Zoo

This is Charisse.

The film Zoo was a great tie-in to our Bergner text. Exploring the relationship between the men in the video and their equine horses allowed viewers to see that one’s sexual preference does not mark a person as a “freak”. Whereas the people in The Other Side of Desire experienced fetishes that were not so “out there,” the movie zoo set out to show the complexities of men that find sex with horses appealing.

Though the topic of the film was appealing, the film itself did not seem to show much. It moved along rather slowly and it did not really delve into the lives and mental state of the characters in a way that I would have liked. After the movie, I decided to find out more about what happened and in my research I found the original title of the film, In the Forest There Is Every Kind of Bird. While I can understand the appeal of naming a movie Zoo, the other title seems more fitting.

The term zoo is short for zoophile which describes a person that has a sexual attraction for animals. Using this term as the title of the movie does not do much to remove the label and mindset that accompanies the label. The original title, on the other hand, paints a picture that I believe is much more fitting. It makes it clear that there are all kinds of people in the world. This need to label people is something that I have discussed before, but it continues to be relevant. Even amongst scholars that seek to eliminate labels and boxes, labels continue to define.

One of the characters in the movie makes a fascinating point. He says that one of his long time friends, after finding out about his love for horses, called him a bad man. He then asks how he could become such a bad person overnight. What did his love of horses have to do with whether or not he was a good person?

This question can be applied to anyone who finds themselves outside of societal norms. Having an abnormal sexual desire, dressing in a way that is not “appropriate” for one’s sex, or doing anything that is not “proper” can cause people to see a person as bad or evil. This comes from lack of understanding and a fear of that which we do not understand.