It's Complicated and Room to Grow: the kids are alright coming out

REVIEW by Drew Rowsome

Maybe National Coming Out Day, October 11, is too close to Halloween. The celebration, which should be an international holiday, came and went without my getting to two new series that debuted on that day. My mistake, they're both worth watching. Fortunately they are streamable at any time, so catching up is easy.

Tony Babcock (The Lavender Railroad) and Matkai Burmaster have teamed up with director Brad Dworkin to create a web series exploring the joys, dilemmas and horrors of surviving high school while gay. It's Complicated, based on the two episodes released so far, follows Zac and Cale as they begin a tenuous romance. The romance is achingly familiar as is the brutal intrusion of the het world that follows. It's Complicated is complicated as it balances wish fulfillment with unpleasant reality and questions of responsibility and guilt. Though each episode is only a few minutes long, they pack a lot of emotional heft and push at triggers.

Both leads are appealing and realistic, and Dworkin frames them in a stylish manner with social media being a way to both communicate and to avoid human interaction. The first two episodes deal with the sweetness and fear of first love, and the nastiness of bullying. Future episodes are slated to explore the consequences "physical, mental and emotional" of that bullying. If they are as deftly done as the first two, the saga of Zac and Cale will be a soap operatic series of installments worth following.

Here is the first episode and the second can be found on YouTube with the rest of the series being released in weekly installments.

LGBT teens are also the focus of the docu-series Room to Grow. The episodes follow the lives of a diverse assortment of teens and their families as they find, and claim, their place in the world. The episode I was sent as a screener concerns Savannah, a spunky ginger lesbian who also happens to be Mormon. She is a delight. Either she is a natural or directors Matt Alber and Jon Garcia are whizes at putting subjects at ease. The latter is probable as when Savannah does public speak, she is charmingly awkward and hesitant.

That coming out moment stands the short film on its head and it is best to have Kleenex handy. Again, I can't vouch for the rest of the series but if the other episodes are as emotionally devastating and as powerful an illustration of the resilience and strength of the gay spirit, they deserve a huge audience. Room to Grow streams on Revry (revry.tv) which is a queer streaming network. This is one of their original series but they also have a huge catalogue of queer interest films from comedy to horror to documentaries to more drag queen-themed material than there is glitter in the gutter after Pride. Room to Grow alone makes it worth subscribing.

My only quibble with both worthy endeavours, is not form or content, it is context. It's Complicated specifically wants to reach allies, and Room to Grow should be force fed to every bigot. Those preparing for participating in National Coming Out Day will have access to YouTube but not necessarily a subscription-based queer streaming service (though, if my nascent queer years are any indication, young LGBTs will search out the tools they need to expand their horizons regardless of obstacles). And the makers of It's Complicated could benefit from a budget that would give them the ability to expand their story and ideas into a longer format. Revry meet Babcock and Burmaster, Babcock and Burmaster meet Revry. All of you deserve to come out to an audience as big as your ideas, bravery and art.