Questions....

[lovelylove-85.livejournal.com]

Hello Everyone! I am new to both the shelter_diner community and live journal and just wanted to say hi! I have recently watched and become deeply obsessed with the movie Shelter and am so excited to find some people who seem to love it as much as I do!

 

 Really I could talk about it all day, but I wanted to start with a topic that has always made me wonder: What do you guys think, exactly, Shaun's first book was about? Based on Shaun and Zack's conversation in which Zack subtly lets Shaun know he knows he is gay (you all know what I'm talking about right?) I have always imagined it as a novel inspired by Shaun's growing up in the Laguna area, the drama that surrounded him and the people in his life, and being gay in an area and cultural scene where coming out of the closet could be more difficult.

 

This question leads me to my next topic of discussion: What do you think Shaun’s life was like when he was living in Laguna? Why does he apparently “hate it down here?” How closely do you think Shaun’s story of discovering who he truly was relates with Zack’s?

 

That’s all for now!

Comments

[justaotherwitch.livejournal.com]

Yay discussion! Welcome!

I have a similar idea about Shaun's book. Sort of The OC/Weeds/Desperate Housewives setting where everyone knows each other and judges anything that's not perfect and the book pulls everything apart and shows what everyone is hiding.

I hesitate to say too much on what I think Shaun's life is like because I actually have a whole outline of his life for a fic I've been trying to write for months. If I say it all here, I worry I won't have any more motivation to say in story-form. Generally, I think he felt trapped and like he couldn't be himself because of the type of community he was in. Everyone knows everyone's business and I imagine he had a lot of pressure from his mother and step-dad to fit the image they were trying to project.

As far as Shaun vs. Zach on coming out, I think Shaun probably realized that he was gay when he was in high school, and I think he accepted himself much easier than Zach did. However, Shaun was in high school in the early 90s which would have made things harder. I think he really came into his own in college.

[jasmine661.livejournal.com]

My impression of Shaun's hating Laguna came partly from it being a conservative area and him feeling like being gay wouldn't fit into the family image. He did move to LA/Hollywood, after all, which is more accepting of gay lifestyle.

[pjvilar.livejournal.com]

I agree with the other posters. The book seems to be called, or have something to do with 'Pacific Bluffs' and we learn from the CalArts voicemail Zach receives that Shaun's family's address is in Ocean Beach, so Pacific Bluffs seems to be a pseudonym for Ocean Beach. It's also possible their are some mystery/crime/adventure elements in the first book, just because it seems like the new book Shaun is working on has those elements, but certainly the two could be unrelated. I think it makes sense, too, that a first novel would be totally drawn from the author's own life, and then it might be hard to figure out what to write about next.

Welcome aboard!

[exeterlinden.livejournal.com]

Interesting topic!

I get the feeling that Shaun wasn't born into the Ocean Beach/Pacific Bluffs lifestyle, and that he doesn't care much for it. When you look at the character, he looks a lot different than Gabe in his clothing, hair style and attitude.
My feeling is that Shaun's probably much more of a free thinker, partly because of his sexuality that must have made him think much more about alternatives to the lifestyle he was raised, but also because he's a writer and made the decision to move to L.A.
So, yeah, like justaotherwitch said: a Desperate Housewifes kind of thing, picking apart and critisizing his stepdad's lifestyle. And the conversation between them makes me think that there's a crime plot of some sort, for some reason, but I can recall why, right now :)