Appropriate Behavior

Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures and Parkville Pictures

As a bisexual I can safely say that there aren't many depictions of us out there, and the ones that do exist aren't anything positive. Director, writer, and star of "Appropriate Behavior," Desiree Akhavan, shows the common intersections between her world and that of her conservative Persian family in this semi-autobiographical indie film.

 There are many positives to be had in this film. The depiction of a homosexual relationship between our lead and her ex-girlfriend was realistic, loving, poignantly confusing, and altogether inspiring. The character is waylaid by life, and seems to be a completely messed up person. Therein lays a problem. From a storytelling point of view, it makes sense for her to be lost, because then she can engage in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships and flirtations at the same time, putting emphasis on her bisexuality. It's a negative, in that we have another character of bisexual origin who seems confused, invalidated, and lost in life.

 The character of Shirin may seem ridiculously self-indulgent, but she also gets a few laughs. She's sarcastic, she is self-aware, her zingers make you think; she's just a fun, entertaining character. It's what she does throughout the course of the film that leaves me wanting more. I want more of her family, who provide a cultural perspective to the bisexual experience that other films just haven't touched upon. I want Shirin to find some kind of parity, if not in her dating life than in her career. I want to see a film that doesn't just touch on the failings of being an outsider, but gets to the nitty gritty of being judged, being seen as outside the sphere of the LGBT community, in a way that makes little sense. For once I want a film that doesn't just use bisexuality to create chaos, but to create a narrative, and this doesn’t seem to be it.