Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters: Know Your LGBT History

Friday, May 21, 2010

Know Your LGBT History - Tongues Untied

I WAS going to feature an episode of All in the Family but then I got a special request for this afternoon's feature, Tongues Untied (1989).

And as luck would have it, I'm glad I received this request because Tongues Untied will be one of the movies at tomorrow night's lgbt of color film festival which will be held at the University of South Carolina tomorrow night as a part of the SC Black Pride Young, (Gay) Gifted, and Black Mini Film Festival.

Tongues Untied is an excellent film by the late Marlon Riggs, an African-American gay man and filmmaker. From Wikipedia:

. . . Tongues Untied seeks, in its author's words to, "...shatter the nation's brutalising silence on matters of sexual and racial difference." The film blends documentary footage with personal account and fiction in an attempt to depict the specificity of black gay identity. The "silence" referred to throughout the film is that of black gay men, who are unable to express themselves because of the prejudices of white and black heterosexual society.

The narrative structure of Tongues Untied is both interesting and unconventional. Besides including documentary footage detailing North American black gay culture, (Marlon) Riggs also tells of his own experiences as a gay man. These include the realising of his sexual identity and of coping with the deaths of many of his friends to AIDS. Other elements within the film include footage of the civil rights movement and clips of Eddie Murphy performing a homophobic stand-up routine.

At the time of its release, the film was considered controversial because of its frank portrayal of gay sexuality. Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan cited Tongues Untied as an example of how President Bush was using taxpayer's money to fund "pornographic art". In his defense, Riggs stated that, "Implicit in the much overworked rhetoric of community standards is the assumption of only one central community (patriarchal, heterosexual and usually white) and only one overarching cultural standard ditto."

6 comments:

Bill S said...: When it was originally released, it came under fire by a lot of conservative groups. No surprise there, but what is suprising is that, to a person, they consistantly read the title wrong, and kept referring to it as "Tongues UNITED". Apparantly homophobia not only makes people stupider, it makes them more illiterate.
Which "AITF" ep were you going to do-"Judging a Book By Its Cover", from season one?; 3:59 PM
BlackTsunami said...: That's the one, Bill. That's the episode of All in the Family which got President Nixon upset. LOL; 4:02 PM
MR Bill said...: I got to watch this on Georgia Public Television (sometime in the late '90s). It was an eye opener for a closeted white guy, and I was proud of the state for letting it air. Intelligent, passionate, and damned sexy. And it aired late, perhaps after midnight.
Of course, it would not be shown in today's republican climates...; 5:19 AM
Inspector13 said...: is the all in the family the episode where meathead has a buddy that is a photographer and archie thinks he's gay and then finds out that the former baseball player down at the bar is the gay one? kiss me. if i like it you'll know and if you like it then i'll know why you asked.; 2:15 PM
BlackTsunami said...: that's the one. The photographer is played by pre-General Hospital Anthony Geary.; 2:46 PM
Inspector13 said...: i saw tongues untied on pbs out of chicago when it aired. my local pbs station for elkhart/south bend, indiana never ran this series of gay programing.

i only saw that episode of all in the family the original time it aired when i was a kid. it stuck with me. i must have been around 13 or 14.; 10:30 AM