Monday, April 12, 2010

Trailer: Stonewall Uprising

This arrived in my inbox this evening. Thought I'd share. From the YouTube site:
"It was the Rosa Parks moment," says one man. June 28, 1969: NYC police raid a Greenwich Village Mafia-run gay bar, The Stonewall Inn. For the first time, patrons refuse to be led into paddy wagons, setting off a 3-day riot that launches the Gay Rights Movement. Told by Stonewall patrons, Village Voice reporters and the cop who led the raid, Stonewall Uprising compellingly recalls the bad old days when psychoanalysts equated homosexuality with mental illness and advised aversion therapy, and even lobotomies; public service announcements warned youngsters against predatory homosexuals; and police entrapment was rampant.

A treasure-trove of archival footage gives life to this all-too-recent reality, a time when Mike Wallace announced on a 1966 CBS Reports: "The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested in, nor capable of, a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage." At the height of this oppression, the cops raid Stonewall, triggering nights of pandemonium with tear gas, billy clubs and a small army of tactical police. The rest is history.
- Courtesy of Film Forum
The Trailer:

I hope they do it justice. The unrest and riots lasted almost a week, as I remember events.

BTW, if you want to know what gay life was like prior to the riots, check out "Before Stonewall" which is an excellent documentary (even I appear in a quick cut of a photo with 3 other friends in a totem style shot)that I hope is available on DVD by now. I have the VHS version.

And so it goes.
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1 comment:

  1. Reading that comment by Mike Wallace, I guess the nut (Chris) does not fall far from the tree.

    ReplyDelete

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