To note that Roland Emmerich’s Stonewall, a heavily-fictionalized (i.e., factually dubious) retelling of the events that took place leading up to the historic queer-led Christopher Street protests in 1969, has been met with controversy would be an understatement as riotous as the events depicted in the film. By now, you likely already know the film’s sad path to theatrical release. The trailer dropped in early August to much dismay over its focus on a fictitious white, blond twink savior protagonist (Jeremy Irvine), rather than any of the real-life heroes who were there during the watershed moment. There were threats of protests and boycotts, particularly from notable trans activists outraged that the contributions of trans pioneers and people of color had been downplayed, or as the media described it, “whitewashed.” The filmmakers (Emmerich and screenwriter Jon Robin Baitz) and cast (Irvine), sensing a disaster worthy of Emmerich’s oeuvre, stepped up to attempt damage control, suggesting people wait until they saw the entire film to form their opinions.
That’s when the real problems fun began. As soon as the film was screened for critics and folks in the media during the past weeks, word quickly spread about unintentional laughter from the audience during the film’s pivotal dramatic moments. Early reviews began to trickle in and, as Emmerich instructed, critics offered their informed opinions. Most agreed that Emmerich and company not only neglected to create a politically correct or historically accurate account of the riots, but their film epically failed as entertainment. Stonewall currently has a 7% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Earlier this week, Emmerich delivered what is likely the final blow to potentially friendly queer audiences when he stated during an interview with BuzzFeed, “You have to understand one thing: I didn’t make this movie only for gay people, I made it also for straight people. I kind of found out, in the testing process, that actually, for straight people, [Danny] is a very easy in. Danny’s very straight-acting. He gets mistreated because of that. [Straight audiences] can feel for him.”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Aw, Roland, how gentlemanly of you to rewrite our history as a concession to hetero audiences and to make their comfort your priority. Now it’s our turn to respond in kind and avoid your stink bomb, which should work no hardship on anyone.
Scroll down for a smattering of reviews from writers around the nation who lob critical bricks at the catastrophe Emmerich has unleashed upon movie audiences.
In a piece aptly titled “There Aren’t Enough Bricks in the World to Throw at Roland Emmerich’s Appalling Stonewall,” Gawker’s Rich Juzwiak offers:
Rather than choose something debatable, the filmmakers created something definitively untrue. Rather than exploring the conflicting stories of what sparked the riot (was it Marsha P. Johnson’s shot glass, a high heel, a brick, or what?), which could have made for a fascinating formal exercise, they just credited the white guy. Rather than really examine Stonewall, a place obviously brimming with unheard stories of extreme living, Emmerich and company decided to center their narrative on a dude who drops by the bar a few times while floating through the city (only to settle uptown at Columbia when the summer ends). Imagine, just one time, an ensemble led by a character who isn’t white and “straight-acting.” Imagine people of color being used for more than just support.
Like many critics, IndieWire’s Charles Bramesco lays most of the blame on Baitz’s screenplay:
The thick blanket of badness that covers the entirety of the film doesn’t do its problematic subtextual politics any favors, either. At the very least, Emmerich can hold his head high in the knowledge that he wasn’t responsible for the astonishingly thick script — that distinction belongs to Jon Robin Baitz, the pen behind such stirring moments as one during the climactic riot, in which our hero raises his fist to the heavens and screams “GAY POWER!” Come to think of it, that’s really what most of the film feels like: a fist shoved in a face and words howled into ears. The insulting obviousness with which characters make declarations about the Change That Must Come and the Injustice That Has Been Suffered For Too Long strip the film of any potential for resonant poignance with its intended audience. Emmerich’s freedom fighters speak not like human beings, but political mouthpieces designed to express the simplest ideas for the simplest-minded audiences.
MetroWeekly‘s Randy Shulman shared his outrage:
Stonewall is a defamation not just to our community, but to moviegoers of all genders, sexualities, race, creed, you have it. A vanity project of astonishingly huge proportions, it’s the deeply misguided work of a white, gay, obscenely privileged man thumping his chest and proclaiming, “This is how I see our history.”
