Arts & Entertainment

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Tab Hunter, ‘Damn Yankees’ Star and Gay Icon, Dies at 86

TAB HUNTER Various - 1960's
Tab Hunter, a former on-screen heartthrob and gay icon, has died. He was 86.

Hunter died Sunday night in Santa Barbara after a blood clot in his leg caused cardiac arrest, Allan Glaser, Hunter’s partner for more than three decades, confirmed to Variety.

With his All-American good looks, wavy blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and toothy smile, Hunter rose to the top ranks of Hollywood leading men in the 1950’s and early ’60’s. He appeared in the likes of “Damn Yankees” and “Battle Cry,” and had chart-topping records such as “Young Love.” But at the height of his popularity, he was dogged by rumors that he was gay, a potentially career-ending rumor during that culturally conservative era. At one point, he was “outed” by the gossip rag, Confidential.

Hunter fell out of favor as the 1960s continued and a new breed of stars such as Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino, actors who were often less corn-fed and polished, entered the mainstream. As tastes changed, Hunter did summer stock and dinner theater, as well as appeared in spaghetti westerns.

He was rediscovered in middle age, however. Hunter was cast opposite Divine in “Polyester,” a low-budget John Waters comedy that gleefully sent up everything from alcoholism to foot festishism. The film helped introduce Hunter to a younger audience, some of whom were unfamiliar with his pin-up past.

Hunter came out as gay in 2005 with the publication of his autobiography, “Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star.” In it, he wrote about studio publicity arms efforts to mask his homosexuality by linking him with co-stars and friends such as Debbie Reynolds and Natalie Wood. That book inspired a 2015 documentary by Jeffrey Schwarz, also called “Tab Hunter Confidential.”

Hunter became a symbol of the gay rights movement, but it was a role he took reluctantly, saying in a 2015 interview with Slant that, “I just have never been comfortable talking about my sexuality. I think it was easier with [the documentary] because it was quite a few years later after the book. But it’s still not my comfort zone. I was just brought up that way. I’m very old-fashioned.”

Despite being publicly closeted for much of his life, Hunter had relationships with “Psycho” star Anthony Perkins and figure skater Ronnie Robertson before settling down with Glaser.

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Book Review: ‘The Affliction’ by C. Dale Young

C. Dale Young’s fictional debut is a novel in stories that explores seemingly ordinary lives as they intersect with the truly extraordinary. Our guide to these non-linear, interlinked stories, Diego, is a somewhat unreliable narrator who has collected an oral history of the characters that spans several generations.

In “Inside the Old House,” we meet Old Cassie. Once a nun, she is now the subject of rumors: Some say she’s seen the face of the devil, while others believe she has the power to heal. Neighbors warn one another not to look up toward her estate high up in the hills where she watches them down in the town below. “What mattered,” though, Young writes, “was that we all feared Cassie, and Cassie probably liked it that way, or so we liked to believe.” But when it seems certain that this is the story of unchecked mental health, Young reminds us how frequently legends can be twisted: “[Her] story changed all the time. How could it not?”

“The Affliction,” the title story, follows Ricardo Blanco, a man who “did not believe in Christmas, angels or miracles. He barely believed in magic.” Ricardo is married, with two boys and two jobs. But in spite of all this, he finds himself charmed and seduced by Old Cassie’s nephew, Javier Castillo. Javier has the gift of disappearance: he can make himself vanish, and transport himself to any location at any time, be it the Caribbean, the racetrack, even a psychiatric hospital. To Ricardo, Javier is a messianic figure, and he abandons his life to be with him: “He didn’t even worry about the wife and sons he left in the small neighborhood on the edge of nowhere.” But, Young asks, is Javier truly so powerful? He writes, “Anyone can disappear. Even you can disappear.”

