Alden Peters Archives - Big Gay Picture Show

It’s rare for me to get scared, even by a horror movie, but the documentary Coming Out made me nervous. That’s not because it’s deliberately trying to creep anyone out, but because many gay viewers will be taken back to the fear and trepidation of their own initial coming out process.

In the film, young filmmaker Alden Peters decides it’s time to come out as gay after being affected by the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a young man who killed himself after his roommate secretly filmed him having sex with a guy and then posted it online. Rather unusually, Alden decides to get out his camera and document the entire thing. That involves telling friends, parents and siblings, as well as the wider diaspora of those he knows, while filming everything as he goes. He then goes on to look at what happens next, coming to realise that telling others is only the first part of truly becoming comfortable with being a gay man. [Read more…]