Vanity Fair‘s Richard Lawson took the shoddy screenplay to task:
Stonewall is, plain and simple, a terribly made movie, with an alarmingly clunky script by acclaimed playwright Jon Robin Baitz (“I’m too angry to love anyone right now” is one howler—of course delivered by Danny to poor, still pining Ray) and a production design that makes late 1960s Christopher Street look like Sesame Street.
Alonso Duralde from The Wrap added:
Stonewall somehow manages to be simultaneously bloated and anemic, overstuffed and underpopulated. It’s a story about a true historical event that spends way too much time on its fictional lead character; the tone is so erratic and artificial that it wouldn’t feel surprising if the movie suddenly became a musical. And as the film gets duller and duller, you find yourself wishing these characters would break into song, just for variety’s sake.
Comic Guy Brannan reviewed the film on his blog:
As Roland Emmerich, the director of The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day, takes on the challenge of representing the transformative moment in queer civil rights, the one task he is tireless in attending to is making sure we all know where our hero’s suitcase is. At a key perilous moment in the film, when our hero has just been kidnapped and all of the West Village is in turmoil, the camera slowly pans over to Danny’s beloved suitcase so we can see it rescued by a man title cards will later inform us is a real life civil rights hero. Successfully tracking that luggage is the film’s only success.
Michael Wilmington took aim in his review for Chicago Tribune:
Somehow, director Roland Emmerich has made a movie even less historically accurate than 10,000 BC, the one depicting Egyptian-style pyramids being constructed with the help of woolly mammoths.
New York Post‘s Lou Lumenick lamented the misfire:
Roland Emmerich’s seriously misjudged Stonewall turns the transgender drag queens who helped change America into dress extras in what’s basically a Big Apple retelling of The Wizard of Oz revolving around a Caucasian gay man’s coming of age. … Emmerich — a hugely successful director of disaster movies who happens to be gay — deserves credit for trying to call attention to the plight of gay homeless youth in this self-financed, if seriously flawed, labor of love. But with thinly drawn characters, uneven performances and tin-eared dialogue, Stonewall plays at best like a musical without the songs.
As BuzzFeed’s Alison Willmore succinctly put it:
Feels like a musical with all the songs stripped out so what’s left are broad archetypes who keep ending up in tableaux.
In an essay for PBS’ Art Beat column, Mark Segal, who was actually at the 1969 riots, offered perhaps the most-telling criticism of all:
The most disturbing historical liberty, one brought up again and again in the film, is that Judy Garland’s death had something to do with the riots. That is downright insulting to us as a community, as inaccurate as it gets and trivializes the oppression we were fighting against. (Full disclosure that I had reached out to the film’s producers earlier in the process, offering to give them my account of what happened at Stonewall. They did not take me up on it. But it is clear that they must not have taken anybody else up on this offer, either.)
So if you’re going to avoid seeing Stonewall this weekend, you can do so with a clear conscience. You won’t just be striking back for the real-life queer pioneers who came before you, you’ll also be avoiding the year’s biggest turkey.
Keith Ryli McDonald
Sad to see nearly everyone completely missed the point.
Nathaniel McManus
I mean really, it’s a film about men wanting to suck dick for a few bucks and getting pissed off about it when they can’t.
Tobi
I’m surprised anyone’s surprised, given Hollywood’s history of rewriting history, Amistad, Amadeus, Elizabeth, Last Samurai, U-571, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
R Leroy Bradshaw
Saw it last night – just another Emmerich disaster pic
Raymond Tassignon
“I kind of found out, in the testing process, that actually, for straight people, [Danny] is a very easy in. Dannyâ??s very straight-acting. He gets mistreated because of that. [Straight audiences] can feel for him.” … My God, is this 2015 ?
Xzamilio
Sooooooooo… why was Stonewall being promoted on Queerty at length??
I’m right there with you, Queerty… got bills to pay, too. Ain’t mad atcha… flip flopping asses lol!!!
Cagnazzo82
Yet another abysmal ‘gay’ movie means par for the course for the gay film industry in general.
Perhaps the fact that so many gay movies fail might have something to do with the fact that it’s constantly approached from such a narrow lens. Just a thought.
Also Roland Emmerich is full of #2 when he states he picked Jeremy for straight audiences. He picked him for his own titillation. Let’s just be blunt and honest.
Giancarlo85
Hollywood is well known for historical revisionism in order to make the movie more suitable for the public. They get basic facts wrong all the time. It’ll be another disastrous film from a mediocre director.