“Desaparecido” introduces us to the sons Ricardo has abandoned. Carlitos, an adolescent, is trying to cope with the loss of his father. He’s young enough to still play tin can telephone, but mature enough to have masturbatory adventures, which he details during his weekly confession. His only touchstone during this desperate period is his older brother Pedro. Young writes, “Carlitos usually hung on his every word…he found it more and more difficult to disobey his brother.” But Pedro merely enjoys his own disobedience, saying things like “This place sucks hole.” Carlitos holds on to the hope that his father might return someday; when Pedro scoffs at this, Carlitos’s wild rage is freed.

As The Affliction unfolds, Diego connects the history of three families. But blood isn’t the only link: Young’s characters, haunted by trauma, scarred by heartbreak, are connected through their common afflictions. This is a bond that transcends kindred, culture, even time. Is it true, then? Are we all connected? According to Young, “…there are threads between everyone, even when you cannot see them.”

An equally important theme in the book is preservation: both of our past, and our storytelling. These family histories will only survive if they continue to be shared. Young shows us that by revealing a story, one becomes part of that story.

The Affliction is a haunting book, one that is rooted in a binding beautiful magic. Quite like Young’s characters, we are left charting their connections to the beauty and loss found on each page.

 

The Affliction
By C. Dale Young
Four Way Books
Paperback, 9781945588068, 154 pp.
March 2018

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Frameline42 Awards Announced

Frameline is pleased to announce the winners of the Frameline42 Jury and AT&T Audience Awards, including the new AT&T Audience Award for Best Episodic. In case you want to see this in video form, check out our Facebook livestream here or at the bottom of this post.

Frameline42 Jury Awards

Retablo

RETABLO
Frameline42 First Feature Award, proudly underwritten by Wells Fargo
Directed by: Alvaro Delgado Aparicio L. 

A renowned artisan of intricate altarpieces known as retablos, Noé prepares his teenage son Segundo to carry on the family craft. But Noé’s clandestine homosexual life fractures their father-son bond within a conservative patriarchal culture where alleged crimes are met with brutal ostracism.
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When the Beat Drops

WHEN THE BEAT DROPS
Frameline42 Outstanding Documentary Jury Award
Directed by: Jamal Sims 

Famed choreographer Jamal Sims directs this bold, energetic documentary exploring “bucking,” a dance subculture popular within the black LGBTQ community in the South, from its beginnings at historically black colleges and universities, through its evolution at underground clubs, and on to fierce competitions at large venues.
Read more »

Frameline42 AT&T Audience Awards

Masks

MASKS
Frameline42 AT&T Audience Award – Best Short
Directed by: Mahaliyah Ayla O

A closeted medical student risks being outed to her family on the same evening a masked gunman opens fire at a gay nightclub.
Read more »

Giving Me Life In the Land of the Deadass

GIVING ME LIFE (IN THE LAND OF THE DEADASS)
Frameline42 AT&T Audience Award – Best Episodic
Directed by: Dafina Roberts

Insecure meets Brown Girls in this fresh queer episodic about a tight crew navigating the ups and downs of life as a twenty-something in New York City. 
Read more »

The Rest I Make Up

THE REST I MAKE UP
Frameline42 AT&T Audience Award – Best Documentary
Directed by: Michelle Memran

This fascinating documentary introduces viewers to award-winning Cuban playwright María Irene Fornés, an integral member of New York’s experimental theater scene and former lover of Susan Sontag. Even as she grapples with memory loss, Fornés radiates inquisitive curiosity and unquenchable creativity. This film is a Frameline Completion Fund recipient.
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For Izzy

FOR IZZY
Frameline42 AT&T Audience Award – Best Feature
Directed by: Alex Chu

Centered on an unexpected friendship between two Asian American women, For Izzy is a deeply compassionate and sweet-natured tale of resilience, told with a pitch-perfect blend of poignancy, humor, and grace.
Read more »

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Book Review: ‘The Evolution of Love’ by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Lucy Jane Bledsoe’s new novel, The Evolution of Love, brims with energy. In the opening scene, our protagonist, Lily Jones, walks west toward the San Francisco Bay Area, after flying in to Sacramento from Nebraska, in search of her older sister, Vicky. There’s been a devastating earthquake, and the region has been evacuated, but not everyone has left, and Lily, sweet, stable, dependable Lily, is hellbent on rescuing her sister, even if she has no idea if she’s still alive, even against her husband’s wishes.

