Directors Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg pull off a miracle here. They use authentic archival material, such as film clips, photos and interviews with real people who lived through it, to tell the story of the struggles of the LGBTQ+ ("Gay") community in America in the decades leading up to the famous Stonewall Inn riots of 1969.
The now famous Stonewall riots clearly did not just happen suddenly. The tension was building for centuries with this film focusing on Gay life in America between 1900 and the 1960s. It portrays a dark story of how Gay people were harassed, abused, humiliated, and forced to hide while being hunted down by the straight establishment (many of whom were closeted Gays themselves.)
Gay people from all over the U. S. moved to the Gay meccas such as San Francisco, CA, Harlem, NYC and of course, Greenwich Village, NYC, to escape into worlds of Gay bars, clubs, bathhouses, etc., at least to find some temporary relief. While they met people, made new friends, and found community, they were also terrified of being outed. Being outed meant beatings, arrests, almost certain termination from one's job, and pressure to out other Gay people.
Police raids on Gay bars, such as Stonewall, were routine, and people arrested often found their names printed in local newspapers as part of a list of deviant, mentally ill misfits. In fact, being Gay was considered both a crime and a mental illness. Gay people could be forced into mental institutions since after all they were "sick." They were hunted down like communists were hunted down in the late 1940s and 1950s, during Senator Joseph McCarthy's hideous witch hunts.
(The film does mention that Gays were sent to concentration camps during WWII, along with Jews and other minorities.)
So why does this fact-based documentary matter so much today, in 2021, in the post-2015 era of legal same sex marriage in America? Partly as a reminder, but more to educate the Gay youth of today who are able to live a much more comfortable, though not problem free, existence. There are also pockets in America today where conditions for Gay people are still unbearable. There's much work to be done to achieve true Equality and the risk is ever present that progress that has been made can be rolled back in a heartbeat. So, Gays need films like this to study and learn from to be prepared. The film brings out the importance of unity and community self-organizing. And a note to today's Gay youth: never forget the generations who came before you and paved the way for you to have the rights and freedoms that you have today.
The now famous Stonewall riots clearly did not just happen suddenly. The tension was building for centuries with this film focusing on Gay life in America between 1900 and the 1960s. It portrays a dark story of how Gay people were harassed, abused, humiliated, and forced to hide while being hunted down by the straight establishment (many of whom were closeted Gays themselves.)
Gay people from all over the U. S. moved to the Gay meccas such as San Francisco, CA, Harlem, NYC and of course, Greenwich Village, NYC, to escape into worlds of Gay bars, clubs, bathhouses, etc., at least to find some temporary relief. While they met people, made new friends, and found community, they were also terrified of being outed. Being outed meant beatings, arrests, almost certain termination from one's job, and pressure to out other Gay people.
Police raids on Gay bars, such as Stonewall, were routine, and people arrested often found their names printed in local newspapers as part of a list of deviant, mentally ill misfits. In fact, being Gay was considered both a crime and a mental illness. Gay people could be forced into mental institutions since after all they were "sick." They were hunted down like communists were hunted down in the late 1940s and 1950s, during Senator Joseph McCarthy's hideous witch hunts.
(The film does mention that Gays were sent to concentration camps during WWII, along with Jews and other minorities.)
So why does this fact-based documentary matter so much today, in 2021, in the post-2015 era of legal same sex marriage in America? Partly as a reminder, but more to educate the Gay youth of today who are able to live a much more comfortable, though not problem free, existence. There are also pockets in America today where conditions for Gay people are still unbearable. There's much work to be done to achieve true Equality and the risk is ever present that progress that has been made can be rolled back in a heartbeat. So, Gays need films like this to study and learn from to be prepared. The film brings out the importance of unity and community self-organizing. And a note to today's Gay youth: never forget the generations who came before you and paved the way for you to have the rights and freedoms that you have today.