Stonewall: Now And Then

The historical moment we call “Stonewall”—a series of grass-roots protests with complex motivations and diverse participants that took place in and around a divey Manhattan fag bar during the summer of 1969—has always been something of a Rorschach test: We see in it what we need to see...

Where a critic for the Hollywood Reporter was pleased with the movie’s encouragement of “political awakening,” Gawker’s Rich Juzwiak recoiled at a straight-pandering “monstrosity” whose “badness is nearly unfathomable.” Our disparate reactions to a movie like Stonewall can’t help but reveal personal preoccupations and wishes, and those, in turn, suggest a queer “community” that is very much unsure of where it wants to go next.

To be clear, taking Stonewall seriously in the way I have is not the same as offering a defense. It doesn’t warrant that. But I do think it’s worth considering why such a small, misbegotten movie—one that we could, as Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir suggests, just as easily nudge into the memory hole—has generated so much angst. 

Stonewall was a moment when we all put aside our differences and united to finally fight back—or at least that’s what most of us want it to have been. Stonewall, on the other hand, comes at a moment when the always jury-rigged alliance between the various queer contingents feels more uncertain every day; when our debates over terminology, community norms, political goals, and paths toward social justice feel increasingly fractious. 

Is it any surprise the stakes of this movie—our movie—feel so high? Usually cinema screens simply reflect back the light projected onto them—but sometimes, they act as mirrors for the audience as well. This is one of those times.

The Stakes Of Stonewall, J Bryan Lowder, Slate.

Only the brilliantly perceptive Mr Lowder could make Fagburn temporarily lift his ban on blogging about this sodding movie again.

PS The only other article worth reading on this hoo-hah is Tim Teeman's The Gay Shame Of Stonewall The Movie.

Anyway... No more on Stonewall, it's got boring.

Everyone's feigning outrage now, it's all a bit 'Cecil The Lion'.

PS And finally... here's Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt, your actual surviving Stonewall street kid...

The movie is pretty accurate in terms of the street kids being the main engine of things. In one criticism of this film, someone was saying they were angry because there were so many gay stereotypes. Gay stereotypes are what made it happen. The people who passed for straight hid and didn’t want to be active at the beginning. The straighter-acting people ran away.

Owen Jones: Unreal

One-dimensional uber-camp clowns, storylines centred on “being gay”, potential sexual menaces who want to get into the pants of straight men, lesbians whose sexuality makes them a challenge for men to turn: here are how LGBT characters often appear on our screens. But that’s if they even appear at all. According to a new study by Glaad – which campaigns for LGBT representation in the media – there has been a small increase in films with LGBT characters, but from a low base. Out of 114 films they looked at, released in 2014, 17.5% featured non-straight characters, up from 16.7% the year before. Many of these depictions were problematic, with only just over half passing the “Vito Russo test”, which measures the quality of the representations. (A film only passes the Vito Russo test if it includes a LGBT character, where they are not entirely defined by their sexual orientation or gender, and they have a significant impact on the plot.) ...

LGBT people are as complex and varied as anybody else. They are still all too often invisible on our screens, and portrayed simplistically and problematically when they do appear. That will only change when we overcome the general prejudices in society that still exist. But that’s not an excuse. The films and TV shows of today will surely provoke bafflement in the future: “Where are all the realistic gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans people?” they will ask. It will be a good question.

The Guardian.

You can't help feeling that Owen here is expressing his own fears and loathing about gay men; of the scary bad gays, the camp queens and the sexually rapacious, 'toxic' self-caricatures he wants to disown and distance himself from.

[I think OJ's self-imposed exile from the merry old land of gay is why this highly perceptive and intelligent writer writes such pedestrian guff about The Gays].

Why does he put "being gay" in scare quotes? Does Owen think it doesn't exist? Why shouldn't a storyline centre on this?

'A character being gay is often a storyline in and of itself,' he comments, 'surely we need characters who simply happen to be gay, rather than being defined by it.'

A statement that is every bit as banal and silly as it is clichéd. 

Does anyone 'simply happen to be gay'? What would be the point of having such characters in popular culture?

Perhaps OJ does not really want 'realistic' portrayals of gay people? 

Rather he wants them - and us - to be normal and boring, joyless and sexless, indistinguishable from straights.

Just like...

PS On GLAAD's headcounting, box-ticking, stopwatch watching not very useful surveys.

PPS On Owen Jones and the demonisation of gay men.

Gay Stereotypes: Are Simply Super!

I should tell you that I love Britney Spears. I should also tell you that I am a member of the fanciest gym in town, and yes, I do consider it my church. Oh, and after my daily workouts in my fancy gym listening to Britney Spears, I frequently apply a layer of self-tanner in a not-so-discreet fashion after showering. One more thing: I only drink vodka sodas. And I drink a lot of them.

Now, some of you may consider me a walking, talking, choreography-memorizing, bar-hopping stereotype of gay culture. I hate to agree with you, but I totally am. And it doesn't bother me one bit.

I know all the jokes, labels and judgments that are made about boys like me. I am usually the one cracking them. I do not feel defined by any worn-out category or tired archetype just because a few of my interests may seem a little cliché. They are only but a few interests, of which there are many.

Conversely, I enjoy discussing, exploring and even poking fun at gay stereotypes. I do so because these stereotypes are only collections of accentuated characteristics, not actual people. And the more we learn to laugh at the caricatures that we all resemble from time to time, the more fully realized our true character will be...

Lovely piece by Tyler Curry on Huff Post Gay.

More stuff like this please Huffington Post Gay Voices, and less stuff that's hand-eatingly dull and worthy.

Even though the gay media writing about "gay stereotypes" is a huge gay cliché, it's good to see someone celebrating them.