The idyllic childhood of a boy of approximately 8 years of age is presented, who already showed some acting talent and certain gay / mannered behaviors, but who grows up, in the early 70s, within a family full of contention and affection, with the life's own contingencies (illness and death of loved ones, etc.) but surrounded by grandparents, parents, brother, uncles, neighbors, friends, etc. Warm, supportive and above all things, open-minded.
I have some questions, being a non-German gay person and with a similar age to the protagonist of the story. Was it real, what have I seen? Was it a common thing, at that time in Germany? Or should it be taken as a specific event (but real) in a family "out of the ordinary"? Or is it just an adult fiction, full of sweetened childhood nostalgia? ...
As far as I know, homosexuality had been legalized in Germany, very few years ago (and was still considered a mental health "problem") and I suppose that it would be, as in the rest of the world, still a taboo issue ... that many people thought (and some still think) that it was produced "due to a deficient family education (with a lack of limits and roles, etc. ..). This I asked myself, when I saw the scenes of the child, choosing a costume of princess, or her imitations of women, or the grandmother's comments, saying that the boy was never going to marry (with a woman), or the protection of the older brother without any homophobic reproach. Still, in the only scene in where some boys of the same age hit him and throw him off the bike, they do it for another childish reason ... And his schoolmates, above all, all seem to love him and have fun with his histrionic "occurrences" (without any kind of bullying)...
Ehmmm ... I'm going to be honest, because of what I have lived, read and seen in dozens of LGBT movies that describe that time of the beginning of "homosexual liberation / affirmation" in the western world (post p.175, post Buggery law, post Stonewall, etc.), things did not used to be like that, except maybe in certain communities or families, of the type hippies, progressives, artistic, etc., which seems not to be the case shown here, which is that of a working family in a rural Catholic and small town environment, ok, with an aunt who liked to sing and not much else) ... Actually, I am making this comment with the hope of hearing an answer that it could have been real, for whatever social or political reason, in Germany at that time.
I have some questions, being a non-German gay person and with a similar age to the protagonist of the story. Was it real, what have I seen? Was it a common thing, at that time in Germany? Or should it be taken as a specific event (but real) in a family "out of the ordinary"? Or is it just an adult fiction, full of sweetened childhood nostalgia? ...
As far as I know, homosexuality had been legalized in Germany, very few years ago (and was still considered a mental health "problem") and I suppose that it would be, as in the rest of the world, still a taboo issue ... that many people thought (and some still think) that it was produced "due to a deficient family education (with a lack of limits and roles, etc. ..). This I asked myself, when I saw the scenes of the child, choosing a costume of princess, or her imitations of women, or the grandmother's comments, saying that the boy was never going to marry (with a woman), or the protection of the older brother without any homophobic reproach. Still, in the only scene in where some boys of the same age hit him and throw him off the bike, they do it for another childish reason ... And his schoolmates, above all, all seem to love him and have fun with his histrionic "occurrences" (without any kind of bullying)...
Ehmmm ... I'm going to be honest, because of what I have lived, read and seen in dozens of LGBT movies that describe that time of the beginning of "homosexual liberation / affirmation" in the western world (post p.175, post Buggery law, post Stonewall, etc.), things did not used to be like that, except maybe in certain communities or families, of the type hippies, progressives, artistic, etc., which seems not to be the case shown here, which is that of a working family in a rural Catholic and small town environment, ok, with an aunt who liked to sing and not much else) ... Actually, I am making this comment with the hope of hearing an answer that it could have been real, for whatever social or political reason, in Germany at that time.