In a quiet Orlando, Florida suburb, three young men struggle to escape the wreckage of their pasts and create new lives for themselves as performers on CollegeBoysLive.com, a voyeur webcam house rigged with 32 cameras. The neighbors insist it's a pornographic whorehouse and sue to have them evicted. This intimate and provocative documentary examines the complex subculture of gay exhibitionists and voyeurs.
Review
Are you an Internet voyeur? Have you ever checked out a webcam site – and perhaps become stationary at your computer for hours at a stretch? Here’s the inside scoop at "College Boys Live"--where the boys (18+) are on camera--24 hours a day. Given free lodging in exchange for being “on camera” all the time, these boys work to keep the paying customers happy. In an ordinary-looking home in Orlando, Florida, the cameras record all the drama, romance and of course...sex. You’ll meet the "house-mothers" Zac and Jonathan; the boys include troublemaker J.C., gorgeous Tim and newly-minted gay boy Chuck. The drama escalates when the neighbors freak out about the goings-on in the house. Will the righteous conservatives win and kick the business out? Or do the gay boys win? College Boys Live is an intimate visit with some adorable boys and the business that thrives off their beauty and exhibitionism.
This film features skinny, whiny, effeminate boys who think they have made it in the real world.
Seeing It Like It Is
Amos Lassen wrote on 01/14/2010:
“College Boys Live”
Seeing It Like It Is
Amos Lassen
Three young men in an Orlando, Florida suburb struggle to escape their pasts and build new lives for themselves. The live in their new home which is named collegeboyslive.com and here every move that they make is watched by thousands who pay to do so. The creator of the idea says that the reason for this is that he wants to show everyone that it is ok to be gay. Neighbors, on the other hand, insist that the house is a house of prostitution and they are suing to have the boys evicted.
The subject matter of the film suggests that we are going to see is cheap and salacious but in reality we get an honest picture of a group pf young gay men running a website with constant streaming pictures and we enter into their lives. We see a very clear picture of why some guys have chosen to be part of this project and what happens with it. We see bickering and fighting over boyfriends and money and there are drunken brawls and love spats and of course problems with the neighbors. This is a REAL reality show; we are like to watch other people’s lives.
What seemingly starts as a documentary about gay pornography quickly becomes anything but that. Zac and Jonathan have built up a business that is successful and we reap the benefits from it. The participants are observed everywhere and we have a bizarre experiment which becomes entertainment. The boys are expected to interact with the viewers—even while naked. George O’Donnell directed this documentary within a documentary about boys from broken homes who have come to the house to escape dysfunctional lives. There is a lot of drama here as JC, Tim and Charlie try to become a family. The movie is at times disturbing but it is also fascinating. It is not perfect—far from it but it does show us an aspect of gay life we may never otherwise have seen.
