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Shane belts out a laugh. “Okay—” Shane starts laughing again, shaking his hands in front of him. “Wait—”
“I can think of a few things.” Ilya shouts from behind the camera.
“Ilya, don’t look at me, I can’t focus with you looking at me!” Shane holds up his hand to block Ilya from view.
“What is happening?” Anania shakes her head, chuckling.
JUMPCUT
Anania is wearing a long-sleeved black mesh leopard print top under a black and hot pink patterned summer dress. Her hair is wavy brown, shoulder-length, with half pulled up. They are standing next to Shane Hollander, wearing light wash jeans, a white t-shirt and a moss green and cream color-blocked corduroy jacket over top. His hair is almost shoulder length, with a bit of a styled wave.
“I’m Anania, this is Gaydar, and I’m going to find out if you are gay, straight or a homophobe, what is your name, and what are your pronouns?”
Shane leans into the mike, with trepidation, “Hi, I’m Shane Hollander, and my pronouns are he/him.”
“Hi, Shane.”
“What are your pronouns?”
“Ah! A gentleman!” Anania cackled. “My pronouns are she/they.”
“Okay, nice.”
Anania blushes and tucks a lock of their hair behind their ear. “Alright, first question! What is the gayest MLH team logo?”
Shane pauses with a quizzical expression. “That’s interesting.”
“Listen, I don’t know a thing about hockey, but looking at these logos I gotta say, it shouldn’t take you this long to come up with an answer.”
“Well, I hadn’t really thought about it before, but they are all a little suggestive if you think about it, you know?”
“Right.” Anania nods.
“So really, it comes down to which is gayest, top or bottom.”
Anania scowls in surprise and concern, “Hm, this got controversial real quick.”
“And in my relationship, the gayest is the bottom.”
Anania looks at the camera with a worried expression.
“Because the top is bisexual.” Shane continues.
“Okay, sure.” Anania relaxes and nods along.
“So my answer is the Metros.” Shane raises an eyebrow and stares right at the camera.
Anania laughs, looking down at her cue card. “Can you step into my office?”
“Where?” Shane looks around the park confused, until Anania guides him to turn around. “Oh.”
Anania lowers their voice a little. “Okay, don’t be mad but which one of these is the Metros?”
“Oh,” Shane glances at Anania and gives a little smile before pointing at the cue card. “This one.”
Anania turns them both back around. “Okay, yes I agree, and your logic, once carried to its end, was flawless.”
Shane smiles at her, blushing a little. “Thank you.”
“Next question. Name three gay dating apps.”
“Oh, uh-oh.” Shane looks past Anania into the middle distance. “Uh-oh.”
“Come on, you know this one.” Anania nags.
“Eh…I never did the apps.” Shane says nervously. “There’s the one–” he mimics the notification noise for Grindr with his mouth.
“How do you know this noise?” Ilya calls from behind the camera.
“Uh-oh.” Ananaia gives a nervous glance to the camera.
“It’s in a bunch of shows–” Shane snaps his fingers.”Grindr!”
“Oh, now I know you lie, you don’t watch shows.” Ilya huffs.
Shane looks at Ilya with exaspiration. “I watch shows. We watch shows together all the time.”
“Hockey game is not show, Shane!”
Anania looks between the two men. “Jealous, much? Do I need to stand between you two? Are you safe at home?”
“It’s okay, this is basically foreplay for us.” Ilya says.
“Ilya! Don’t say that!” Shane shouts back.
“Is true!”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to say it!”
JUMPCUT
“Moving on! Name the player who won a gold and silver medal in the Olympics on the Canadian Women’s Hockey Team alongside his wife and teammate, but retired early to transition.”
“Oh, I know this one.” Shane smiles and looks at Anania. “It’s Max Riley. He’s married to Leah Campbell, who is still the goalie for the Toronto Lynx. They’re both coaches at our summer camps.”
“Okay, good job.” Anania nods with a surprised expression. “Also, I love your summer camps, shoutout to the Irina Foundation. Tell the people what that is.”
