Will the revolution make us happy?

The answer to such a question is almost surely no: the revolution will not make us happy. But that’s not to say there’s no joy to be found in trying. Maybe the happiness that is to be found in revolution lies in the doing, and the making, and the living, that revolting entails.

Throughout his storied career, Bruce LaBruce has established himself as one of the foremost filmmakers, writers, and photographers of modern times, all while being guided by the principles of revolution. There are very few living artists with a comparable body of work, particularly one that has been defined by disruption and pleasure since the very beginning. His most recent book, published by Baron Books in the UK, is even titled “The Revolution is My Boyfriend.” He’s clearly in a committed relationship.

LaBruce entered the film scene in 1991 with his early experimental work No Skin Off My Ass, a film about falling for a skinhead one day in the park; in 1994 he released Super 8 1/2, a metanarrative about what happens when your lesbian friend exploits you, both sexually and professionally, because your porn directing career hasn’t taken off. In both of these black-and-white films, LaBruce pushed the boundaries of what could and would be—particularly by an often conservative art establishment—considered film and art. His films challenge traditional understandings of both mediums, and complicate the oversimplifications that come from trying to narrowly define pornography. Watching these works has the feeling of bearing witness to a revolutionary declaration: not only is LaBruce going to create art, he's going to suck cock while doing it. 

As his career progressed, LaBruce worked to progress the dialogue around what stories can be shown on screen, depicting taboos other directors wouldn't even hint at: the rough-trade of Hustler White, gerontophilia in the eponymous Gerontophilia, and self-love in Saint-Narcisse. His commitment to telling stories commonly thought of as forbidden follows in the wake of his oft-cited and much-beloved influence, Jean Genet, and in the process he has always strived to liberate storytelling from proverbial pearl clutches. 

Of course, these pushes forward have not been without pushback. LaBruce’s work has been censored numerous times, most prominently when his film L.A. Zombie (which depicts, tellingly, zombies and gay sex in California) was banned from being shown in Australia for “refusing classification.” Paradoxically, that’s still the best way to describe LaBruce’s approach to work, art, and life: as beyond the limits of category, let alone genre. 

And has any of this made him happy? That’s what I wanted to know when we sat down to talk one afternoon in the spring of 2024: myself in New York, in a sparse apartment with a large David Armstrong print as my background, and he in Toronto, wearing wraparound shades, surrounded by his books. Both of us were sweating from the early heatwaves in our respective cities.

Bruce’s work has been important to me for a long time: I was first introduced to it as an undergraduate studying at a university in Montreal. Coming into being a gay man while living in the same places depicted on screen, I grappled in real life with the ideas he tackles head-on. I, like so many others, have gotten a lot out of his body of work, and wanted to know if, as the revolutionary himself, he could say the same. I am very happy to share LaBruce’s very generous answers to my questions here.

I was thinking about the presence of happiness in your work, and was wondering about desire. Do you think of desire as a tool for happiness? 

For me, the pursuit of happiness has always been linked to sexual pleasure and a kind of energy. I don’t know whether that’s because I’m from a particular generation, but you know, I come from the generation that went through, in gay terms, a pre-liberation and post-liberation moment. There was a driving force behind gay activism and gay visibility, and it was sex. It was sexual desire, but pursued with abandon—a very libertine kind of consciousness, to explore sexuality, to find one’s bliss in terms of homosexuality, and to be unapologetic and unashamed about it. I think that does have something that is present in my work. 

My early films were very personal. They were made in the 1990s, and I perform sexually in them, which was unusual at the time. This is pre-internet, pre-Only Fans. It’s not something that people were doing regularly, or in public spaces, or at film festivals. It almost seems naive to watch them now. There’s a certain kind of almost charming quality about them—it doesn’t seem sexually exploitative but much more exploratory; very much about romance and tenderness. Even though some of the scenarios are quite rough and extreme—like when my boyfriend, who plays the skinhead in No Skin Off My Ass, pierces my nipple with a safety pin. It does make you cringe because it looks so painful. But you know, it was just something we were doing that was very empowering and fun, and I think that comes across in the movie. The romance of it; the spirit of exploring your own limitations. That’s a kind of happiness, or bliss. 

