This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat. The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...
Starting with home, Stephen Fry starts in his home country, talking to gay icons Elton John and David Furnish. This was the couple who inspired Stephen to be open about his sexuality as well as many others. He then travels to Uganda, where the government was considering, and in January 2014 implemented, a new law that would make homosexuality a capital crime — putting gay people to death for their sexuality. He then travels to US, a country quite famous for all sorts of 'conversion therapies'. He talks to a therapist and also with a former patient, after which he tells us that for all the talk of his successful conversions, he was unable to find one of his ex-gays to talk to us. Episode 2 starts with Brazil, where one gay person is murdered every 36 hours, and interviews Brazilian anti-homosexuality politician Jair Bolsonaro, who sadly is now the president of the country. Fry also visits Russia and speaks with politician Vitaly Milonov, again to meet with similar responses about homophobia. He finally travels to India, where he thinks things are getting better. He covers the ostracism of hijras community in India, but is happy to see the middle class educated Indians at least doing well.
Unlike most other countries, Fry doesn't talk to any political person in India, where it is more to do with culture and religion. In Russia and Brazil, it was more about the government clamping down and making some very very strict rules against LGBTQ people and their stories. Uganda had some of the most horror stories. I am personally privy to some of that, because when that law was passed I was visiting the country for work and had to be flown out on the first available flight, fearing repercussions of my co-workers knowing about myself sexuality. Interestingly, the minister of ethics and integrity in Uganda almost threatens to have Stephen arrested for his views. Some of the conversations that he has with political people across Russia, Brazil and Uganda are so absurd that they don't make any sense. The, claiming that gay people are out there to recruit, promote homosexuality etc was bizarre to the core. And of course when people like these come to power, one can only imagine what goes on. A nicely made documentary ends well with a very relevant statement "Homosexuals are not interested in making other people homosexual, but homophobic people are definitely interested in making other people homophobic". (6/10)
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