Agora (1992)

Overview

The video tape, Agora, focuses on the market place (as a microcosm of the larger society) seen through the eyes of a young, gay man suffering from both the neurosis described above, and the oppressive circumstances of small town life in the American Midwest. The tape opens with an idyllic representation of the Midwest and shifts into an expressive exploration of experiences within the narrow confines of a Midwestern moral code. The melodrama follows five main characters who find themselves together in a small motel; Crab, an agoraphobe, is employed as a clerk in the motel and lives at home with his family; Swallow, a recently escaped con and his lover, Jack; Katch, a woman dishonorably discharged from the military and her lover, Joy. The market place is a central focus for all the main charaters; as a place of potential employment, a site of crisis in representation, the public arena where the status quo is policed and, ultimately, a closed barrier whereby the "norm" is protected.