Fascinating People :: Brian Fender

It's everywhere present, historically celebrated, primally potent, and universally beloved. Just about every man loves his penis, and consciously or unconsciously it's pretty much the case that a man's identity -- his sense of power, and of masculinity -- stems from that... well, stem.

So why do we hide the penis away, censor it, talk around it instead of about it, and make it an object of ridicule as much as of fascination? (Trivia to ponder: The word "fascination" itself drives from the Latin "fascinum," a phallic fetish depicting the penis as an independent entity -- with wings, no less!) What's so scary about the penis, besides its unparalleled ability to produce pleasure, potency, and life itself?

Filmmaker Brian Fender, this week's Fascinating Person (aptly enough; see the bit about the "fascinum" above), not only asks these questions, he puts a number of men in front of the camera in all their natural glory to discuss their feelings about, and their relationships with, their male equipage. "Dick: The Documentary" is part love letter, part (ahem!) stand-up comedy, part confessional -- and part sociological text. It's instantly engaging, and profoundly meaningful. How can it not be? It's about man's best friend... indeed, man's manhood.

Fender had previously made the short documentary "xyQ," about gay and trans youth. He went on to film "Dick" in 2008. In 2011, he was diagnosed with Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis, a progressive disease that affects the function of the body's voluntary muscles. Subsequently, he and his partner left New York to return to Fender's native Alabama, where they currently make their home.

People living with ALS slowly lose the ability to walk, swallow, speak, or move. The affliction is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, for the famed baseball player it struck. Another famous person affected by ALS is Stephen Hawking, the best-selling physicist portrayed by actor Eddie Redmayne in last year's Hawking biopic "The Theory of Everything."

Fender hasn't allowed ALS to stop him pursuing his ambitions. If anything, he's gone out of his way to own life with the disease, going so far as to create a nonprofit, Artists Lend Support, which takes the same initials as Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis and uses them to spell different things -- things like care, and hope.

But enough of me nattering. Let's let the man speak for himself.

EDGE: Brian Fender, you are one fascinating fella! Thanks so much for chatting with me. First off, I'd like to ask what decided you to make a documentary about men's relationships with their genitalia -- and to do so in the way you did, with the interviewees standing naked in front of the camera (and with a bright red wall as a backdrop, no less!)

Brian Fender: Unlike most gay men, my therapist had to tell me at the age of forty -- after living in NYC for 10 years -- "Brian, you don't live in that small Southern town, you can be anybody you want to be." I wanted to make a documentary film. And soon after I went an independent filmmakers conference that [producer] Chiemi [Karasawa] suggested, and the idea just came to me: Dicks.

EDGE: As a viewer, I found the naked bodies of the men in your film much less interesting, and much less erotic, than their voices and the expressive gesticulations of their hands -- an effect of not being able to see their faces as they spoke. I suppose that the idea of not showing their faces was, initially, to alleviate concerns about appearing naked on camera, and to provide a sense of anonymity, but did you have a sense from the outset that this framing would actually refocus attention away from their genitals onto their voices and gestures, and create a different sort of feeling of intimacy with them?

Brian Fender: I knew I had to provide some kind of anonymity for the subjects, so I framed out their heads, which ended up making the film visually more interesting. Confronting the audience with an appendage that generally has so much anxiety surrounding it and giving the audience permission to look at dicks 'head on' (pun intended) has a desensitizing affect. As a result, they just become a body part as innocuous as a nose.

Yes, I did have the idea that the body language would an affect on the viewers, and often the viewers have admitted to making faces out of the [interviewees'] bodies. Also, this was an exercise in testing the audience's patience, and we could them engaged in a stripped-down production (pun intended) with no bells and whistles, and that was a very difficult balance for Kjerstin, and Chiemi and me to find in post-production.

I have to say that I wanted "Dick" in the theaters as a larger social experiment. It's a completely different experience sitting next to someone than watching it on computer screen. My first DIY doc was "xyQ," and I used art as a backdrop for the project, and so I just used a big red canvas we had in the house.

EDGE: What has the response been like, generally? Outside of those two film festivals, has the film attracted much notice?

Brian Fender: Currently, we have only found a receptive audience in the gay community -- [but] we have had a lot of push back from the conventional media and streaming platforms. IndiePix, Bob Alexander and his team, were extremely brave to take this film on for distribution. They don't think they are brave, they just think it is an important subject that needs more attention.

We submitted to all the lesbian and gay film festivals, and the only one that accepted was the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, [where the film] was a smashing success. And Chiemi hosted a screening in Tribeca, and had the same response. The irony is that is truly thoughtful piece, I like to think, and we have shied away from the porn routes of advertising, so we find ourselves in no man's land as far as an audience.

EDGE: You advertised on Craigslist, I understand, to find your 63 interviewees for "Dick: The Documentary," so I'm guessing the fellows knew coming in that stripping off would be part of the gig. But how did you get them to open up and speak so frankly, and so authentically?

Brian Fender: Well, I think an Interviewer sets the tone, so I just treated the subjects like a guest in my house and gave the subject the gravity it needed.