I have made “pure” porn in recent years, and that’s an industry that has its own joy to it, but it’s different. For me, it’s more in the craft, and in the idea of pushing people’s boundaries in a, let’s say, more aggressively political way. There’s a pleasure or joy in the craft of making these kinds of films within the conventions of porn, and how successfully I can negotiate that world, which is quite different. So yeah, I guess for me, happiness is creative freedom. Which is rare. 

Have you found that?

You know it when you find it; you can really tell the difference, because you don’t have these limitations imposed on you by gatekeepers or financiers or whomever. Even if it’s not a very overt or obvious set of limitations, they’re still there, and you can end up censoring yourself. Even on social media…my work can be very pornographic, so there’s very little I can display of it on my own accounts. 

It’s ironic that I was first introduced to your work in a queer theory class at McGill University in Montreal, but then more thoroughly through your Instagram. I know what you mean about Instagram not being suited to your body of work, but I must say, you do find ways of making the platform titillating. 

I do this feature, my “Born on this Day” series, where I talk about the salaciousness of famous peoples’ lives, as well as their screen persona; whether they were gay or queer, or had homosexual affairs, or tragic ends under crazy circumstances. It’s kind of in the style of Kenneth Angers’ Hollywood Babylon. Verbally you can describe things that are extreme; textual, not visual. 

I’m getting the sense that pushing boundaries makes you happy.

Yeah? A good example is this new movie I made, The Visitor. I’ve made a couple of movies with bigger budgets, and I got government financing through Quebec, which is a very different process. It can be a happy process as well, but there are more limitations to the conventions of “industry-style” filmmaking. I’m used to being completely independent and making guerilla-style films, where you’re creatively open to contingencies and accidents and possibilities; shooting on the fly without permits,  spontaneously shooting somewhere out of bounds or off limits, flying in the face of authorities and dodging police… So when you go to this other model, which is very controlled and pre-planned, you’ve got streets blocked off…it’s a very locked down kind of process. 

I can still be happy. The happiness of doing that is knowing that you’re going to wake up at 6am, and there will reliably be an SUV waiting for you outside with a cappuccino, every morning. You’ll get to work on time and the set is already dressed and the actors are prepared. To me, that’s such a luxury. It’s a kind of fantasy.

Then there was this new project I did through a nonprofit space in London called A/Political, who are known for working with outsider artists; artists whose work is too extreme or complicated, or too expensive or politically incorrect. And even though it was fraught with all kinds of obstacles and challenges, it was a very pure creative experience, because they encouraged me to do whatever I wanted in terms of sexual representation. It’s not porn, but it is a very porny kind of movie, and they would push me even further. I’ve never had that before! Like, why don’t you make it more explicit? Why don’t you push the political context even further? I went through despair, and a [sense of] complete alienation from the project; I was thinking it wasn’t working, or I didn’t know who I was making it for, what it was. But overall the experience was joyful because it was so pure. It made me really dig deep and come up with something that could have been anything. It’s like pulling a rabbit out of a hat; your limitations, your mistakes, the things that are unavailable to the work, all end up working in your favor. 

Saint-Narcisse came out right after I moved to New York, but there was a moment that felt very much like part of my personal pursuit of happiness: I used to live in Outremont in Montreal, and the opening scene of that movie is filmed at that laundromat. It felt like a sign that I was coming from one place—there’s that fucking scene set where I used to do my laundry!—and it would still hold an important place in my trajectory; that maybe I was on the right path. Thank you for that.

We looked hard for that location, because the film was set in 1972.

It certainly looks like it's from that era. I do miss it there. When I was thinking about your work to date, I was thinking about desire, as I mentioned, but I also noticed there’s a close relation to the theme of revolution, and how that is motivated by desire. Do you think the aim of revolution is happiness?

It’s either about happiness or the alleviation of whatever causes unhappiness. Whether that is enslavement or oppression or disenfranchisement or suffering. 

But revolution is interesting. My new book is called The Revolution is My Boyfriend,  I’ve addressed revolution in my movies…I’ve come to the conclusion that revolution is, in a way, always doomed to failure; that’s not where happiness is. Happiness is in the revolutionary moment. 

