Spotlight

The Dove in the Belly, Jim Grimsley (2022)

This is a story of two very different young men and their struggles with trying to understand their sexuality and masculinity in mid-1970s North Carolina. Ronny is thin, academic, and the kind of guy used to having homophobic slurs thrown at him on a regular basis; Ben is a rough-and-tumble football player, with a lot of pent-up rage and a might-is-right attitude modeled by his father, and only reinforced by his friends and coaches. When the boundaries of their acquaintance start to shift, they each have to wrestle with their insecurities and figure out what is okay with them for them in a rapidly changing world. There’s a lot of what today we would call toxic masculinity on display here, with more than a few hints at physical and psychological abuse. And there are definitely aspects of Ben and Ronny’s dynamic that made me deeply uncomfortable. But it’s a fascinating exploration of these themes at a particularly dynamic moment in history, when everything that had once seemed solid was being questioned. In that way, the problematic aspects of their relationship and Ben’s toxic masculinity feel all the more realistic.

Read this if you’re interested in:

• LGBTQ2S+
• Queer history
• 1970s
• Coming of Age
• College Campuses

My Rating, 8/10

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