Australian Story – Since Adam Was a Boy
Clip 1: Denying reality
2 min 42 sec
Taken from the TV program Australian Story – Since Adam Was a Boy (1997)
Original title classification not known – this clip chosen to be PG
Availability of the complete title
Curator’s clip description
Looking back on those early days as a young man, Adam realises he was sexually attracted to guys but repulsed by that feeling. For him such feelings were wrong and when a guy once hit on him, Adam replied with violence, horrified that anyone thought he was ‘like that’.
Curator’s notes
Adam is shown as one tough guy and that makes the fact that he’s gay fly in the face of that old chestnut that there’s something sissy about homosexuals. Like heterosexuals they come in all shapes and character types. Adam is clearly athletic, good-looking and the sort of young man that any parent would be proud of.
Adam’s story is filmed with understanding and warmth and cleverly structured so that we discover his homosexuality well after we have gotten to know and like him.
In the style of Australian Story, it’s Adam himself and his family and friends who tell the story, not an omniscient narrator.
Janet Bell, curator
have teachers’ notes.
