How do you round up 40 years of gay rights milestones? In a campy music video, of course. From the Pride at 40 CD, a montage-rap of life since Stonewall.
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10 Comments
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mark Segal
Wow, our history to a disco beat
vernonvanderbilt
Absolutely wonderful, like a queered-up “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Loved the video as well. I just wish the singers were a little less mush-mouthed. I couldn’t understand a lot of the lyrics.
Alan
@vernonvanderbilt:
I totally agree!
Anthony in Nashville
Where can I get more info on that cd?
rogue dandelion
how adorable, like my lgbt history class in 5 minutes.
Tomas
I cannot deny this video’s educational component and innovation in creating a comprehensive multimedia articulation of Queer history. However, the video offended me. While watching the 5-and-a-half minute video, I counted no more than a handful of images of people of color, or representational suggestions that people of color contributed to LGBTQ rights and history. To provide a list of key players and events would be beyond the point. This is not an issue of being overly sensitive, or P.C. This video artistically writes out the presence of people of color from our collective Queer consciousness and written history. So the question that is thus raised is: Does Queer media narratives (make effort to) reflect the multicultural reality of our symbolic community? Certainly, this reflects the tensions within the community. What we have above is a white rainbow, absolved of the complex and rich history of Queerness in the U.S. As much as I would like to enjoy this clip as a danceable and informative tool, the blatant dismissal of diversity is too disconcerting.
Brianna
@Tomas:
Yeah…a white, male rainbow. There was some lesbian imagery sprinkled throughout, but it was underwhelming. Have lesbians really contributed that little to the gay rights movement? There’s some imagery of some women dancing and protesting, Daughters of Bilitis, Ellen, Etheridge, The L Word? Is that all?
Otherwise, it was great.
YeaYea
The video was silly.
Also only white people are gay with the exceptions of 2 tokens.
Jon Gilbert Leavitt
Thank you all for the comments and feedback. The GLBTQ community is everything and everywhere – black, white, brown, yellow, English speaking, Spanish speaking, Thai speaking, deaf…however it IS difficult to get it all into a 5 minute song/video about gay history. The truth of the matter is, the majority of people who spearheaded the gay rights movement and cause in the beginning through recent times were North American and mainly white. The song references the major timeline of events – and does mention women and people of color, however the video may not encapture them all.
(In order, the references of non-male and/or non-white include Harlem Nights [referencing Gladys Bentley, et. al.], The Well of Loneliness [Radcylffe Hall], Daughters of Bilitis, ‘Giovanni’s Room [James Baldwin], Lilith Fair, Mary Cheney, John Amaechi and our new president.)
For the pride parades footage at the end, none of them are from the US (Israel, Denmark, Canada, Thailand, Norway) and the pictures include an African-American and the rainbow hair of an Hispanic man- ok, you can’t see his face, but I took the picture myself.
It wasn’t an editing choice to make it seem overly white, it’s just the way the movement has been up until only the last twenty years or so; like the feminist movement, hippie movement and other ground breaking groups (in the US), many of the movers and shakers were white – and mostly middle- and upper class, since they were only fighting one struggle. African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians…were battling their own struggle against racism in a racist country (USA) to begin with.
I can guarantee, if there’s a “Pride 2019,” the faces will change and the diversity will be more apparent. And, if things go the way they seem, as decades pass, the image of bikini-clad go-go boys and drag queens as the image of what most straight society sees us as will change as well.
In any case, it’s an educational tool…to get more people to realize that Harry Hay, Gladys Bentley or James Baldwin mean more to the GLBTQ community as Madonna or Judy Garland. Without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
Thanks again and all the best in pride,
Jon
Tomas
That simply isn’t true, and should not be disseminated as any type of truth.
Bayard Rustin
Barbara Jordan
Audre Lorde
Sylvia Rivera
Marsha P. Johnson
Keith Boykin
Rupaul
Cherrie Moraga
Gloria Anzaldua
Archbisop Carl Bean
Nicole Murray-Ramirez
Coretta Scott King
Barbara Smith
Helen Zia
The Voguing Ball subculture
Alice Walker
The Blank Panthers (specifically Huey Newton)
The Lavendar Panthers
just off the top of my head…And there are so many more examples of the diverse activism within the Queer community (And for that matter,the Feminist movement!)