
This collection of shorts lampoons well-known fairy tales for a gay sexual angle, mostly played for laughs. In a revision on Cinderella, the slave princess, her stepmother, and stepsister are all bitchy fags who want to boink the handsome prince. The gay Rampelstiltskin is out to claim no infant, but the hero's boyfriend. Beauty and the Beast becomes Bayot and the Beast. Funny? You bet. But the real surprise are the "moral lessons": modern and subversive takes on love and relationships. For example, the prince is turned off by divas-in-waiting, so take a good look at yourself if you are. Implicitly, like the politically correct fairy tale books, these clips are saying we would do better to imbibe more progressive values than the outdated lore of our forefathers.
Less effective are the shorts based on myths that aren't obvious targets for roasting -- one is a version on Filipino elementals that play with people who get lost in the forest (nice try, though), another is a riff on nighttime street spirits (a story that's near unintelligible).
But it's the production values that suck most glaringly. The tacky fairy tale design looks like a bad school play, and with the undisciplined filming, would be embarassing even for YouTube. Campy shouldn't be synonymous with cheap. How fantastic this could have been with a little more effort.
Queer Fairy Tales gets by on wit -- and okay, sex, too. Actors include Jef Tabason, Bobby Reyes, Sam Corpuz, Richard Lopez, Danilo Lee, Marcus Gutierrez, and Rusty Adonis. Produced by Queeriosity Video Project.
Grade:
B