Toronto’s finest son, Bruce LaBruce published ‘JDs’, an influential queer punk fanzine, before embarking on a career as a film director. LaBruce produced some of the smartest and funniest queer arthouse films of recent years, including ‘Hustler White’, ‘No Skin Off My Ass’ and ‘Super 8½’. Last year he directed two versions of a film – art and porno – about a group of gay nazis.

Did you make ‘Skin Flick’ as an art film and a porn film because you can get away with more if you work in these genres? Do you ever dream of going mainstream?
‘Skin Flick’ (softcore) and ‘Skin Gang’ (hardcore) were designed specifically to blur the line between art and pornography. The softcore version was made to play in countries like England and Japan that don`t allow extreme sexual imagery, and also to play at film festivals. The hardcore version was packaged and marketed as a regular adult movie, and also played in some of the more adventurous art galleries.

You can definitely get away with more in the art and porn worlds than you can in the "legitimate" film industry, which has only lately been going in a more extreme direction as far as sexual representation goes, particularly in France. I work in porn because to me it seems like the last bastion of gay radicalism, and it’s still a huge undiscovered territory. I don`t dream of going mainstream, although I suppose it’s almost inevitable that it will some day happen, like death.

What`s become of Homocore?
Homocore. It sounds so dated now. Just another phase like the hoola-hoop, I suppose. Homocore was one of the many "-cores" which splintered off from "hardcore", itself an offshoot of punk. When I started out forging my career as a homosexual in the early eighties, I found the gay scene already to be stagnant and boring, both aesthetically and politically. It just didn`t have the revolutionary impetus of its early roots. So I turned to punk, which seemed really rebellious and fresh and stimulating and politically radical. The early roots of punk were also sexually rebellious, experimenting with androgyny, promiscuity, bisexuality and homosexuality.

Unfortunately, by the mid-eighties, a certain sexual conservatism had seeped into the scene as punk already started to burn itself out. (As early as 1983, ‘MaximumRocknRoll’, the punk bible of America, asked on its cover, "Is Punk Dead?") Hardcore, which was characterised by faster, more aggressive music and the violent mosh pit, had taken over, and with it a more macho stance. This was good for sexual fetishising, but ushered in a less tolerant attitude toward homosexuality. I was starting to get beat up at hardcore shows for showing gay-themed movies and for dressing like a faggoty fag.

Homocore and its fanzines and bands were a response to the ineffectual, assimilationist direction of the gay movement, and to the homophobia of hardcore. But by the late eighties the mainstream started to co-opt punk, both in music and style, and it lost its subversive edge. Grunge effectively killed punk, and the death of Kurt Cobain finally sealed its fate. Boo hoo.

Do you enjoy being a bad boy? Who are you trying to impress? And who are you dissing?
I`m hardly a boy anymore, Madame, and bad is a relative term. Bruce LaBruce was a fictional construct propped up as the face of homocore, but when homocore died, Bruce had to become a real "boy", just like Pinnochio. I guess I`m still bad, but that`s because the world is such a drag right now that it`s the only way to have any fun. I`m not trying to impress anybody, and I`m trying to dis everybody.

What are you currently working on?
I`ve pretty much retired, but I do have a major photo exhibit coming up in Toronto in September.

`Foursome: The Bruce LaBruce Collection` includes `No Skin Off My Ass`, `Super 8½`, `Hustler White`, and `Skin Flick`