We gays make absolutely fascinating documentary subjects.
Thus, here’s a rundown of “ten gay documentaries everyone should see” – or face the queer consequences. The list includes fan favorites like For The Bible Tells Me So, Paris Is Burning and, yes, queer theory staple The Celluloid Closet.
While those are all well-and-good, we’ve decided to include a clip of Gay Sex In The 70s. Why? Because we’re lecherous!
CitizenGeek
I love lists – and that’s a very cool one! The Celluloid Closet is one at least once a year on RTE 2 (national broadcaster here in Ireland), but it’s always on at ridiculously late hours and I can never seem to stay awake long enough to see it which is a shame because it seems like such a great movie!
Qjersey
List is almost perfect….but I’d count Before Stonewall and After Stonewall as one and add “One Nation Under God” (1993).
From IMDB: Focusing on the contemporary religious Right Wing proliferation of curative therapies for homosexuality, this riveting documentary offers historical context as well as a political analysis of this frighteningly large movement. [includes interviews with the founders of Exodus International…who became the first “public” “ex-ex-gays.”]
hisurfer
I would love to see a Celluloid Closet II. The first was good, but it left out so much. I know guys who can point out all the secret jokes and meanings in pre- and post-Hayes Code movies (Clark Gable and Gene Raymond comparing the size of their “guns” in Red Dust comes to mind, as does the houseboy modeling Jean Harlow’s undies in the same flic).
I had hoped that Celluloid Closet would have more scenes like these – and so I am patiently waiting for a sequel …
Paul Raposo
There was a doc made years ago about a teen lesbian, who I believe wanted to start a GSA at her school and her fight to do so. It was interposed with snippets from an eighteenth century journal belonging to a Pilgrim minister who wrote about his homosexuality and his wish that God would fix it. Any ideas on the title? And I thought Paris Is Burning was a brillaint film. I first saw it in my late teens as I was just starting to figure things out and it really opened my eyes.
AE
Speaking of _For the Bible Tells Me So_… one of the guys profiled in the movie, Jacob Reitan, is making news this week. He and a group of Harvard students tried to enlist in the military, despite their open homosexuality.
I wrote about it here:
aftereleanor.blogspot.com
fri
i’ve heard about a really interesting documentary called “flag wars” about tension between upper class white gay folk gentrifying a lower class black neighborhood. does anyone know if there’s a copy of it online?
Paul Raposo
Found it!
“Out of the Past”
n 1995, Kelli Peterson started a gay and straight club at her Salt Lake City high school. The story of her ensuing battle with school authorities in interspersed with looks back at the diary of Michael Wigglesworth, a 17th-century Puritan cleric, at the 30-year love affair of Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Adams Fields, at Henry Gerber’s attempt after World War I to establish a gay-rights organization, at Bayard Rustin’s role in the civil rights movement, and at Barbara Gittings’ taking on of the American Psychiatric Association’s position that homosexuality is illness. One person comments, “To create a place for ourselves in the present, we have to find ourselves in the past.”
From searching IMDB, I’ve learned that there have been a lot of really excellent docs made about our lives.
Bitch Republic
I thought “For The Bible Tells Me So” was actually a very poorly made film and was very disappointed when I saw it at Sundance. It was just preaching to the choir.
The people who made it obviously didn’t understand the Christians viewpoint. I’m not saying Christians are right at all, but if the filmmakers themselves or if someone they had hired to work on the film with them had a Christian background, the film could have been much more effective.
They have arguments in the film against fundamentalist Christian views on homosexuality but their arguments fall flat because they don’t understand where the Christians are coming from and why they believe as they do. So, the arguments in the film against their viewpoints wouldn’t be even remotely convincing to a conservative Christian. Many points in the film seem like they’re trying to convince Christians that they are wrong about homosexuality, but they don’t even begin to understand how to go about doing that.
There are better arguments against the anti-gay views of Christians that could be made to Christians that would be more convincing. I’m not saying this would convince all Christians, because many of them are obstinate and don’t really think logically, but some of them do and could be swayed with better arguments. None of the arguments made in the film would sway even the most open-minded of Christians. I was very disappointed by this.
Afroguapo
FRI, you can watch an excerpt of Flag Wars here:
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2003/flagwars/
Flag Wars was a great documentary. Vitto Russo’s Celluloid Closet was superb as well as Gay Sex in the 70s and the one about Larry Levan/Garage House music (Maestro??). Being in my thirties, it was interesting to see how life was back then in the 70s and 80s when I was too young to witness and participate in gay life. Keep your DVRs set to Sundance this June as they will be showing some gay oriented programming for Pride. Cheers Afro