ashcrda Review of C.O.G.

C.O.G. (2013)

Depravity on parade, unprompted, unwanted, not deserved

[10/10 · 20 June 2014]

Beautiful, but difficult view on the experiences of gay people in society. One acquaintance turns out to be, not a homosexual, but a neurotic, possibly psychotic sexual predator. I found him threatening on sight. The next acquaintance wears a veneer of Christian values but proves, if anything, to be more psychotic than the first acquaintance. As chaplain to people with a mental illness I find that my work is divided between offering comfort and assurance through the values of Jesus and working to overcome the damage done to people through religious violence. My final straw was a book given a patient that stated people should ask forgiveness of God for any sexual activity they were in, including incest and rape. I forced that book out of the facility. I also forced out evangelist Joyce Meyer, who proposes that the devil constructs "strongholds" in our minds in order to influence our behavior toward sin. I've met many beautiful people in the Catholic church and gone on mission with them, but the molestation scandals have destroyed any value I can find in the church. I guess my deepest shock was the deep, unrelenting bitterness Sedaris expresses for humanity. I've found him amusing, sarcastic, biting, sardonic; but I've never sensed such depth of despair in his views on humanity. I know many gay ministers of both genders; never have any of them made me uncomfortable. They have always presented as deeply spiritual, loving people with whom I felt secure. I have, however, been attacked by people like Curly, who claim the right to violently impose their Phylis's on others. In a sense I see the film as a description of the gauntlet gay people, including David, must survive to become whole and self-loving. In another sense I fear for the pain gay people must sustain simply to be human. I love David Sedaris' work and it saddens me to examine the Hell he traversed on the path to being himself. When the "Christian" jade worker described his violence in Desert Storm it took my breath away. Not long ago I read a book concerning nurses experiences in Vietnam. One nurse would take every opportunity to join the men triage into the "can't be saved room, which was hidden from everyone. She believed no one should die alone, whether they were conscious or not, esp. thousands of miles from friends and family. She would hold them until they died, pet them and speak soothing words, although all were detached from the world by their wounds. Against that background the rant by the jade cutter very literally sucked the wind out of me. This is one of those films like "Platoon,""Saving Private Ryan," or "Shoah" that must be seen even as it takes you to the heart of Hell. In "Shoah," director Claude Lanzmann interviews a barber as he is cutting hair in a busy shop in contemporary Israel, who was forced to cut the hair off women just before they entered the gas chambers. The poor barber kept saying, "I can't, it's too hard," responded to by Lanzmann by the words, "this is important, I know it's hard, but it must be heard." C.O.G. must be heard as the holocaust visited upon gender choice. I say this with no disrespect toward the true Holocaust of the 1940's.