“Yes! The Irina Foundation is the charity my husband and I founded that raises money and awareness to support those with mental illness. We also run hockey summer youth camps to promote inclusivity in Hockey, because hockey is for everyone.”
“Period!” Anania snaps her fingers.
“Anything you want to add, Ilya?” Shane asks.
“No, you did very good job.” “Ilya responds.
Shane visibly blushes and turns his gaze off to stare at nothing in particular.
“Okay, that also felt like foreplay.” Anania cackles.
“Can we–let’s move on.”
“Oh, okay I guess we’re moving on.” Anania shakes their head in disbelief. “Name three lesbian artists.”
“Artists? Like painters?”
Anania chuckles. “Sure if you know any of those off the top of your head.”
Shane looks at her with wide eyes.
“Okay, I meant like, musicians, actors, entertainers.” Anania prompts him.
“Oh,” Shane’s expression remains tinged with uncertainty. “Uh, do athletes count?”
“No, I want to see if you know anything beyond sports.”
“Okay, um…” Shane looks all around as if the answer might appear from around a tree. “Uh….”
“Oh, honey.” Anania shook her head. “The bar is so low.”
“I know, I’m sorry, I don’t follow much media. Let me think.” Shane fidgets with the hem of his shirt. “Oh! Ellen Degeneres!”
Anania sighs. “Okay, that’s one.”
“Okay.” Shane stares at the ground in concentration. “Oh!” His head pops up and he exclaims excitedly, “Cher! And Madonna!”
“Okay, well. Those are three women, so If the question was name three women, you would have gotten it right.”
“Cher and Madonna aren’t gay?” Shane looks shocked.
“Eh…they’ve both hinted that they might have a touch of sexual fluidity, but both have primarily dated and married men, so…”
“You don’t have to be in a relationship with someone of the same sex to be bi.” Shane rushed to defend.
“So true, but the question was about lesbians and again, we aren’t gold star truthers here but—”
“Gold star?”
Anania laughs. “And we’ve stumbled into our next question! What is a gold star lesbian?”
Shane’s eyes dart around. “Okay, context clues point to…something about having sex.”
“Find it.”
“So…gold star, would be the best you can get. And the best you can be at a lesbian would be…maybe, if a lesbian’s never been with a man, that’s a gold star?”
“Wow, you got there.” Anania laughs. “How do you feel about that term?”
“Well, I don’t know, it took me a long time to figure out my sexuality.”
“A looooong time.” Ilya interjects.
“Shut up!” Shane waves his hand at Ilya. “I wasn’t out there…playing the field, but I had experiences with men and women, and still struggled to understand myself fully. I think assigning a grade or value to how perfectly you perform your sexuality is…problematic, at least to me.”
“That was a very diplomatic way to say it makes you feel shitty.”
Shane chuckles. “Yeah, I guess.”
“I agree.” Anania nods. “What’s the gayest thing to ever happen at a hockey game?”
Shane belts out a laugh. “Okay—” Shane starts laughing again, shaking his hands in front of him. “Wait—”
“I can think of a few things.” Ilya shouts.
“Ilya, don’t look at me, I can’t focus with you looking at me!” Shane holds up his hand to block Ilya from view.
“What is happening?” Anania shakes her head, chuckling.
“There’s just so many directions I could go with this.” Shane manages to say through the laughter.
“Okay give me all of them, I want all of it!” Anania smiles excitedly. “Has hockey been secretly gay all along? What have I been missing?”
“Okay, well there’s the obvious answer that everyone knows.”
“Mm, everyone?” Anania nods while racking their brain to come up with something.
“Yeah, Scott Hunter pulling his secret boyfriend down from the crowd and kissing him on the ice on air right after winning his first ever MLH Cup.”
“Oh, I live! I love that! And I definitely had heard about that before this moment.” Anania looked into the camera and shook their head, mouthing, no I didn’t.
“Right, so that’s the answer you were looking for.” Shane laughed again. “And then there’s—” Shane clears his throat, “okay so there’s just some stuff that hockey players do that is objectively kinda gay.”
“Like what?”
“Well, when a fight breaks out, we will all kind of migrate to a member of the opposing team and like, hold onto them while the fight goes on.”
