Have you ever been in a heated conversation about the factions in our community? A conversation that has questioned why another letter has or has not been added to the LGBTQI+ acronym? This documentary directed by Ashley Joiner is an ambitious attempt to connect the dots, differences and intersections we live and love with. It takes at its heart the idea that ‘to party in ignorance is dangerous’. So, will you be smarter and safer in your arguments at the end of it?
The further back the documentary goes the more it is able to clearly discern distinct historical connections. As a pocket history of the early decades of the movement it is satisfyingly educational with personal testimonies linked to changing social mores and political activism. A neat timeline is created with causal relationships established between events happening in the civil rights movements in the US, the Stonewall riots, the development of Gay Liberation, and legislative shifts in the UK. It loses its crispness as it moves into recent events whose full implications are not yet clear.
Some of it is wishful. It suggests there was a strategic pincer movement between the lobbying of Stonewall UK and the direct actions of Outrage UK. In reality there was friction between them. Legislators preferred Stonewalls open hand rather than risk a slap from Outrage. Both groups worked in driving change so, deliberate or not, the film shows that differences are a source of strength.
Each part of the rainbow gets given some light. Issues of gender, race, class, ability, immigrant status all have a moment and a voice. The conclusion is that equality is not won without it being won for everyone. It is a generous, but over ambitious, attempt to reduce the burden of each part of the spectrum having to explain themselves to the rest repeatedly. Before the next argument inevitably rises it is worth the effort of watching. Not that it’s a huge effort, as history lessons go it is one of the more interesting ones.
Labels: 2019, documentary, gay history, Gay Pride, UK
