As the foppish, sexually ambiguous, brilliant singer/songwriter of the 80s music legend The Smiths, Morrissey brought intelligence, wit and mystery to pop tunes still unmatched in their ability to make grown men cry. In this intimate documentary, filmmaker William E. Jones interviews a new, but equally fanatical, fan base of The Smiths and Morrissey: Latino youths in East Los Angeles. Making the connection between The Smiths' working-class, Manchester-raised, ethnic Irish experience and that of the sons and daughters of Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles, Is It Really So Strange? is the first documentary that allows the fans themselves to speak at length about their lives, their loves and their brief encounters with their idol. Interviews with members of tribute band The Sweet and Tender Hooligans reveal even more about Morrissey's enduring appeal among the pompadoured denizens of the Inland Empire who, as one fan puts it, relate to Morrissey because "he always sounds sad and depressed and lonely - all the good stuff."

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• IFP Gotham Award Nominee
  
  "...provides a welcome alternative to the Behind the Music approach, spotlighting first-person narrative and heart-breaking, tender interviews with fans. The film shows how fan culture may unexpectedly bridge the lines of race, age, sexual orientation, and geography, and will be of interest for courses in cultural studies, gender and sexuality, ethnic studies, and performance studies."
        -Homay King, Assistant Professor of Film Studies, Bryn Mawr College
  
  "...an intriguing portrait of one of music's more fascinating subcultures."
        -Mojo4Music
  
  "Jones is an artist of rare sensibility whose slender filmography belies an immense talent...The film's interview subjects are its genius... the film's pertinence lies in its expansive civic ethos. Jones is alert to the manifold ways that Chicanos, Mexican migrants, and other Latino communities have infused benighted areas like Pomona and Riverside with a flowering of not just pop culture, but a vitally authentic, marvelously hybrid people's culture."
        -Ioannis Mookas, Gay City News
  
  "Is It Really So Strange? examines the performer-fan relationship between Morrissey from the rock band The Smiths, and Latino fans in East Los Angeles, the location of one of the biggest Morrissey fan bases...they identify with Morrissey, who was Irish and raised in England, because of their shared experience of being 'Mexican' and living in America. The fans also enjoy Morrissey's expression of a wide range of emotions through his music. Although the documentary focuses on the Latino fans in East Los Angeles, it still provides a fascinating look into the dynamics of performer-fan relationships. The video includes interviews with The Sweet and Tender Hooligans, a Smiths tribute/cover band, whose performances are compared to performances by Morrissey and the Smiths... I recommend this video for ages high school through adult, due to brief images of nudity on a Smiths album cover, and discussions of sexual orientation and sexual ambiguity."
        -Lauren Aldridge, Huddleston Bolen LLP Law Library, Huntington, WV, for Educational Media Reviews Online