“Why?”
“Because if more people enter the fight, it can be a harsher penalty. So we just kinda find a buddy on the other team and hug it out. I’ve seen players hold hands during these buddy-ups.”
“Awe, I love that.”
“Yeah, and the stretches are pretty…suggestive. Then of course we kiss each other on the helmets, and do butt taps, and do little friendly head butts, which is basically getting really close and placing your teammates forehead on yours, which is kinda…”
“I see where you’re going with this.”
“Yeah, listen. I’m here for it, and even the most macho players do this stuff. They don’t see anything gay about it, and I’m not saying it’s gay to show affection. I’d love to break down the stereotype that straight men cannot express any positive emotions without being accused of being gay, you know?”
“Sure, sure, sure. I’m with you.” Anania nods.
“Yeah.”
“Is that what you were laughing about?”
Shane smirks, “No.”
“Come on, tell me!” Anania whines.
Shane glances at Ilya and laughs again. “Okay, I was just thinking of all the times Ilya and I…you know…”
“At the stadium?” Yuna exclaims from behind the camera.
Shane blushes and decidedly ignores his mother. “Uh, you know, if there was a tight turnaround and we weren’t going to be able to meet up because of the timing, we might have, on occasion, met up in a storage closet or bathroom or laundry room.”
Anania cackles. “Wow! I live!”
“Well, we would go months without seeing each other. We didn’t want to miss an opportunity.”
“Awe, wow, that’s devastating and romantic and hot all at once.”
“Yeah.” Shane just nods.
“Damn.” Anania flips to the next card. “What does the ‘I’ stand for in LGBTQIA?”
“Oh, I should know this one.” Shane stalls.
“Yeah, you should!”
“I read a whole article about each letter’s meaning.”
“Wow, a whole article.” Anania says in mock surprise. “When?”
“Uh, couple years ago, now.”
“Hm. That’s a long time not to think about the I in LGBTQIA.”
“I’ve…thought about it since then.” Shane sounds unsure.
“Alright, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Absolutely. In…Inter…” Shane flails.
“He’s finding it.”
“Inter…sectional?”
“Okay, and he lost it.”
“It’s not intersectional? Because someone can have more than one identity, or what not.”
“Can you give me an example of intersectionality?”
“Well, I’m—”
“Not with you, though, because I’m supposed to be guessing your identity.”
“Oh, right. Okay, well someone could be half japanese, half white and gay.”
Anania throws her head back and laughs.“Okay good save! You could be talking about anyone.”
“Exactly.” Shane grins.
Anania, still laughing, “Okay but what does the ‘I’ stand for??”
“Oh.”
“You said I was close?”
“I—famously, never said that.” Anania cackles.
“Okay, but I think I was on the right track with ‘inter’.”
“Uh huh.”
“And it’s probably a sexuality.”
“Well, kind of.”
“Or gender.” Shane continues.
“Okay, good.”
“And it’s not nonbinary, because that starts with an ‘n’.”
“Famously, yes.”
“So….inter…sex?” Shane pitches his voice up at the end and scrunches his face up, unsure.
“Yes! You got there!”
Shane sighed in relief.
“What’s intersex mean?” Anania asks.
“Uh, I don’t know.”
“Okay, wow.” Anania shakes her head in disappointment. So, intersex people are born with sex characteristics that don’t fit typical binary definitions of male and female.”
“Oh, okay.” Shane nodded. “I didn’t know that.”
“So do you want to go ahead and look into the camera over there and apologize to the intersex community?” Anania pointed at the camera.
“I’m sorry to all intersex people. You are valid and I’m sorry I didn’t know you existed.”
Okay, and we blazed right past it earlier, but you also owe the lesbian community an apology for not being able to name anyone other than Ellen.”
“I do know other lesbians, just not famous entertainers!”
“Apologize!”
Shane sighs, “Okay, I’m sorry to all lesbians for not watching more shows with lesbian entertainers in them. I will do better in the future.”
“Okay, well. Let’s move on.” Anania flips to the next card. “Who was your gay awakening?”
Shane’s eyes widened and he looked to the side of the camera.
