, the world that they, and they alone had created for themselves.

Immediately, the Fourth World struck a chord with me. For Pauline and Juliet, the Fourth World was a realm where the arts were prized, religion had no place and creativity reigned supreme. But it was clear to me what the Fourth World represented: A queer safe space. In the film, the Fourth World was a place for these two girls to express their authentic selves without fear of their families or the world around them. It was a world where the duo were every bit the royalty they knew themselves to measure to, even if it was as the personas of Gina and Deborah (Or De-bore-ahh, as they say). It was their own world, one that struck fear into the hearts of others who wanted to squeeze it out of them and force them into obedient, stifling heteronormativity. In the realm that Juliet had unlocked for Pauline, I saw everything that I had with Alexander: All of our shared fantasies and stories and experiences, the loyalty we held for each other, the lack of understanding others around us had for us and our queerness. All the film needed to do was to switch out the mostly Mario Lanza soundtrack for an all-Lady Gaga soundtrack and it would've been eerily similar to my experiences.

All of this made me feel a surge inside of me that I had rarely felt with a film, feelings that were even reflected within the film itself: The heart-swelling action, the fast cuts and sweeping angles, the sheer beauty that almost makes one forget they're watching a movie about real life killers. I felt as if it had truly captured the wonders of being young and queer and finding somebody else like you for the first time in a way nothing I’d seen before had. While I must add that I am in no way going to overlook the crime that Pauline and Juliet committed, I can't help but profess that Heavenly Creatures had done for me what so few queer movies have done for me: While there were certainly romantic elements between Pauline and Juliet's dynamic (albeit debated inside and outside the film), it still emphasized the sizable impact that a kinship with your fellow queers could have on your life, for better or for worse.

When I think back on that fateful night I watched Heavenly Creatures for the first time, I feel the way a lot of people describe seeing themselves reflected on the big screen. Of course, I am not a teenage female murderer from New Zealand, but I am someone whose younger self was closed off to the world around me. I am someone who thought he was alone, until I had an amazing friend reach out of the darkness and show me that not only was I never alone, but that there was a whole world out there for queer men like me. Our own Fourth World, that we, and only we, have access to. Just as Pauline found her true companion in Juliet, I found my true companion in Alexander and for that, I am truly always grateful.

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