by Abhi Parasher
“Social media will be more prevalent in the teenage film genre. It has to be, or the film becomes a period piece, and the target audience becomes an older demographic versus being relevant to the younger generation,” says director Jason Karman, who uses social media as a character, often as an antagonist, in his feature debut Golden Delicious.
“I have seen social media used as a device for horror films and as an aesthetic to communicate how fragmented our world can be,” he continues. “How social media connects, amplifies and alienates us, helps me understand how we relate. Social media teaches us how to access opportunities while remaining relevant today; it can bring out the best in us and remind us how cruel human beings can be.”
In an accurate representation of social media in the present day, the film uses a fictional media platform, RoboGram, to allow the characters in the world to put up a mask. However, Jake (Cardi Wong) finds that the particular cruelness with which the platform can be used, pushes him to discover and reveal his own identity.
“Jake is a second-generation immigrant, so some of the tropes commonly found in the immigrant experience, such as language barrier or learning to fit into a new country, do not apply to him,” says Karman about the English language Canadian drama.
“Writer Gorrman Lee [left] grew up in East Vancouver and set Jake’s story in a multicultural environment reflecting his upbringing,” adds Karman. “Jake’s struggles were not with his racial identity as a result. Jake still has family and relationship issues, common for teenagers as they rebel against their parents. However, Jake’s growing same-sex attraction makes him feel different, and he has to wrestle with how to hide or announce his growing same-sex attraction while living in the digital age. Social media today creates pressure for us not to fail, which can be anxiety-inducing for many young minds. We want to be happy, but when regularly overwhelmed with messaging, it isn’t easy.”
As a teenage romance film, Golden Delicious delivers on the promises of the genre, but Karman and writer Gorrman Lee also allow us to root for more than just the final kiss. By the end, we want Jake to reveal his true identity to the world; the final kiss becomes more of an added bonus.
Karman talks to the importance of this, saying “You need to know yourself before you find ‘the one’.” If you don’t, you may “potentially pass on ‘the one’.
“As a storyteller, I am strongly influenced by my formative years with family and contemporary queer adult life,” Karman continues.
“I like to tell stories that create space for people to share topics that are often difficult to discuss. Cinema helps contribute to positive change by making people empathise with a situation. It’s cathartic and therapeutic. We respond to beautiful imagery in unexpected ways. If you can master the cinematic craft, then you have the power to contribute to a better world by making people care.”
Karman says that he is now working on a couple of feature length projects. One, called Speed of Life, the story about “a young mechanic who dreams of attending restoration school for automobiles but must convince her twin sister and their baby to come along for the ride. I am tackling motherhood and muscle cars.”