As she navigates the broken freeway, she comes across two abandoned pit bulls eating the dead driver of a sports car. When Lily vomits, the dogs abandon the body to lap it up, forcing Lily to seek refuge in the back of a Fed Ex truck, where she locks herself in for the night. This squeamish, if realistic, moment is a good first look at Lily’s mettle. She might have married her high school sweetheart and settled down in the town she grew up in, but she’s no shrinking violet. She might claim finding Vicky as her reason for undertaking this ill-advised adventure, but it soon becomes clear that she has an agenda all her own.

The Evolution of Love features a number of intersecting plotlines and an intriguing cast of disparate characters. Bledsoe writes this strange new world with a confidence that the reader can trust, even if the occasional practical or logistical question does interfere (Where is the Red Cross? FEMA trailers? Perhaps these are the same questions those on the ground are asking), and while the shattered communities of Berkeley and Oakland are fascinating, the true heart of the novel lies among its characters. Lily—perhaps because she’s an outsider, perhaps because of naivete, or perhaps merely because of some invisible, privileged magnetism—draws a fast crowd of followers. There’s Kalisha, the ex-philosophy PhD and ex-addict, who runs the community meals program at Trinity Church where Lily first turns up and unwittingly gets herself a job. There are Annie and Binky, two homeless teenagers desperate for safety and affection. Then there’s Sal, Vicky’s hyena expert estranged ex-girlfriend, and Wesley, a grieving blogger who buys Vicky’s Harley but never leaves Lily’s thoughts. Last but not least is Travis, Lily’s longtime pen-pal and bonobo expert, recently returned to Berkeley after a tragic incident on the Congolese sanctuary where he’d worked for 20 years. Only Vicky remains aloof, keeping Lily at arm’s length, despite (or perhaps because of) Lily’s repeated pleas to make haste.

As the story unfolds, alliances are formed and shift, violence brews, secrets are revealed, betrayals shake longstanding relationships, aftershocks rattle the city, factions form, and characters die. (It’s a testament to Bledsoe’s skill as a writer that by capturing the disturbing ways that people die, she manages to pull heartstrings without resorting to sentimentality. Death is a fact of life here, and Lily and crew mourn in their specific, human ways.) Bledsoe strikes a deft balance between the personal and the political throughout the novel—one of its many strengths is how deeply we are brought to care about Lily and her crew’s fate by being forced to confront the brokenness of a world that looks—very eerily—like the one we currently inhabit.

Ultimately, The Evolution of Love is about love and community triumphing in the face of disaster. As Lily and friends finally head east following a second earthquake, the novel echoes Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang, without the ecoterrorism (no need, Mother Nature’s taken care of it). It’s a necessary journey, though temporary, because like it or not, Berkeley is home. This unlikely band of misfits might not get it all right, but they’ve proven themselves brave enough, and crazy enough, to fight for the world they believe in building, and for each other.

 

The Evolution of Love
By Lucy Jane Bledsoe
Rare Bird Books
Paperback, 9781945572838, 280 pp.
May 2018

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Book Review: ‘When Katie Met Cassidy’ by Camille Perri

Block an afternoon out of your schedule, grab a copy of Camille Perri’s new novel, When Katie Met Cassidy, and get ready to laugh, cry, and rediscover your faith in romance. This romantic comedy follows twenty-something Katie—a born and bred Kentuckian now living in New York City whose hipster fiancé has just left her for her closest friend—and Cassidy, a suave native New Yorker—as they meet, resist each other, and eventually, succumb to love’s spell. Here’s the catch: Katie is straight (or is she?)

