'I Want Your Love' & '100 Boyfriends Mixtape' Star Brontez Purnell Talks Sex On Screen, 'Looking,' and Finding a Techie Husband

To coincide with the one-year anniversary re-release of I Want Your Love, dancer/musician/artist and cast member Brontez Purnell sat down with his friend, writer Kenyon Farrow, to discuss the film, what it’s like to see himself have sex on screen, how he inspired one of the characters on Looking, and his own film project in the works.

Kenyon: So Bronny, I just have to say, I was afraid to see I Want Your Love. Not because I didn’t want to see you naked or have sex (too late for that. LOL), but because I thought a film with real-live sex would just be glorified porn with a threadbare story wrapped around it. In fact, I was wrong (yes it happens once in a while). I actually really enjoyed it. What attracted you to doing this film?

Brontez: Well my boy Justin Kelly (who did the Danny video for my band The Younger Lovers) introduced me to Travis Mathews who was then doing his In Their Room series — where he like comes to different guys rooms and videos them being themselves — and Travis interviewed me for it. I immediately trusted and liked Travis and he told me about I Want Your Love and asked me to be a part of it — and after he told me what it was about I have to admit I totally jumped at the chance.

Without prejudice of you being my friend, when you were on screen you just stole every scene. How much flexibility were you given to improv — because that story you tell in the thrift store sounded like the kind of story you’d tell?

Well, Travis talked to all the guys in the film — or interviewed us rather about our sex lives — and YES that story about the guy giving me crabs is a 100% true and real story that happened. Only in real life, the boy who gave me crabs is a dear old friend of mine and I’m going to his wedding soon!

And what’s interesting about it, is that the sex is rarely hot. Often it’s awkward, filled with weird pauses and shifts in the body and positions — the way sex is sometimes in real life. I felt like the film was trying to depict how sex is so much a part of how gay culture — it’s how we make not only boyfriends and lovers, but how we often make community. But it also challenges that kind of blase attitude about sex — which it seems as though each character has to confront the meaning of sex in all of their relationships. What was your experience shooting the sex scene, and after seeing the film, what’s your take on the role of sex in the film and the story, after seeing it?

Um, I remember shooting it being a really chill affair. Jack Shamama (our fearless producer) stopped by my job (I was working in a marijuana dispensary at the time) and dropped me off an enema and then me and Ben shot it. I remember I look over and like Travis and Michael Lannan were there and there was this inner part of me that was like, “Holy shit, my older brother types are filming me having sex,” and I thought that was hot. Seeing my weiner go in a butthole at the premiere at the Castro Theater almost made me shit myself I was like, “Woah, well THAT happened…” and I have to say all in all it was a positive experience for me. Yeah, I think they approached the sex in the movie in a VERY intellectual way which I totally thought was new, awesome, and very very needed.

I remember when you were cast in this film, you and I had a discussion about the role of race. To be more specific, you were having some feelings about what it would mean getting fucked on screen by a white guy. I was both afraid that I would hate the race politics of the film, and then feel awkward if you were in something that I thought was problematic. Even though race is never brought up or raised in the film, anytime you have a black body on screen in the presence of a non-black body, it is fraught with tension. I didn’t however feel any cringe-worthy moments in that respect when I watched it. How has the feedback been, and what are your feelings about being the only black character, and bottoming in the scene?

I actually never bottomed in the film — I topped (I know a HUGE stretch for me!) and it was fine. I liked the way the film played out. I think in the original script there was me and the boy I had sex with, Ben, talking about race but it felt like a red herring in the script — like you would need a WHOLE other film to discuss that topic and I like the casual feel of it ultimately. I feel like my character occupied a sort of complicated place. Theres no real precedent for my character in I Want Your Love. Like I can only think of a handful of Black Gay Male characters in movies and there are usually completely sexless for the most part… I can’t think of a movie with a character that’s gay, black, punk, sarcastic, funny, and (perhaps most importantly) an object of desire. It gave me a good feeling to do it. But also it was just weird thinking about what my character and Ben’s story would continue after the movie. In it I’m essentially the “wild” punk boy who hooks up with the “square” professional and that’s like never happened in my life. All the boys I fuck (even the professional ones) are TOTALLY buck fucking wild and/or batshit crazy. And there is the question of the class difference between the two characters like Ben being a professional and obviously making more money than my character working in the vintage store. Like I always ask myself in real life how would that particular pairing work out or if indeed it would work out at all. Another aspect of the movie was weird to me was the separation on me and Ferrin, the Asain boy. Like my friend was telling me like in Sweden somewhere there’s this gender rating all movies get, the criteria is a) how many women are there in the movie?, b) do they interact with each other?, c) when they interact with each other do they only talk about men? etc… What would a race rating in gay movies look like? I think it’s funny that me and Ferrin are the only people of color (save Jorge who’s a phenotypically white Latino) but we have zero interaction with each other. I mean not like we needed to interact but i thought it was interesting.