The one thing I always quote from Genet and his idea of revolution was that whenever he saw a revolutionary moment happening somewhere in the world, whether it be Palestine or the Black Panthers in Chicago, he would go. He would support it and promote it and stand in solidarity with it. But at the first sign that the revolution was becoming institutionalized, or reified in their politics, or assimilated or reformed or making compromises, he would not only abandon the movement but turn against it. 

It’s interesting, because that happens with revolutions and their ideals. When they gain power and become entrenched in their power, they quite often end up betraying the very ideals that they promoted in the first place. It’s the oppressed becoming the oppressor, which is another theme that runs throughout my movies. 

It’s not so much a completely cynical point of view. You can affect change that is good, and change a culture, and make it less oppressive, but ultimately there is a cycle that happens. The happiness comes in the fight, the struggle, which is very much in the moment. 

I don’t enjoy being in a state of chaos or danger or anxiety. But when you’re in the middle of it…there’s nothing like it. You have to dig into yourself, come up with solutions for problems really quickly. You have to be fearless, and you kind of lose yourself. You’re just focused on the immediate goal and what you’re trying to accomplish. I think within a revolution, there’s a very clear moment [where you’re aware of] what you’re against and trying to overthrow or destroy; the oppressive entity that you’re against has a clear mission against it, and you’ve done the process of thinking and doubt and the moral equivalent equivocation, and you’re just there. The fact that it’s past a point of self-consciousness and you’ve forgotten yourself because you’re so committed to the moment; that’s a [form of] happiness. 

I think a lot of unhappiness has to do with having too much time to dwell on yourself and your problems. Or pitying yourself, or second-guessing yourself. Happiness is not thinking, it’s acting. 

I was going to ask if you thought happiness was transgressive. But perhaps what we’re getting at is that transgression is happiness. 

Certainly for me there is happiness in transgression, though transgression is another source of unhappiness when you become doctrinaire about something, or you become conventional, or you accept the status quo. Questioning the conventions of propriety, of culture, of the rules of [the] dominant order…each transgression is a little revolution, you know? A small revolution against the status quo.   

Do you think that you have a favorite transgression of yours?

A good example may be the photo show that I had in Madrid in 2012 called ‘Obscenity,’ in which I didn't set out to scandalize a nation, but I ended up doing so.

Sometimes that happens, yes.

Yes, as one can. The show kind of took on a life of its own. I had this crazy Argentinian motherfucker who was producing the show.. He was at odds with the gallery, so it was a kind of perfect storm of all sorts of conflicts. I was shooting Spanish celebrities in very provocative scenarios that were playing on the sexuality of Catholicism and the intersection between religious and sexual ecstasy, which attracted a lot of media attention. It was a provocative show, but not really by my standards. It wasn't even particularly pornographic, but it really hit a chord.

And so there were Christian picketers outside the gallery, and the mayor of Madrid tried to close down the show. The story was splashed all over the biggest newspapers, El Mundo and Le Pais. Then the night after the opening, somebody threw an explosive device through the front window of the gallery. The police got involved and there was a whole new wave of publicity.

After going through all that, I then had a big fight with the producer of the show. He actually threatened to show up and slit his wrists and spurt his blood all over the photographs. I remember standing with a gallerist and we were just kind of laughing because it was so extreme. All the forces that were coming down on us and we just forged ahead and did the show despite all these obstacles. And we just laughed—we had to laugh—because at certain points, what else can you do but just, you know, laugh.

Earlier we were talking about censorship on Instagram, and more generally. Perhaps there are certain limits to what we can say, but I wanted to see if there were any transgressions you wanted to make here, and see if we can push the limits of what my editor will publish. [Editor’s note: challenge accepted.]

I’m trying to get laid on Feeld, but I haven’t figured out how to do it yet. 

That’s a perfect transgression. 

I mean, I like the mission statement of the platform, and what it’s trying to do. It’s interesting. These days we live in a corporate world, and I’m from a different generation; I’m always ambivalent about corporate entities. Social media is, for me, kind of fraught with all sorts of problems. But what I see as limitations, other people see as opportunities. When I was a punk and doing fanzines in the queercore movement of the 1980s, it was a completely different reality. There was no social media, there was no internet; everything was analog, underground, and it was about doing everything yourself. You’re publishing, you’re producing the fanzine. No one was looking for corporate sponsorship. No one was even looking at it through a capitalist lens. It was a very pure expression of counterculture. And so to adapt to new generations who are born into a corporate landscape, it’s just the reality of how people communicate. 