Demetrius Greene
It’s funny how he talks about putting himself in his movies but ALL his other movies have 0 gay characters. It’s all bullshit
jwtraveler
@Raymond Tassignon: So what you’re saying is that this is a Hollywood film made to appeal to a mass (i.e., straight, white) audience. Big surprise!
Arnold Stollar
Dum?
Victor Barry
How about waiting until you’ve watched the movie?
Captain Obvious
Called it: Out with a whimper like I said. If they didn’t have the “controversy” even less people would’ve seen it.
Maybe these folks should try writing movies with characters who happen to be gay in lead roles rather than trying to make anymore movies surrounding nothing more than our sexuality as if it’s the entirety of who we are. “Gay movies” fall flat because being gay is not a personality, it’s not emotion, it’s not who you are.
Tired of it.
pjm1
First, i will be going to see the movie in the next week or two
(after the weekend rush).
Second, what is REALLY interesting (at least to me) is the pros at rotten
tomatoes are at 10% favorable at the moment. ON THE OTHER HAND, the
audience, after about 2,400 votes is at a 98% favorable. That has got to be
among the biggest disconnects between audience and pros. 98% from the audience
is pretty rare on tomatoes — lets see how that holds up.
Arcamenel
Yaaassss drag ha!
mujerado
Interestingly enough, what the movie and the response to it so far, informed or not, has demonstrated is that “straight acting” gay men are subject just as much to “gay community” disdain as any other. Of course, the current lingo is “cis gay men.” The sad thing is that an event which involved all aspects of the gay community at the time, queens, people of color, transgender, and homeless white street kids, is now fodder for internecine conflict and namecalling. Each faction wants “credit” for “starting” the riots. We don’t honor our own history; why should anyone else?
Sansacro
Looks like a bad movie but I will support it. Unlike this site and others who seem to revel in criticism, I like to support gay artists and work of all strips. Further, anything touted as not “politically correct” gets my vote. Sick of that sh&(t.
Xzamilio
@Sansacro: Good for you… you’re gonna go broke throwing your hat in the ring for every piece of gay cinema that comes out. Hell, the porn must have you strapped as it is, what with you supporting “gay artists and work of all strips”. What kind of strips? Partial nudity or full on frank and beans flapping in the face??
QJ201
Well he made a movie to appeal to straights. We still have the 95 version.
The silver lining is this:
Straight person to random gay person: “Saw the Stonewall Movie”
Random gay person: “Okay, let me tell you what really went down. First the black drag queen threw the first damn brick and the riots lasted for FOUR nights”
Arcamenel
@mujerado: How is the take away from all this that straight acting gay men are the subject of disdain?!! Also being a cis gay man is not synonymous with being “straight-acting”.
Kieran
C’mon people, it’s a HOLLYWOOD movie. That means you should EXPECT it to be a heavily-fictionalized and factually dubious retelling of an event.
enfilmigult
The Vanity Fair piece is BRUTAL, and extremely thorough. I really had no idea it would be this awful but oh boy, is it ever.
Conner Nickerson
@mujerado: What a deliciously worded comment! If your insightful message was converted into food, Dr. Oz would peddle it as the next “miracle” cure for cancer on his show. Seriously, though, the article itself is suspect in that it cites as a negative aspect of the film it not being “politically correct.” I don’t give two shits about political correctness, only factual correctness. Unfortunately most gay media outlets are controlled by a series of cult-like cabals of “journalists” who regard any whiff of dissent as “lack of inclusiveness” and discrimination.” It’s disgusting.
Ogre Magi
There was already a Stonewall movie that was pretty good
Billy Budd
I won’t watch it. No.
FnameLname
@Tobi: @Ogre Magi: Are you referring to the one made in the 90’s?
Finrod
“a production design that makes late 1960s Christopher Street look like Sesame Street”
When I first saw the stills, I thought that they had found the West Side Story sets gathering dust in a closet somewhere. It looks horribly fake.
blackberry finn
>>>>The most disturbing historical liberty, one brought up again and again in the film, is that Judy Garland’s death had something to do with the riots. That is downright insulting to us as a community.
I don’t think that interpretation has been ruled out entirely. The 1995 film also addresses that as a possible connection. It’s hardly “a disturbing historical liberty”.
