Director Report Card: Frank Henenlotter (2018)

 

9. Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana

Frank Henenlotter continues to be one of those cult filmmakers that, just when you think he’s never making another movie, comes back with a surprise. Following the release of his two documentaries, "The Godfather of Gore" and "That's Sexploitation!," he re-teamed with Anthony Sneed, his "Bad Biology" leading man, to create the indie comedy "Chasing Banksy." The film has played multiple festivals but has yet to receive a general release. During production, Sneed would introduce Henenlotter to artist Mike Diana. Diana is the only American visual artist to ever be convicted for obscenity, a topic Henenlotter and Sneed deemed worthy of a documentary. Following a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2017, "Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana" would win positive reviews and awards on the festival circuit. Earlier this year, the film was released in Amazon Prime, making it available to all cult movie devotees.

Mike Diana is a creator of underground comix style zines from Southern Florida. His whole life, Diana has been interested in "ugly" artwork. During the late eighties, while still a teenager, Diana began to draw comic strips full of sexual violence, pedophilia, extreme gore, and other shocking subject matter. He would distribute his work in self-published zines with titles like "Angelfuck" and "Boiled Angels." In 1991, while investigating the Gainesville Florida serial killer case, the local police became aware of Diana's work. Though absolutely cleared of any connection to the murders, the state would go on to prosecute Diana for obscenity. In 1994, he was convicted. Henenlotter's film documents Diana's life, his art, the trial, and the aftermath. 

The most immediately striking thing about "Boiled Angels" is the contrast between Diana's work and the man himself. His comics, the most shocking of which are displayed in the film, are full of every grotesque cruelty you can imagine. Diana, meanwhile, seems to be a painfully shy person. He speaks in a soft, almost monotone voice. He's opposed to all violence and even refuses to swat a mosquito in one scene. His tall, pale visage is totally unassuming. Most of his interviews take place among his personal collection of horror VHS tapes or Hot Stuff the Little Devil toys. He seems like a withdrawn, quiet guy, which immediately challenges any assumptions you might make about the kind of people who make this kind of art.

The exact motivation behind Diana's art is hard to say. Even as a hardened horror nerd, who has certainly consumed plenty of "shock" comedy over the years, I found Diana's work pretty upsetting. He seems obsessed with child abuse, rape, castration, mutilation, and cannibalism. His comics are also cartoonish, even amateuristic. Like most comix artist, one assumes that the outrageous content of Diana's work is meant to shock people out of complacency. That it perverts traditional American institutions in the name of satire, that there's a degree of absurdist humor to these extreme images. Moreover, much of Diana's work seems to be motivated by a sense of injustice. He describes how profoundly disturbed he was by the Catholic pedo scandals and the racism he witnessed firsthand in Florida. More than once, he describes his work as a way to "vent his anger." And the betrayal of trust between authority figures and children is definitely something to be very angry about. 

When confronted by such extreme images, one can't help but draw certain conclusions about the creator. Diana's trial attracted considerable local media attention. Most of the protestors were not there to protest the obvious violation of Mike's free speech but rather to show disgust at his work. Among the pearl-clutchers was a highly religious woman determined to save Diana's soul from damnation. Henenlotter managed to track her down for an interview and she still seems convinced that Diana's extreme work arose out of an abusive childhood, that he himself was a victim of molestation. I'll admit, I had the same first reaction too. The artist denies this and, while he sometimes describes his father as a harsh disciplinarian, he seems to have a healthy relationship with his family. "Boiled Angels" forces us to challenge our own assumptions, about where extreme art comes from and the mind behind them.

Regardless of how Diana's work makes you feel, whether it grosses you out or makes you laugh, it obviously wasn't a crime for him to create and publish it. Henenlotter clearly shares the opinion of the outraged free speech activists and Comic Book Legal Defense Fund insiders he interviews. If you're interested in filmmakers like Henenlotter or cartoonist like Diana, you probably agree too. "Boiled Angel" is valuable not for preaching to the choir but for providing context for what happened. The lawyers at Diana's trial repeatedly attempted to forge a link between his work and the Gainsville murders, even though the actual killer had confessed long before the trial happened. The judge refused to allow Diana's defense to provide context, by showing equally outrageous comix from thirty years earlier. The film compiles plenty of handheld footage of the outraged church ladies at the trial. The sense of vague moral outrage coursing through the country at the time was also apparent in the conviction of the West Memphis Three and the still on-going Satanic Panic. Diana was another victim of the moralistic snap-back of the Reagan/Bush I era. 

In fact, Henenlotter probably should have spent a little more time establishing the mood of the era and location than on describing the history of comic book censorship. “Boiled Angels” features interviews with comic book historians about the moral panic around horror and crime comics in the fifties, the rise of the Comic Code Authority, and the birth of underground comix in the ensuing decade. Anybody interested in comic book history - which most likely means the majority of people watching this documentary - already know all about this stuff. Only a tidbit about an earlier attempt in Canada to persecute an underground comic artist for obscenity, which seems to foreshadow a lot of what happened to Mike, seems especially relevant. (Though it is nice that Henenlotter got an interview with George Romero, who talks about the influence E.C. Comics had on him. The film is dedicated to his memory.)

If you're making a movie about a visual artist, you have to find a way to show that art. Henenlotter's solution is to put close-ups of Diana's comics on-screen, accompanied by (frequently rather stilted) voice acting that is often provided by Mike himself. This is how we see such disturbing tales as "Baby Fuck Dog Food" and "Grasshopper Boy," both of which revolve around child abuse. The former is the kind of sick joke that is so sick, the humor is lost. The latter is a viscerally distressing tale of mutilation and transformation. Aside from how the comic's make you feel, Henenlotter does a good job of conveying the homemade, punk rock energy that clearly drives Diana's work. This is further in the film through its rowdy soundtrack, the colorful scene transitions, and Jello Biafra providing much of the narration.

More than their shared interest in extreme interest and mutual history of being censored, I think something else attracted Frank Henenlotter to Mike Diana. In the course of the documentary, we discover that, as a young boy and before he started focusing on comics, Mike used to make Super-8 horror movies. We get several peeks at these home-made gore movies, where we see ten-year-old Mike Diana chop up his brother with a lawnmower or give his teenage sister a wire hanger abortion. (His siblings recall these home movies with bemused nostalgia.) The crude home-made gore and outrageous subject matter recalls Herschell Gordon Lewis and the other junk filmmakers Henenlotter admires. No wonder these two got along. 

Ultimately, "Boiled Angels" is a pretty interesting little documentary. It's still easy to feel pissed-off at the way the Florida courts railroaded Diana and the ridiculous conditions of his probation. (Which attempted to essentially keep him from making more art.) The rise of the internet might keep people from ever being offended by images like Mike's ever again but you can see the same moral outrage machinations in shit like PizzaGate and QAnon. Of course, the court case made Diana far more famous than he ever would've been otherwise, giving this story a happy ending. While I'm still not sure if I like Diana's comics - ya know, assuming "like" is even the right word - I'm pretty sure I like the man himself. [Grade: B]