Regarding the pornography you mentioned, and the difference between doing it yourself  then and now, working with corporate entities of sorts, I was wondering if porn is the only exception we still have. We have much more amateur work proliferating, with OnlyFans and other forms of “DIY.” I was wondering if you would have done OnlyFans if it had been available back then. 

Well, I do think OnlyFans has kind of democratized porn, as they say. And I think it has shifted ideas about what makes someone sexually desirable, in terms of beauty ideals and standards of sexiness and body image, across race and class. A bored housewife with a zaftig body can be really successful on OnlyFans, which is kind of amazing in a way. It does level the playing field to a certain extent, and allow for a free expression of sexuality. 

It is still kind of a [form of] sexual self-exploitation. It challenges what it means to be a sex worker. Yeah, we’re all hookers now, which is fine; I’ve never had a problem with hookers. But if you’re a hooker and you think that’s a bad thing, then you have to deal with your own guilt or shame and work through that yourself. And it might not be the best thing for you if it causes shame. 

My previous job before the one I have now was…well, some might call it ghostwriting. Some might call it catfishing. I worked for some very famous women on OnlyFans. I would answer their DMs on their behalf, and talk to these straight dudes who thought they were talking to these women. That felt like it was getting away from the democratization; it felt nefarious, for sure. And none of us working at the agency that represented these women were paid very well. 

Was it kind of analogous to phone sex, where you didn’t really embody the people that callers thought they were speaking to?

Every now and then there was some embodying. But overall it was a very curious job.

That’s the other thing about the reality of this new kind of virtual landscape. It’s a different model of reality. There are avatars. There are things that aren’t what they appear to be. There are people inhabiting virtual identities that don’t correspond to their physical body, which can be deceptive, but it can also be creative. Yes, it can be used for nefarious purposes, or it can be used for liberation. 

What is your relationship to that digital landscape? I mean, I know you’re using Feeld a little bit, but do you use anything else?

I kind of treat everything the same. It’s a version of myself, but it’s definitely a mediated and augmented reality. I’ve had a lot of long-distance relationships in the past, where I might have met the person in the real world long after the relationship had developed, and then you kind of meet the person and adapt. Either it doesn’t work out, and somehow the reality of the person doesn’t match the virtual context, but I do like it. It’s much more based on fantasy. And it can be much more romantic, in a way. You don’t have the banality of everyday life, you know, the quotidian annoyances or petty things or material distractions that go against romance, as opposed to living in your imagination. 

When we were talking about desire as a pursuit of happiness, we spoke about how when one reaches the object of their desire, the idea is that they might be happy. But now it seems like we’re saying the opposite; I’ve been thinking about whether or not desire is the root of all suffering. What do you think?

It's like perfection. You never really want to achieve perfection, because it’s impossible anyway, but even if you did there’s nowhere else to go. There’s no goal. There’s no desire. 

I learned this for myself on an extremely bad drug trip. I had a vision of perfection that was so strong that it became quite malevolent. It represented something like King Midas. Everything he touched turned to gold, which he thought he wanted, but it was actually useless. It was just gold, stuck in the form. 

I just read this really great book about William Blake, by John Higgs. William Blake vs The World. He believed in this idea of contraries, where you can’t have a binary world. Binaries need to exist simultaneously, and need each other to exist; you can’t have love without hate, you can’t have happiness without suffering. I’m really into the idea that they have to coexist, and it’s not either or. It’s not even that love is preferable to hate, or that happiness is preferable to suffering. You have to have the mindset that they’re both equally important, and you need to experience both. 

I think it’s important to experience happiness, and to know it’s elusive. I was married for twelve years, and we divorced before the pandemic. It was good, but it was a big upheaval, and there was a lot of emotional turmoil. For me, coping with that change in my life has meant getting to the point where I’m able to be happy spending time with myself. Having said that, I’m totally open to another relationship at some point, and I’d never close myself off to that possibility. But you definitely have to learn to be happy by yourself, without that feeling of being incomplete because you’re not with another person, or that there’s something wrong with you. I’ve just learned to be happy spending time by myself, and not feeling like my happiness is contingent on another person.