Also, if straights are the intended audience, then maybe the film should also be evaluated from that angle. Do straight people like the movie?
thomas prentice
There IS an EARLIER 1995 film called Stonewall (Strand Releasing) directed by Nigel Finch, (based on Martin Duberman’s book), which, AMAZINGLY, told the story of a white guy, Matty Dean, arriving in New York City’s Greenwich Village in 1969, checking in at the YMCA, seeking sexual liberation, checking in at the YMCA, and then finding said LIBERATION, ***not*** “PRIDE” … at the Stonewall Inn just in time to get arrested in a raid. In the following nights, he joins in the fight back against the massive police raid. Copycat alert
PLUS SEE THIS UK GUARDIAN story: “Gay rights activists give their verdict on Stonewall: ‘This film is no credit to the history it purports to portray’ … Roland Emmerich’s film about the 1969 riots has been labelled an offensive whitewash by many critics and campaigners. So what do some of those who were actually there at the time make of it?”
But boycotting the new film is silly. Watch both, compare and contrast as your English teach might have said. Then if you are white, do something REAL to make #BlackTinoLivesMatter. Like stop the white thing of automatically finding any police accounts credible at all. Critical thinking.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/25/stonewall-film-gay-rights-activists-give-their-verdict
Brycedavid
‘Like stop the white thing of automatically finding any police accounts credible at all. Critical thinking.’
Critical thinking? Aha, good one.
If you read all the articles published at the time about the riots, race is never mentioned once. And we’re talking about something which happened in 1969, when race riots made headline news around the world. It would have been easy for reporters back then to dismiss the riots this way but no they didn’t. Why? Because the majority of the protesters were white. Yes, white gay men. Gasp. All these reviewers are basically aping every Tumblr revisionist version of Stonewall.
jwtraveler
@QJ201: One thing I’ve learned from reading several weeks of stories and hundreds of comments about “Stonewall” is that NOBODY knows what REALLY happened at Stonewall.
mujerado
@jwtraveler: – Actually, David Carter interviewed many who were in the Stonewall that night and on the street in the next nights, including law enforcers and actual activists–the people who were in the bar were not activists but just bar patrons who had had enough. If you want to know what happened at Stonewall, Carter’s “Stonewall” is indispensable. Martin Duberman’s 1994 book with the same title is good, but concentrates only on a few activists, rather than participants in the riots.
Carlos Rico
Now I want to see it because it’s bad.
ShaunNJ
There are lots of great films, not necessarily blockbuster or slick productions, which accurately tell our stories and history while managing to entertain. Emmerich should have takes some queues from the most recent film (that I’ve seen) the excellent British film: Pride. It’s also a film which demonstrates how a small movement can make a big impact. That film has a largely white cast because of its accurate setting in Wales yet still manages to be more inclusive than Stonewall film which is set in racially diverse New York City.
gababy2
when will these people get a life omg
Nat Jones
Hahahaha! A load of american are all up in arms over this, but to be fair, nearly everyone else in the world has had to suffer the indignation of hollywood rewriting their county’s history. Hollywood is like the media, they never let the truth get in the way of a story, even if theyre doing historical pieces. They will continue to do this, until people stop paying top-dollar for their inaccuate retelling of history
Bisexual-Transwoman
@Giancarlo85: Exactly. Enough of this overhyped film.
Brycedavid
The film is NOT the issue.
The issue, to all you sleepwalkers out there, is the backlash, boycott, the level of vitriol against this film, which has been horrendous and if you can’t see it for what it is, pure homophobia and the erasing of gay men’s history, than you deserve all of what you’ll be getting in the near future.
The incredible thing about the release of this film is that the negativity is not even from the right but from within the so-called ‘community.’ With friends like that who needs enemies?
LongIslandGayPhotos
@mujerado: David Carter’s book was excellent! LoL! One good thing I actually came across from Qweerty and the comment streams regarding the new Stonewall movie.
ChuckF
Emmerich’s excuse is what’s kept out stories out of the mainstream for years. That’s like saying if Oscar Wilde had been more straight he would have lived longer. The riot at the Compton Cafe in SF preceded Stonewall but it should still be treated with respect. Transvestites made history there, not their pretty boy stunt doubles.