I think it was really refreshing for the movie picked to be about an openly gay Cuban man. A, I think there is not a lot of portrayal of the LGBTQ community in movies, especially starring a gay Hispanic man. I am glad us scholars could really see a movie about someone who was harmed in Cuba during the 1940s.
Arenas was an outstanding poet and everyone knew it, especially his teachers. He wanted to be part of the revolution for Castro but found himself in a tyrant community and used his amazing writing skills to criticize the government. He was then hounded by officials because he was gay and a critic but told the public it was because he had molested some girls. Arenas died from AIDs far away from Cuba and I found that really sad. He must have felt so good to leave the place that tortured him for being who he was but also sad that his birthing place did not want him. It pains me that so many places are like that, in where the government is allowed to torture and imprison for sexual preference. I hope this movie has really changed the way people treat others because Arenas did not deserve the treatment he received from his country.
Like you said, I cannot begin to imagine the torment Arenas must have went through. I cannot imagine how through everything, he still managed to keep his passion for poetry and writing. A lesser man absolutely would have given up in the face of all the trauma he had to go through, and I think that makes his writing all the more powerful.