''No Skin Off My Ass'' is a 1991

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

Bruce LaBruce Bruce LaBruce (born January 3, 1964) is a Canadian artist, writer, filmmaker, photographer, and underground director based in Toronto. Life and career LaBruce was born in Tiverton, Ontario. He has claimed both Justin Stewart and Bryan Bruce as ...

. LaBruce's debut feature film provides a template for many of the themes in LaBruce's later movies. Explicit sex scenes between LaBruce's character and von Brucker's are interwoven with a radical political message. ''No Skin Off My Ass'' played at film festivals around the world and quickly became a

cult film A cult film or cult movie, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase which forms an elaborate subculture, members of which engage ...

. Famously,

Kurt Cobain Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994) was an American musician who served as the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter of the rock band Nirvana. Through his angst-fueled songwriting and anti-establishment persona ...

declared it his favourite film. The film's soundtrack includes songs by several punk bands such as Frightwig and Beefeater.

Plot

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

hairdresser A hairdresser is a person whose occupation is to cut or style hair in order to change or maintain a person's image. This is achieved using a combination of hair coloring, haircutting, and hair texturing techniques. A Hairdresser may also be refe ...

(

), known only as “The Hairdresser”, becomes obsessed with a mute neo-Nazi skinhead (Klaus von Brücker). Jonesy (G. B. Jones), a lesbian underground film director and the skinhead's sister, attempts to bring her brother and the hairdresser together. Throughout the film, Jonesy is also working on a documentary around the

Symbionese Liberation Army The United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) was a small, American far-left organization active between 1973 and 1975; it claimed to be a vanguard movement. The FBI and American law enforcement considered the SLA to be the ...

. The cast also includes

Fifth Column A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group or nation from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or another nation. According to Harris Mylonas and Scott Radnitz, "fifth columns" are “domestic actors who work to un ...

band members

Caroline Azar Caroline Azar is a director and playwright. She was the lead singer, keyboardist and co-lyricist/composer of the band Fifth Column. Career The all-women punk band Fifth Column began in the mid-1980s in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The band self-rele ...

and

Beverly Breckenridge Beverly Breckenridge is a musician, composer, and actress from Toronto, Ontario. She played bass for the bands Fifth Column and Phono-Comb. In 1986, Beverly Breckenridge joined the post-punk band Fifth Column. Beverly's first appearance on film ...

Cast

as "The Hairdresser" *

G. B. Jones G. B. Jones (born 1965) is a Canadian artist, filmmaker, musician, and publisher of zines born in Bowmanville, Canada. She is known for producing J.D.s with her acclaimed''Tom Girls'' drawings before going on to create more musically, cinematica ...

as "Jonesy" * Klaus von Brücker as "The Skinhead" *

* Laurel Pervis * Kate Ashley * Jena von Brücker

Production

''No Skin...'' was filmed in Toronto on a budget of $14,000. Most of the cast were people LaBruce previously knew and worked with, helping to keep the cost down: the main cast was LaBruce himself and von Brücker, who were boyfriends at the time, and some of the film's runtime is pornographic footage of the two having sex. G.B. Jones, who LaBruce worked frequently with on projects like the '' J.D.s'' zines, also acted in the film. LaBruce shot and edited ''No Skin'' on 8mm black and white film, blown up to 16mm in post-production.

Release

LaBruce's debut, according to him, "correspond dwith the burgeoning gay and lesbian film festival circuit and just sort of became a cult film." Despite its enthusiastic reception, LaBruce "never expected it to go outside of underground bars in Toronto or alternative art spaces." The movie has been shown at multiple film festivals and queer community events, including its debut at the 1991 Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival, SPEW: The Homographic Convergence, the 1993 Baltimore Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and many others. More recently, ''No Skin...'' has been screened at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

twice, at

Outfest Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival ...

Los Angeles in 2016, and at Visionär Film Fest in 2019.

Reception

The film is discussed as "a queer retelling of Robert Altman’s ''

That Cold Day in the Park ''That Cold Day in the Park'' is a 1969 psychological thriller film directed by Robert Altman and starring Sandy Dennis. Based on the novel of the same name by Richard Miles and adapted for the screen by Gillian Freeman, it was filmed on locati ...

,"'' a 1969 psychological thriller about obsession. Altman's film is based on a novel by the same name by Peter Miles. According to LaBruce, "Altman de-queered it, so I decided to re-queer it... When I showed the film for the first time in Los Angeles in 1991, somebody brought Miles to my screening and he said my no-budget Super-8 movie was better than the Altman version! He gave me an autographed copy of his novel inscribed: ‘You got it right.'" LaBruce's ''No Skin'' is, according to Alexander Cavaluzzo, "the voice of hardcore, tongue-in-cheek dissent with porn-packed political allegories." The film is viewed today as "a

homocore Queercore (or homocore) is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, v ...

classic... a complex exploration of how subculture is articulated through style, and a poignant study in erotic fascination."

References

External links

*
''The New York Times'' reviewReview of ''No Skin Off My Ass''
{{Bruce LaBruce 1991 films Alt porn English-language Canadian films Queercore films Canadian LGBT-related films Canadian comedy-drama films Films set in Toronto 1991 comedy-drama films Canadian black-and-white films Punk films Films directed by Bruce LaBruce Films shot in Toronto 1991 LGBT-related films LGBT-related black comedy films LGBT-related comedy-drama films Films about neo-Nazism 1990s English-language films 1990s Canadian films