“Do you understand the question?”
“Yeah…” Shane answers timidly.
“Are you embarrassed about your gay awakening?” Anania looks confused.
“No…”
“That was convincing. It’s okay, this is a safe place.”
“Okay, my gay awakening was…” Shane lowers his voice and mumbles unintelligibly.
“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”
“Ilya Rozanov.” Shene says a little louder in an annoyed tone.
“Wrong! We were hooking up for eight years before you figured anything out! Your gay awakening was Rose Landry!” Ilya interjects.
Shane suddenly starts walking out of shot. “Do you wanna go right now, Rozanov?”
Anania grabs his arm and pulls him back, “Hold on, we aren’t done yet.”
JUMPCUT
Shane no longer has his jacket on, and his hair is more disheveled than it was before the cut. Anania jumps right into the next question. “When did Gay Marriage become legal in Canada?”
Shane sighs and hangs his head. “I don't remember.” He whines.
“Okay, that tracks.” Anania scrunches her nose at the camera in an expression of disappointment. “You know, you can’t say you don’t remember if you never knew it in the first place.”
“No, I did at one point know. I know it was before the US.”
“Sure.” Anania sighs. “Remind me where you’re from again?”
“Ottawa.” Shane answers.
“And that’s in…”
“Canada.”
“Right, right. Okay. So you lived through this event and you don’t remember when it was?”
“Well, I was probably pretty young. Let me think. It was probably when I was in middle school. Was it…2002?
“Okay, it was 2005.”
“I was close!”
“Yeah, okay. It’s like the clit, you don’t get points for close.”
“Yeah just ask Rose Landry!” Ilya shouts.
“Alright, you can drag me, but don’t share Rose’s personal life all over the internet.” Shane glared at Ilya.
“Oh, tell ‘em!” Anania chuckles.
“Okay, I’ll text her, see if she cares.”
“Alright, while you do that…” Anania flips to the next card. “What is your star sign?”
“Oh. I have no idea.”
“Shocking. Who could have predicted.” Anania scoffs. “What’s your birthday?”
“May 10th.”
“Okay, you’re a Taurus.” Anania supplies. “Which makes a lot of sense.”
Shane just looks bewildered. “In a good way?”
“It’s not good or bad, it just fits. I see it.”
“Rose says it’s fine!” Ilya shouts.
Shane just shakes his head in exasperation.
“Okay, if I had to guess if you were gay straight or a homophobe….” Anania pauses for dramatic effect. “I’d say you are a homophobe.”
Shane's eyes widen in disbelief. “What? No, at least say I’m straight. I’m a gay icon, I can’t be homophobic.”
“Oh sweetie, you absolutely can.”
“Is there something I can do to redeem myself?”
“Okay—”
“One more question, please!” Shane begs.
“Okay, fine. One more question.”
“Thank you, thank you!”
“Okay, did you watch Magic School Bus as a kid in Canada?” Anania asks.
“Yeah, we had that in Canada.”
“Okay, who’s the gayest character in Magic School Bus?”
“Oh, Miss Frizzle, obviously.”
“I live!”
“She’s definitely a lesbian.”
“Exactly. Exactly. Do you know who plays her?”
“No, I don’t.” Shane shakes his head.
“Lily Tomlin, who’s also a lesbian.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yup. Okay, in light of this recent development. And in light of you having an altogether way too close relationship with your husband, and frankly, your mother too, I’m changing my guess to gay.”
“Yes! Shane pumped his fist.
“Okay. Just barely, and you’re definitely not queer.”
“Okay, thank you.” Shane let out a sigh of relief.
Anania shakes her head. “And I’m gonna need you to write a ten page report on Stonewall as your homework.”
“I can do that.”
“What’s stonewall?” Ilya calls out again from behind the camera.
“I’ll tell you all about it in a week once I turn in my homework.”
Anania looks directly into the camera, shaking her head, “Okay, I regret my decision.”
Sound Playing Over the Credits
“I didn’t do very good, did I?” Shane asks.
Anania scoffs, “Honestly? You did way better than I expected.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, but that’s just because my expectations were so low.”
“Awe, fuck.”