Who knew that Kevin Smith is considered a hottie in the bear community?
The brief interview with the hirsute and husky director (who’s also an exec producer on the film) is one of the unexpected highlights of Bear Nation, an informative and revealing look at this subculture thought by some to be a reaction to the prevalent images of gay men as hairless, soulless twinks.
Director Malcolm Ingram rounds up lots of talking heads – bearded or goateed, natch – to discuss the pheno menon, and even goes behind the scenes at a “bear run,” a convention where hundreds of big, hairy guys sell out a huge hotel.
The stories range widely, but although Ingram discusses splintering within the subgroup, he fails to challenge many of its anti-femme prejudices and, curiously, doesn’t examine the rise of the movement as a reaction to the images of emaciated men during the AIDS epidemic.
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