So Sam commits suicide in Bishonen. Jack dies mysteriously in Brokeback Mountain, leaving Ennis heart-broken, alone and sniffing a shirt in his closet that itself should have been used as a mothball 4 years ago. Shane tells Jonathan that he is really his best friend at the end of Eternal Summer after doing the funky monkey with him. Gia dies of AIDS in… Gia, after going to rehab more often than Amy Winehouse and Kate Moss put together.

Wait, that’s new, a lesbian who died of AIDS, instead of the countless other movies and plays where a gay man does.

Since the invention of the projector, most gay characters on screen have had nothing but misery. If the gay character has any real plot to them at all, they usually end up unhappy and alone, or they die.

Until Desert Hearts, every lesbian on screen was in a threesome, absolutely psycho or died somehow. And every other play or movie in the 80s had gay characters dying of AIDS, as said earlier, case in point being A Home at the End of the World.

With the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF) coming up, my point's just furthered. In Shelter, a lesbian couple take in an illegal immigrant from Morocco, who ends up destroying their happy life.

We need happy endings. Not just so that I can take my partner to a gay feel-good date movie (if such a thing exists), but because it gives both us, and straight people a bad impression. I know gay and lesbian teenagers commit suicide, I do not really need to watch Lost and Delirious to know that.

Yet perhaps it might be a little hasty to condemn all gay productions for being tragic. Asian Boys Vol III: Happy Endings carries a message of hope, despite its somewhat downbeat second act.

Besides that, sometimes the point of these films aren't necessarily to be tragic. There are other elements that make up a film, besides plot. Cinematography, mood, characters are some of these elements, to name a few.

This is especially the case with short films, where sometimes the point is to capture a certain mood, or emotion. In the case of Lucky 7, despite the moody tone in some works, it's obvious that this was an experiment to showcase styles, more so than 7 separate actual plots. In fact, Boo Junfeng expressed that this film was a project that successfully bound the film community together, in order to overcome the logistical barriers of film making.

Above all, it might be due to the nature of issues related to homosexuality. Boo Junfeng, acclaimed filmmaker of Katong Fugue, Keluar Baris, and his upcoming short film Tanjong Rhu, expressed this sentiment, saying that the romanticizing of topics such as coming out, dealing with one's parents, and other uniquely gay issues tend to be very lonely, very isolationist, and as a result, are expressed in melancholic ways.

His upcoming short film, Tanjong Rhu, is one such example. Set against the backdrop of the Fort Road arrests, Tanjong Rhu tells the story of a potential relationship that was abruptly denied. Junfeng's films focus on the recreation of an emotion, and with the mixture of survivor guilt, hope, and regret that comes with such a situation, it's no wonder that gay films have a tendency to melancholy.

It could be true – happy endings are seen as unrealistic and without artistic value, because life is rarely ever a they-lived-happily-ever-after thing. Yet surely there are joyful issues that are part of gay life? These issues need to be explored. They give us hope, a brief time-period in which we know that life can possibly be better. And I know it can be better, because we know there are people in real life who are living happily, either alone or with their partners.

When Imagine You and Me came out, it was heavily criticised on the basis that it had the shallowest of plots (really, you fell in love with the florist of your wedding?). But how different is it from The Wedding Planner? Romantic comedies are standard fare – no one thinks it is realistic, no one gives excessively bad reviews just because it is all happy and shiny.

What about Another Gay Movie? Stupid, shallow, light-hearted, but I would willingly fork out 10 bucks to watch four cute boys try to deflower themselves – and still live.

Don't get me wrong – I'm not much of a watcher of shallow flicks, and much prefer Babel to Maid in Manhattan. But I do not think it is impossible to reconcile a happy ending with a good film. Fire did it with great effect, so did Gray Matters. The newly-released Shelter (not to be confused with the lesbian movie appearing in SIFF) is a fairly happy non-cliched, non-AIDS-or-death-or-drugs-or-cruising-related love story about two men falling in love. Which, in itself, makes it the Holy Grail, or the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (pun intended).

It is also possible that there is a commercial motive behind the unhappy endings, something that was mentioned in the final season of The L Word, where the producer of a gay movie was told she needed to change the ending for it to appeal to the mainstream audience. A happy ending, a gay ending, would possibly alienate the majority straight audience.

This might have merit. Brokeback Mountain probably would not have “crossed over”, had Jack and Ennis bought a ranch in Wyoming and raised cattle together. An unhappy ending allows the (usually straight male) viewer to feel non-threatened, maybe feel sorry, but ultimately reaffirm his world-view that it is better to be straight and that being gay sucks.

Can’t we have both? Why is the proportion tilted so much towards the side of depression and unhappiness? I want more Saving Face, more Formula 17, more But I’m A Cheerleader, more Shelter. I want more movies which do not show the typical stereotypes – and reinforce that in the minds of the straight audience.

So… Sam? You don’t need to commit suicide just because your father found out you were gay. Moving out is a way better option.

Author's bio: Indu is a bisexual Indian girl who is also a full-time law student and a part-time activist, a geek masquerading as a fashionista, a full-blown [no pun intended] fag hag, and entertainment-whore. She can also be found on Sayoni.