Brontez Purnell on his brilliant new film 100 Boyfriends Mixtape, a gay sitcom featuring hardcore sex – a porn movie featuring hilariously distracting dialogue.

I’ve been a fan of Brontez Purnell for a long time. He’s an artist, musician, writer, choreographer, and has just finished his first full-length movie, 100 Boyfriends Mixtape, produced with Naked Sword. The movie features my favorite elements of Brontez’s work: punk rock, nihilistic romance, his rapier wit and breathtakingly poignant one-liners. As a longtime fanboy, it’s thrilling for me to see the various threads of his practice come together in such a naturally awesome way. It’s serious, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously. One of the points Brontez has always made, in his memoirs, fiction, dance-making, everything, is that the complexity and fallibility of people isn’t just okay to talk about – it’s kind of hot too. 100 Boyfriends Mixtape celebrates the awkward, ridiculous and totally real, everyday and hilariously quotidian ways we fuck.

I had a chance to talk to him about his movie, his thoughts on porn and film, and how being a filmmaker fits into the rest of his body of work.

Hi Brontez! I’m curious to hear your feelings about porn – as entertainment, as art – because 100 Boyfriends Mixtape is certainly sexy, but it's not just a porn movie.

In general I HATE porn, like fucking HAAAAAAAATE it, seriously. I think it unapologetically showcases like the worst parts of human beings in terms of how we consume our general desires. It’s super racist, it’s body fascist, and it’s so funny to me how fucking much there is of it. And the nature of what mainstream porn is these days, y'know?

Like how when I was a kid watching porn – my parents kept the porn in with the cartoons, imagine that! – it was still like you had to sneak the VHS tape in while your parents were sleeping, and even though 1970s and 1980s porn was fucked, it still had storylines. These days, kids have access to the craziest gonzo shit you can imagine, and it’s all at the touch of the button. I can’t tell if it’s gonna make society crazier or if they’re just gonna burn themselves out on it, y'know? 

That said, when I was making 100 Boyfriends Mixtape in my head, I wanted to make a web series but Naked Sword was the only site that would take a chance on it. I love their new indie film division, Naked Sword Film Works, and Jack Shamama is just so rad and out of his goddamn mind as a producer who will take a chance on out-of-the-box things. So I basically was like, “Well, I guess I’ll put some sex in it and get it funded.” Which I’m glad I did, cause on the flip side of it, I couldn't stomach the idea of, like, making another regular gay sitcom that would just run the gambit of shorts programs at festivals. I like the way hardcore sex obscured the whole thing and turned it into a curiosity of sorts. Y'know?

So much of your work in music and writing involves humor, but the comedy in the movie is almost all based on interactions and dialogue. How did you feel about writing for other characters onscreen?

It’s something I’m still getting used too. Like in 100 Boyfriends Mixtape, I feel like I’m always writing my shit, but then have to counteract it with the dialogue for the “straight man” (pardon the term). Writing the “straight guy” parts always makes me nervous or is, like, so foreign to me, because all my friends are like hilarious, sarcastic bitches. I don’t really know what a person like that really says or how much life to give them or how much to hold them back, y'know?

Do you have a favorite line from the movie?

Not really. But I think it’s funny how most fags gag more at the line about how much my character DeShawn owes in back rent to his boyfriend than to the fisting scene.

I'm curious if making the film has influenced or changed the way you approach filming your dance work.

Naw. I mean my dance work deals so much with pedestrian movement and representation anyway, and it’s so fucking close to acting that they have that much in common, but really, at the end of the day, I just think they're different sides of different coins. I do like focusing more on how the passage of time works in films and have been dealing in that more.

Another cool thing about being an auteur is the role of the viewer versus a live audience or a reader. Have you been to screenings of the film? What do you imagine people do while they're watching it? Do you care?

My goal when I was making this was to have people think in their head: “How the fuck did this ever get made?!” Which I think I’m succeeding at, but I’m mostly just stoked when people laugh.

You're such a good actor, Brontez! I mean, I know you're charming, and I know you're a natural performer and musician and dancer. Do you do much other film work? Theater? What would your dream role be? 

I have always wanted to be Caz in the Bruce LaBruce remake of Young Soul Rebels. ITS MY ONLY DREAM ROLE.  

What are you writing right now? What are you reading? 

I just finished my second novella (FUCKING F-I-N-A-L-L-Y), called Since I Laid My Burden Down and I just started on a new novella, 100 Boyfriends – though it bears no relation to the movie. I’m reading A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin and Black Hole by Bucky Sinister. 

What are your favorite mixtape stunts, like the song(s) you put on a mixtape that you know will impress the person and make them fall in love with you?  

Honestly, I've never been that good at mixtapes! The movie is called 100 Boyfriends Mixtape because of the concepts around the production of it and how the story was executed. It’s, like, both abstract and literal. 

What kind of music is your most and least favorite to have sex to? 

I only have sex to ESG's A South Bronx Story, though I lost my virginity to The Creamers’ song “Love, Honor, and Obey”.

You can see 100 Boyfriends Mixtape now on NakedSword.