The obvious thing is going to be to compare this film to the new cable show Looking — which I find to be so boring it’s without analog — but I think there is this renewed interest in San Francisco that seems odd to me. Part of it feels like, “Oh now we’ve gotten past that whole AIDS thing, and there are only about 72 blacks still living in the city, let’s get back to talking about San Francisco.” It’s similar to what happened in NYC — the way mass media colludes with city PR campaigns to make themselves a part of a “revitalization” narrative. In fact, the story itself is about a gay man who is leaving San Francisco due to the inability to live there anymore as an artist. What do you make of this film’s portrayal of San Francisco as a city? What do you think it says about making art in a city less known as the place Etta James really grew up and got discovered and more for technology?

“72 blacks!” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It’s funny that you would bring up Looking. That show is inspiring SO MANY FEELINGS. I love it. So Michael Lannan, who like co-wrote Looking also worked on I Want Your Love. He said he wanted to work with me after and Jesse too. I remember he came to Oakland, interviewed me about my life, and we drove around West Oakland taking pictures. The character “Frank” on looking was loosely based off of me (I remember getting the email of the script when I was trying out for Looking and it was like, “Frank; 31, African-American, came from down south (I’m from Alabama), in a band, lives in bohemian West Oakland … ” I ALMOST FUCKING DIED). But then I read the script and it seemed to me that Frank was to be the peripheral Black boyfriend, you know? And also the problem with me is once I’m on film there’s nothing peripheral about me. I stick out like a sore thumb, too gay, too black, too femme, and I’m just not going to be the boy that like a mostly mainstream white audience is gonna “get” (thank the Goddess) and I swear I ain’t trying to be. I can only IMAGINE the look on those L.A. queens’ faces at HBO when they got my audition tape. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh lord… Also I didn’t really have that much acting experience and also I Want Your Love was basically a porn so the fact that I had sex on camera i think was what played a bit of a part in it. I saw an episode and was intellectually disappointed in the Frank character — he seems super undefined and I hope that the Looking folks hire some like really cool Black Punk Fag interns to like write for them so Frank can have a life as a character in that series outside of his light skinned Latino partne… y’know? Just saying… As far as the series itself I feel no certain way about it. I mean as a DIY underground artist anything mainstream (to me at least) is ALWAYS going to leave something to be desired. I kind of look at Looking the same way I did XY Magazine back when I was a disaffected moody punk teen where I’m like, “I just don’t think I’m the target audience,” y’know? It’s funny. Whatever. But I do think Michael Lannan is a super sweet guy and I wish him the best. I mean as far as the portrayal of SF in I Want Your Love I think it’s pretty acurate, I mean it’s just here to offer one slice of life and there are a million stories in the naked city. As far and the tech apocalypse in SF I’ve been trying to snag a techie husband ’cause I really need insurance but they only seem to date each other. LOL…

In many ways, you kind of have the career I thought I was going to have. I’m not jealous but it makes me wonder where I went wrong. LOL. Do you have plans on acting or making more films in the future?

Yes. I’m working on my first film tentatively titled 100 Boyfriends. It’s essentially a choreo-movie (not dealing in straight narrative but like with pictures, voice over, text, poetry, performance pieces, etc.) Because of my proximity to I Want Your Love and Looking I knew I couldn’t get away with having a movie with just a bunch of fags talking about wanting to find love so I’m opting to do something more experimental … STAY FUCKING TUNED …

Kenyon Farrow is a writer and activist. He’s the US and Global Policy Director for Treatment Action Group, and a columnist with RH Reality Check. The former Executive Director of Queers for Economic Justice is also co-editor of Letters From Young Activists: Today’s Rebels Speak Out. His work has appeared in several anthologies and news outlets, including TheAtlantic.com, BET.com, Alternet, The Huffington Post, and Colorlines. Follow him on Twitter @kenyonfarrow.

RELATED:

Watch I Want Your Love and In Their Room: Berlin on NakedSword, as well as some exclusive behind-the-scenes audition footage from director Travis Mathews.

Buy I Want Your Love on DVD and get a free download of Travis Mathews’ feature-length film, In Their Room: Berlin

2 thoughts on “‘I Want Your Love’ & ‘100 Boyfriends Mixtape’ Star Brontez Purnell Talks Sex On Screen, ‘Looking,’ and Finding a Techie Husband”

Boogywoogy
March 22, 2014 at 11:45 pm

If you find “Looking” to be boring then, yes, you’re probably not a member of its intended audience. Hundreds of thousands of people disagree with you, though.

1. mikey
  August 26, 2014 at 8:13 pm
  
  fuck you boogywoogy. yr a punk ass bitch and yr pussy stinks.