Words from Writer Broderick Fox:
One Degree pushes the limits of independent and queer cinema. It takes a hard look at the gay community, asking after some thirty years into identity politics, where have we really gotten? Are we free to be ourselves, or do we wear niche identities like armor, more isolated, fragmented, and disenfranchised than ever before?
As L.A. Gay Pride invites Paris Hilton to be the parade leader; as gay men line up around the block to bask masochistically in the fatalistic, bleak, and beaten ending of Brokeback Mountain; as the Fab Five step-and-fetch-it in comic service to heteronormative coupling; as every gay film coming off the block features white, waxed cover-models stumbling into farcical, predictable love triangles, I feel somewhat ambivalent about presently-touted claims of political and social “progress.”
So does Rick, One Degree’s protagonist. But he soon learns that living in a place of critical, even righteous indignation is hardly a life. One Degree successfully translates my personal experiences into a fictional forum for larger social questioning through complex, unique, and flawed characters.
My screenwriting both embraces and subverts Hollywood conventions, utilizing three-dimensional characters and emotional storytelling to allow audiences to access and identify deeply with challenging identities and perspectives traditionally excised from mainstream media. Through engaging characters, heartfelt stories, and surprising plot twists, my goal is to create works that cross over to a range of audiences beyond the gay market, making everyone laugh, cry, and (dare I say it?) think.