Katie and Cassidy are both attorneys, and they meet as opposing counsel during a closing, but their similarities end right about there. Katie is a blonde-haired-blue-eyed embodiment of traditional Southern values; she’s a rule-follower who doesn’t even recognize Cassidy as female upon first sight. She’s freshly heartbroken, and on the rebound, and wears Dior shoes and little black dresses. Cassidy wears (perfectly tailored) men’s suits, has a snarky sidekick, and spends most of her free time at a lesbian bar called Metropolis, where she’s slept with most of the patrons. But when they run into each other again, on a street in the West Village, Cassidy’s invitation for a drink comes from a place of both habit and intrigue: Katie might be the ultimate “hard-to-get” girl.

When Katie Met Cassidy follows standard rom-com tropes and standard gay-girl-meets-straight-girl tropes, but Perri’s clean writing style and superb wit carry the book beyond the usual and into something laugh-out-loud funny, sincere, and fresh. As Katie begins to question her sexuality and Cassidy begins to question her love-life habits, they reveal themselves as imperfect, fumbling people, and their real-ness gives the book what it needs to really shine. Take for example, a scene between the two on a weekend getaway to a horse ranch upstate. Cassidy has been mistaken for a man, and neither correct the unaware party. Later, Katie asks, “Does it bother you?… When people call you ‘sir’?” Cassidy replies, “Not really does it bother you?” Katie deflects the question with, “Do you wish you were a man?” When Cassidy ups the ante with “Would you rather I were a man?” Katie responds with, simply, “I don’t know.” The scene moves on in to tender territory, neither truly addressing the huge issues posed, leaving tension hanging in the air. There’s so much at stake for these two women, and yet they willingly put off dealing with the ramifications of their actions. Sounds like true love, right?

Beyond its likeable protagonists, When Katie Met Cassidy draws a rich portrait of the lesbian community: these women are each other’s chosen family, and the Metropolis (fondly known as the Met) is their chosen meeting place—it may be a bar with a sticky floor and graffiti-covered bathroom stalls, but it is also a place where women-loving-women feel safe, and thus a place they can truly inhabit. Even Katie, who doesn’t know what the concept “femme” means, is welcomed with gusto upon her first visit. In an unexpected plot twist, the Met falls to corporate/gentrifying forces, throwing the entire community into a deep funk.

The deeper funk that visits Cassidy and Katie when the requisite miscommunication befalls them causes Cassidy to question her longstanding Lothario ways—it is in these moments, with the demise of her corner bar and the possibility of losing the girl she loves, that Cassidy decides the life she’s been living is unsustainable. She wants to grow up and be a committed adult—finally. Both Cassidy and Katie struggle to follow their heart’s desires into unexpected realms, and this parallel drives the novel toward its inevitable conclusion.

The book leaves some ends untied: Katie’s coming-out letter to her mother is unanswered, and the Epilogue—which includes a cool twist on the old U-haul joke—comes only a few weeks after Cassidy brings home a stranger in a preemptive attempt to get over Katie. But this too feels like a smart choice on Perri’s part. Will Katie and Cassidy be together forever? There’s no way to know, but one can, as all the best romances elicit, hope.

 

When Katie Met Cassidy
By Camille Perri
P. Putnam’s Sons
Hardcover, 9780735212817, 304 pp.
June 2018

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Book Review: ‘Read by Strangers: Stories’ by Philip Dean Walker

It’s challenging to write prose that’s truly unique without crossing the line into the unduly abstract and esoteric. To write something that challenges convention without confusing the reader. Making the reader think, but still entertaining and providing artistic sustenance. Philip Dean Walker fulfills the early promise of his debut collection of short fiction, At Danceteria and Other Stories, in this, his sophomore effort. Read by Strangers is another completely unique effort by Walker drawing on an imagination rich in fully fleshed, finely drawn characters. In this volume, however, he doesn’t draw them from times past, only a vivid present and, in some cases, future.