It was a very intimate experience. One of my older, heterosexual subjects in his 60s discussed how he was open to having sex with men and has often thought about it, but doesn't sexualize men the way he does women -- meaning, he notices women's bodies. I asked him if would have entertained the idea ten years before when he was a businessman, and his answer was no, he had too much to lose. He followed up saying he had never said this out loud.

So men have a lot more going on in their interior that they would never admit. That's why homophobia is alive and well. I'm sorry now that clip didn't make it in.

EDGE: I'll bet the experience of being in the film was as moving for the participants as seeing the films is for the viewers. More, really, since the interviewees are the ones putting it all out there!

Brian Fender: Here is one of my subject's responses:

I think on some level, given the opportunity, most men have a constant awareness of their dicks as the source of their manhood and a symbol of their masculinity -- which men, peacocks that we are, like to display. Yet societal taboos and strictures limit the opportunities men have either to display or to talk about their dicks.

You presented us with such an opportunity, stripping away those taboos -- and clothing as well -- and in a relaxed, safe and comfortable environment, engaged us is conversation and dialogue that lifted the topic out of the shadows and into the light, giving us a rare opportunity to share and to "celebrate" our dicks.

EDGE: You filmed "Dick" in 2008, I believe, and I am guessing that this was before your diagnosis with ALS. I read that your experience with ALS has given you a deeper appreciation of life -- this is my paraphrase of what I read, so sorry if I am mischaracterizing it. But it seems that someone who could make this film must already have possessed a certain generosity of spirit, and a certain zeal for life. Would you say that facing the challenges of ALS has emphasized your qualities, good and, maybe, not so good?

Brian Fender: Yes, my ALS diagnosis has made me more focused on what truly matters, and the multitudes of blessings that come with just being alive. ALS also naturally makes me live "in the moment." At least, that's my experience and giving thanks every morning for the day. I live in that world today.

But there is a shit load of disappointment that comes with this. I don't think that would surprise anyone. I was monumentally affected by my upbringing as a gay kid in small Southern town. I closeted my creative nature and tried to conform to the standards of my community. And as a result, I didn't trust my creativity as an avenue for success until my mid-thirties. And by this time, I was starting to have my shorts published, my photographs were selling, and the first rough draft of my screenplay was finished -- the screenplay that was supposed to be my directorial debut. So I finally had some momentum going, and then I was diagnosed with ALS.

I was a very intuitive kid, and was always interested in people's stories and people often opened up to me without solicitation on my part. I have always been an INFJ on the Meyers Briggs. Everything I do is grounded in advocacy. [Making the film] "xyQ" was the turning point for me. I was self-obsessed up to that point: Where is my life going? What is my purpose? But when I volunteered as an advisor for an LGBT youth group in St Louis, called Growing American Youth, and saw these brilliant kids experiencing the same things I did -- it all changed for me. Suddenly, I had purpose.

EDGE: I hope you don't mind a moment of levity around this, but is there a certain silver lining about sharing a health issue in common with the purported smartest man in the world, Stephen Hawking?

Brian Fender: There are certain characteristics that Dr. Gabor Mate has identified that ALS patients share. One of the characteristics, which shouldn't be a surprise, is that most of us were hyper-athletic.

I feel I have some similarities to Hawking in that my ultimate goal was to change the social construct to be more accepting of our diversity as human beings. I have always felt a weight to do something bigger than myself, and I think the conditioning from the community that surrounded me as a kid, alienated form myself diverted my true potential for many long painful years. And the stress of conforming to that standard and being lost for so many years is a huge part of why I am trapped in my body. And I was out, and have been in relationship for 23 years.

So, I think as gay people we are affected much more than we let on. I think that men in general self-regulate our internal emotions more than women, and the disinformation we get about how to be a man, the very strict parameters that are set for us as boys, is why there is so much sexual abuse by men.

EDGE: I love how you have taken ownership of ALS, using the same acronym as the disease and creating Artists Lend Support. Could you say just a word or two about Artists Lend Support?

Brian Fender: Artists Lend Support is a non-profit, fine-art website to raise money for ALS TDI a research group out of Connecticut that are responsible with the funds that they get on behalf of the afflicted.

One thing that is a natural inclination if you are a repressed artist is the promotion of other artist's work. I have been that person before I started focusing on my work, and so this is marrying the two. And it has been a labor of love for artists, and their brilliant creations, but it has been frustrating being a person who can only communicate via e-mail and is broke. But I have two Angels: Mark Malinowski, who lost his husband, Randy Pipkin, to ALS last year, and one of Randy's best friends, NYC-based artist Tobie Giddio -- who will be hosting an opening for Artists Lend Support, an official launch, in the spring.

EDGE: You mentioned having written a screenplay. It's my understanding you're looking to have that screenplay produced. How is that going?

Brian Fender: Well, my screenplay has got a lot of positive attention from people in high positions in the industry, including the head of story of one of the major studios, but she got a new job. That's the life of a screenplay. I have learned to have low expectations.

But the most difficult [thing] is that I was looking so forward to the process as a director, working with the actors. This is a five-year endeavor that has morphed in many forms, before it took its final form. I realized that two years of the process was writing back-story.

"Dick: The Documentary" is available on DVD as of Jan. 20. Check out Brian Fender's Huffington Post interview at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/04/dick-the-documentary_n_5929296.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices