When We Rise is a new television miniseries about the battle for LGBTQ rights, an adaption of the Cleve Jones memoir set to air on ABC in February of next year. Guy Pearce stars as a younger versions of Jones, and Mary Louise Parker as women’s rights activist Roma Guy.
Also rounding out the cast are Rachel Griffiths, who plays Guy’s wife, Whoopi Goldberg as Pat Norman (the first openly gay employee of the San Francisco Health Department), and Rosie O’Donnell as Del Martin (co-founder of the first lesbian organization in the country).
Expectations and excitement are high for the series, marking a reunion for writer Dustin Lance Black and director Gus Van Sant, who last collaborated on a little movie called Milk. That flick of course won Black a screenplay Oscar and star Sean Penn a statue for Best Actor. Van Sant will direct the two-hour first episode of When We Rise.
Black was elated that his dream project finally got off the ground:
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.
“It’s been the honor of my life to research and craft these stories of family, diversity and equality over the past three years. To have collaborators of this caliber sign on to help bring these stories to life is a tremendous vote of confidence, and I hope a testament to the relevancy and necessity of our continued march toward justice for all.”
We can’t wait to watch. This is the first major LGBT-oriented event series on television, and this casting makes us optimistic that they’ll get it right.
Check out the powerful preview below:
https://youtu.be/6CBZZgXaE_A
ErikO
Will it show how Cleve Jones was a male prostitute, a total narcissistic person, and is HIV+? This is not an LGBT rights mini-series but it’s a TV series about egocentric Cleve Jones, and a few egocentric lesbians.
whatsaywhat
@ErikO:
Maybe one day they’ll make a mini-series about your boring, self-righteous life of internet trolling
AmericanSteam
@ErikO: Could you be anymore cynical? This is a series of hope towards humanity and our universal understanding of the self-evident truths written on a paper over 200 years ago when we need it the most.
davegun2
I knew Cleve Jones, and @ErikO is wrong. That’s it. Just a fool saying things he knows nothing about.
ChrisK
@ErikO: You trying to get asshole of the year award? I’ve never seen so much bitter hate in anyone.
ChrisK
A bit off topic but nice to see Guy Pierce back in a gay themed movie. I remember seeing him in Priscilla at the theater. What a hottie. He still is. Went to see it twice btw.
Danny279
There is no such thing as “LGBTQ.” There wasn’t any such thing back then when the events in this series took place and there isn’t any such thing now. Beyond that, the trailer looked pretty awful tbh. You have to tell these stories as human stories and let the message emerge from the human drama. You have to let the audience come to its own conclusions, as opposed to having the charactes shout slogans and propaganda at the audience. Hopefully, the series is better than the trailer.
Jack Meoff
This looks interesting to say the least and it has a stellar cast. Great to see a couple of Aussies in the cast too.
On another note there seem to be a few serial posters @ErikO: on this site that never have anything positive to contribute and only say negative things about everything. Funnily enough they also seem to be the same ones who support Trump. I don’t think that is a coincidence.
Chris
Looks interesting. I’ll be watching this.
BTW, all human rights struggles involve humans who managed to rise, human frailties and all, to the occasion. I like to see my heroes as the flawed humans that we all are. It makes the challenge to all of use more real; will we rise to the human rights struggles of our own times?
ErikO
@davegun2: If your really know him, then you’ll know that Cleve was a male prostitute, and is HIV+.
papaT23
What a terribly uninteresting project – relevant had it only been made 8 years ago.
Karlis
I don’t care if Cleve Jones was Beelzebub himself, he is a hero in our community’s history, and I will look forward very much to see this miniseries. I know I’ll have to go out and buy a jumbo box of tissues before I do, but I will.
ErikO
@Karlis: MARY! No he’s not a hero he was just at the right place at the right time and associated with that pedo conformist middle class politician Harvey Milk.
AmericanSteam
@ErikO: Isn’t that what a hero is? Someone who was there at the right place at the right time to change the world. Now as for your claims of Mr. Jones being a prostitute and HIV+, why does it matter? Extraordinary people come from all walks of life. He as well as “pedo conformist” Harvey Milk risked their lives so you, I, and ALL LGBTQ+ Americans have the ability to live our lives with dignity and happiness.