In these fifteen stories we meet a wide range of protagonists, some male, many more female. Some gay, many more straight. Walker’s greatest strength in this volume is its women. Many of them are flawed, but we’re left with sympathy for all. There’s the unfulfilled mother having an affair with her daughter’s literature teacher who, on what she swears will be one less assignation at his home, leaves her infant in the car unattended. When confronted with a long lost sister, a middle aged woman is left with only resentment and suspicion. The haunting story “Why Burden a Baby with a Body” gives us a disturbing glimpse of a future where a mother neglects her own infant in order to create one in a video game she is addicted to. These, and many more, characters don’t ask for our sympathy, but Walker does call on us to make sense of their shortcomings. His imperfect characters, like so many of us, are seriously, sometimes fatally, flawed. Yet, they beg to be understood—they are a force to be reckoned with.

His gay male characters bear these same flaws. A gay porn star, who longs to tell himself that his choice of career is an empowered act of self-realization, is only reenacting his own guilt in an incident of teenage gay bashing which ended in a horrible rape. Other gay characters are drawn from the margins of our subculture as well, such as a dug-addicted rent boy struggling to earn the money for his next fix. That’s what makes this collection so different from Walker’s first which drew upon the the celebrated and famous of a past decade we look at with nostalgia. There is no nostalgia in this collection, only hard truth. It’s not peopled with influential cultural figures, but with marginalized figures from the present and future. Yet these stories are nothing if not real, but they’re a vision of reality that while often stark, is always human and forgiving.

But what Read by Strangers is, more than anything, is a highly readable and engaging collection of fiction by one of our best young writers of the short story. It not only makes you think, it makes you think differently about a wide cast of characters that any of us could encounter without knowing their whole story. Authors of short fiction are some of our best story tellers and Philip Dean Walker is rapidly claiming a place as one of our finest and certainly most unique. He writes about lives that resonate with many, no matter their disparity to our own experience. Read by Strangers engages its reader with lives drawn from the periphery of experiences that could be called quotidian or commonplace. His characters are not people who live their lives in an everyday or typical manner. They are faced with decisions that we might not ourselves be called on to make and decide in ways that we ourselves might not decide. Yet for all of this, they are human and they are very real.

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Frameline42 Film Review: ‘When the Beat Drops’

 

When leading choreographer Jamal Sims came across the underground dance movement known as ‘bucking’, he was so taken with it that he decided that this would be the subject of his documentary directing debut. The result is a wonderfully energetic and a rather joyful movie that centers of a group of dancers,  and one in particular who is known as Big Anthony.

As Sims explains ‘bucking’ was appropriated from scores of female cheerleading troupes in the South by groups of black gay men, who the women now admit, are not only more creative but better at it too.  It was Big Anthony who not only spearheaded the movement in the 1990’s in Atlanta, but he was also the one responsible for creating a network of competitions where the troupes of guys could demonstrate their exceptional prowess.

‘Bucking’ is flamboyant, outrageous and very showy in the same way that vogueing was when it first captured the imagination of the black queer crowd in Harlem.  The documentary however also shows that it is still nevertheless being kept mainly underground because of some of the social stigma in the South attached to men wanting to dance like this.

Big Anthony’s own story is one that adds a particularly touching strand to the documentary especially when he suffers a setback after he’s mugged in a grocery store parking lot.  Plus one of the dancers is a schoolteacher and lives in fear of being exposed as a bucking dancer and fired from his job.  Another, Flash, openly shares his struggles with his mother and her addition to crack which has resulted in her being incarcerated several times. It reminds us of the tough reality of all their lives away from the dance floor.

Despite this behind-the-scenes tension, Sims racks up both the enjoyment and the tension factor by placing his cameras in the midst of the first Big Buck competition.   The standards are exceptionally high but by this time we are so committed to the success of Big Anthony’s Phi Phi team, that we are on the edge of our seats willing them to come out on top.

Openly gay Sims does an excellent job imbuing his own passion for dance throughout the whole film and makes this intriguing and important aspect of contemporary LGBT culture so absolutely compelling to view.

Produced by Jordan Finegan, the movie has Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato as Executive Directors which will certainly help its chances of being distributed widely

 


Posted by queerguru  at  14:02

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Frameline42 Film Review: ‘Life In The Doghouse’

 

Life in The Doghouse is one of those documentaries that will touch the heart of the coldest of souls.  It’s a wonderful love story between two exceptional gay men and their ever-growing four-legged family which have taken over every semblance of what once passed as their ‘normal life’.

