The gay-teen movie Formula 17, Taiwan’s current “feel-good” offering from Strand Releasing, and the Singapore docudrama entitled 15, released earlier this spring from Picture This Entertainment, are just two examples of how Asia’s most economically progressive countries are coming to terms with their homophobia.

In 2003, Taiwan’s Senior Cabinet Minister, Goh Chok Tong, informed his constituents that the government would now openly employ gays and lesbians. He further urged each Taiwanese citizen to accept homosexuals as human beings. While homosexual acts are not specifically illegal in Taiwan, laws exist that criminalize behavior "harmful to fine customs" and "injurious to cultural morality." These laws are often cited when punishing gays that exhibit “homosexual behavior” in public. But to help correct that social wrong, Taiwan celebrated its first annual “International Day against Homophobia” this May at Taipei Park.

Wang Ping, secretary general of the Gender/Sexuality Rights Association of Taiwan said at the celebration, "although much progress has been achieved in the recognition of LGBT individuals, homophobia still exists."

Taiwan’s Deputy Secretary for Home Affairs Stephen Fisher admitted existing legislation concerning the rights of gays and lesbians is inadequate. Fisher is quoted in China’s newspaper The Standard saying that the government needs to review the problem. He then rationalized, “But legislating is a difficult way of changing attitudes and we must consider public opinion.”

So Taiwan’s moviemakers, in an effort to sway public opinion on homosexuality, seem to have turned away from the country’s film tradition of social realism to sugarcoated portrayals of gays and lesbians.

Formula 17, Taiwan’s highest grossing film of 2004, froths at the mouth with cute boys, romantic scenarios, and pop music. It is directed by “Seventh Grade” director DJ Chen. “Seventh Grade” is a Taiwanese nick-name referring to directors born in the 1980s, the seventh decade after the founding of the Chinese republic in 1911. These directors seem more interested in Hollywood-scenarios than social realism.

"Entertainment is seen as a dirty word by many Taiwanese filmmakers," the female director told the International Herald Tribune. "I don't know why it's become such a shameful thing, as one of the primary functions of a film is to entertain audiences.”

With Chen’s zeal to entertain, homophobia in Formula 17 is nonexistent. In fact, heterosexual characters are surprisingly absent. And ironically, females aren’t even included in Chen’s idealist vision of gay Taiwan.

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