Ron Danta and Danny Robertshaw, both in their 60’s, live on a horse farm in North Carolina where they very successfully train show horses.  How they have the time and energy to do this is never made that clear from the film, as most of their days (and nights) are occupied by the menagerie of dogs that they have rescued mainly from animal shelters who would have had to exterminate them otherwise.

The 4000+ square house is currently home to an assortment of some 71 dogs that Ron & Danny have meticulously organized in such a way there is not a hint of chaos. It had all out as a spontaneous reaction to the immediate after-effects of Hurricane Katrina, when after the two of them had donated much-needed supplies to people holed up in a nearby Sports Stadium, they then turned their attention to all the pets that had been abandoned in the floods.

By driving their horse trucks down to the devastated area and picked up as many of the poor frightened dogs they could and drive them home before turning around to go back to get another load.

In the following years, this quickly morphed into a full-scale dog rescue service that the couple, with the aid of small team, has run since then.  What initially appears simply as a well-meaning gesture on the part of these selfless men, is actually a well-oiled operation that runs on basic tenets that Ron and Danny insist on sticking too.  They go out of their way to save the lives of the dogs whose days are numbered and may have health issues or behavioral problems, or simply are the type that rarely gets adopted.

The website for the Non-Profit named after them Danny & Ron’s Rescue, features the dogs that they consider are adoptable, but most of their success in getting their charges new homes is on the Horse Jumping Circuit where they have built up a remarkable following and reputation.

The documentary points out that they have successfully had 10,000 dogs adopted by families and new owners that they vet extremely carefully. Most people would be more than content with such an exceptional achievement, but Ron Danta is not happy that they cannot make a bigger indent into the 4 million pets that end up getting euthanized each year.

Both men are passionate about their crusade and seem happy enough that the only place in the house that is still theirs is the king-size bed but even that is shared with a handful of dogs. Having sunk most of their pension funds into the operation, the Rescue service relies on donations to survive bit in the summer months when they are scarce, their precarious finances are constantly are Ron’s mind.  They are however not a deterrent as we see him applying to the Bank for a large personal loan to provide urgent cash flow.

Two other issues that Ron is very verbal about is the inequity of what he calls ‘puppy mills’ where dogs are badly housed in small cages and expected to constantly breed to make as much money as possible.  To save money they are often inbred to resulting in unsalable puppies that they will then simply abandon.

Surprisingly his views on Animal Shelters who exterminate were extremely rational, as he explained that in a society where animals are not neutered or spayed leads to so many unwanted litters which are the real culprits here, and not the Shelters that have to deal with society’s messes.

Director Ron Davis paints an affectionate portrait of this affable couple who show none of the usual eccentricities that we associate with people who prefer an excessive amount of animals over any humans.  The film triggers not just your heartstrings, but all those feelings of guilt too which could be alleviated by adopting another stray or at least sending a big fact check to their rescue service.

The only hint of possibly any regret Davis ever shows us is from Danny who has serious health problems and has enjoyed a much longer life than his doctors predicted, and in an unguarded moment mentioned he missed that fact that he and Ron never talked about anything other than the dogs.  We can see his point.

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Frameline42 Film Review: ‘Riot’

 

This intriguing made-for-TV Australian drama directed by Jeffrey Walker is based on the real story of how Sydney’s famous LGBT Mardi Gras came into being.  This tale of how a very marginalized community struggled to win acceptance and basic equal rights may be well known to its home audience but is probably news to the rest of the world.

The action starts back in early 1970’s when divorced father-of-three Lance Gowland (Damon Herriman) is now an openly gay man and ardent communist living in a commune and aggressively agitating for gay liberation.  As passionate as he is about ‘the cause’  he finds it enormously difficult to get other gay men involved in any of his political actions.  The other few gay and lesbian activists he does meet up with can never even agree on a common goal and spend most of their time arguing amongst themselves.

However as his bulging address book bares out, one of the things that Lance is definitely good at is finding boyfriends. His latest one Jim (Xavier Samuel) is much younger and a doctor who gives free clinics to women and people who cannot afford to pay. Whilst he doesn’t initially share Lance’s political passion. he does agree with them and is soon roped into helping Lance’s crusades after striking a deal with him to be monogamous in their relationship.

Over the next few years as a determined Lance struggles on with his highly politicized ideology for gay liberation his rigid approach alienates the other activists and eventually Jim who decides to call it a day on their relationship.  However unbeknownst to him whilst he has been leading this rather isolated life from the mainstream, gay life in the city has actually been going through a radical change.

Now Oxford Steet the main drag is teeming with gay bars, and so a friend persuades Lance that the way to connect with this new much younger LGBT community is not with some deadly serious march of protest but with a celebratory parade through town.

This first Mardi Gras is a major success and brings the community out in huge numbers, but it also does the same with the homophobic New South Wales Police.  Despite the fact that Lance had an Official Permit for the Parade, the Police using brute force which landed many in hospital and jail brought a halt to the event

There is a defiant scene at the end when the Parade is over and the Police tell Lance that nothing will change and that as long as the gay community insists on marching they will stop them by whatever means they feel is right.  Lance jibes back “You’ll get shamed out of beating us,” he says, “long before we stop being able to take it”.

This movie with some wonderfully good intentions is far from perfect and probably will have historians seething that a very important part of Australian gay history has been made into a Lifetime TV movie.  However, thanks mainly to Herriman’s pitch-perfect performance at Lance, it does convey with some passion the commitment and the personal sacrifices that these early activists in the gay liberation movement made, and that at least non-scholarly viewers will definitely appreciate.

 


Posted by queerguru  at  10:28

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Frameline42 Film Review: ’50 Years of Fabulous’

 

For his documentary feature debut filmmaker, Jethro Patalinghug has turned his cameras on one of the oldest LGBT organizations in the country, the Imperial Council also known as the Imperial Court System.  Patalinghug takes a look at its glorious history as it celebrates its 50 year anniversary and now starts to question if there is still place for it in today’s LGBTQ community.

The Imperial Court System was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1965 by José Sarria. In those dark days it was considered illegal for homosexuals to congregate in public together, but the owner of the Black Cat Cafe where Sarria worked as a drag queen, fought and won a landmark victory which changed all of that.

Sarris firmly believed that the community should not just come out of the shadows but be proud of what he called the nobility of being gay. Thus the Court system was created with a system of royal titles to recognize the roles that its members would play.  He always intended that the Court would join with other LGBT organizations and spearhead the move to equal rights.

Part social, part political but where the Court really took off was as a dynamic fundraising operation that would help fund crucial LGBT services and charities.  It naturally really came into its own during the AIDS Epidemic which devastated their hometown far more than most.  By mounting daily events it raised much-needed millions of dollars to help people stricken down with the disease to be able to pay for medications, rent and even funeral services.

The Council/Court excels in all its traditions especially the annual election and coronation of its Empress & Emperor who must use their year in office to not just further the cause but raise a substantial amount of money.  They all dress up in their elaborate regal drag with their huge coiffured wigs topped off with crowns and tiaras, and even the Emperors get to sport gold laurel leaf crowns.

Patalinghug mixes a wealth of archival footage with a whole string of interviews with some of the Courts past Empresses and Emperors and what comes over so loudly, is their sheer joy of being a part of this rather wonderful old organization.  It includes a clip from a 2004 interview with Saria himself, but the most moving part of the film by far is his funeral held in a Cathedral with the entire Court in their best black drag and dressed up to the nines in his honor.

The latter part if the film is given over to discussing how the LGBT community has not just evolved but also fully embraced this new age of technology giving us different perspectives on how we now congregate and interact with each other.  Patalinghug does attempt to draw any conclusions of his own, and members of the Court express their own very mixed opinions on the future.  It’s too early to see who will be proven right but however, after seeing  50 Fabulous Years it’s almost impossible not to want to wish them another 50 too.

 

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