before stonewall documentary transcript

Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries . This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots. And I knew that I was lesbian. The last time I saw him, he was a walking vegetable. Calling 'em names, telling 'em how good-looking they were, grabbing their butts. Dr. Socarides (Archival):I think the whole idea of saying "the happy homosexual" is to, uh, to create a mythology about the nature of homosexuality. [2][3] Later in 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5][6]. Saying I don't want to be this way, this is not the life I want. We don't know. Hugh Bush Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . People talk about being in and out now, there was no out, there was just in. Dan Martino Danny Garvin:It was the perfect time to be in the Village. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. Yvonne Ritter:And then everybody started to throw pennies like, you know, this is what they were, they were nothing but copper, coppers, that's what they were worth. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. One never knows when the homosexual is about. Clever. The windows were always cloaked. Ellen Goosenberg Because if you don't have extremes, you don't get any moderation. Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. Fred Sargeant:When it was clear that things were definitely over for the evening, we decided we needed to do something more. The very idea of being out, it was ludicrous. Naturally, you get careless, you fall for it, and the next thing you know, you have silver bracelets on both arms. Martha Shelley:I don't know if you remember the Joan Baez song, "It isn't nice to block the doorway, it isn't nice to go to jail, there're nicer ways to do it but the nice ways always fail." Like, "Joe, if you fire your gun without me saying your name and the words 'fire,' you will be walking a beat on Staten Island all alone on a lonely beach for the rest of your police career. Gay people were not powerful enough politically to prevent the clampdown and so you had a series of escalating skirmishes in 1969. Martin Boyce:I wasn't labeled gay, just "different." There were occasions where you did see people get night-sticked, or disappear into a group of police and, you know, everybody knew that was not going to have a good end. The events. Dr. Socarides (Archival):Homosexuality is in fact a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions. Alexis Charizopolis Narrator (Archival):Richard Enman, president of the Mattachine Society of Florida, whose goal is to legalize homosexuality between consenting adults, was a reluctant participant in tonight's program. Yvonne Ritter:It's like people who are, you know, black people who are used to being mistreated, and going to the back of the bus and I guess this was sort of our going to the back of the bus. It was a real good sound to know that, you know, you had a lot of people out there pulling for you. WPA Film Library, Thanks to A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a man during a confrontation in Greenwich Village after a Gay Power march in New York. He may appear normal, and it may be too late when you discover he is mentally ill. John O'Brien:I was a poor, young gay person. Today, that event is seen as the start of the gay civil rights movement, but gay activists and organizations were standing up to harassment and discrimination years before. kui Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:I never bought a drink at the Stonewall. Read a July 6, 1969excerpt fromTheNew York Daily News. Now, 50 years later, the film is back. John O'Brien:I knew that the words that were being said to put down people, was about me. Danny Garvin:We had thought of women's rights, we had thought of black rights, all kinds of human rights, but we never thought of gay rights, and whenever we got kicked out of a bar before, we never came together. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. It was as if they were identifying a thing. Danny Garvin:We were talking about the revolution happening and we were walking up 7th Avenue and I was thinking it was either Black Panthers or the Young Lords were going to start it and we turned the corner from 7th Avenue onto Christopher Street and we saw the paddy wagon pull up there. Danny Garvin:Everybody would just freeze or clam up. Where did you buy it? And it was fantastic. Louis Mandelbaum They'd think I'm a cop even though I had a big Jew-fro haircut and a big handlebar mustache at the time. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community is a 1984 American documentary film about the LGBT community prior to the 1969 Stonewall riots. Gay people were told we didn't have any of that. John O'Brien:I was with a group that we actually took a parking meter out of theground, three or four people, and we used it as a battering ram. First you gotta get past the door. I entered the convent at 26, to pursue that question and I was convinced that I would either stay until I got an answer, or if I didn't get an answer just stay. Dana Gaiser Nobody. Here are my ID cards, you knew they were phonies. Paul Bosche Because that's what they were looking for, any excuse to try to bust the place. So anything that would set us off, we would go into action. But everybody knew it wasn't normal stuff and everyone was on edge and that was the worst part of it because you knew they were on edge and you knew that the first shot that was fired meant all the shots would be fired. Danny Garvin:There was more anger and more fight the second night. Cause we could feel a sense of love for each other that we couldn't show out on the street, because you couldn't show any affection out on the street. We didn't expect we'd ever get to Central Park. Gay people were never supposed to be threats to police officers. Because if they weren't there fast, I was worried that there was something going on that I didn't know about and they weren't gonna come. Martha Shelley:Before Stonewall, the homophile movement was essentially the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis and all of these other little gay organizations, some of which were just two people and a mimeograph machine. Before Stonewall. ", Martin Boyce:People in the neighborhood, the most unlikely people were starting to support it. In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city's gay community. John O'Brien The scenes were photographed with telescopic lenses. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. "Don't fire. But I was just curious, I didn't want to participate because number one it was so packed. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt They were supposed to be weak men, limp-wristed. Other images in this film are either recreations or drawn from events of the time. Obama signed the memorandum to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. Somebody grabbed me by the leg and told me I wasn't going anywhere. Pamela Gaudiano Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. Suzanne Poli Jimmy knew he shouldn't be interested but, well, he was curious. Scott Kardel, Project Administration Directors Greta Schiller Robert Rosenberg (co-director) Stars Rita Mae Brown Maua Adele Ajanaku Dick Leitsch:It was an invasion, I mean you felt outraged and stuff like you know what, God, this is America, what's this country come to? Getty Images American Airlines Martin Boyce:And I remember moving into the open space and grabbing onto two of my friends and we started singing and doing a kick line. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. Frank Kameny Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives I'm losing everything that I have. With this outpouring of courage and unity the gay liberation movement had begun. We had been threatened bomb threats. I had never seen anything like that. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:And then the next night. Susan Liberti That never happened before. Raymond Castro:So finally when they started taking me out, arm in arm up to the paddy wagon, I jumped up and I put one foot on one side, one foot on the other and I sprung back, knocking the two arresting officers, knocking them to the ground. When you exit, have some identification and it'll be over in a short time." Vanessa Ezersky And when she grabbed that everybody knew she couldn't do it alone so all the other queens, Congo Woman, queens like that started and they were hitting that door. Fred Sargeant:Someone at this point had apparently gone down to the cigar stand on the corner and got lighter fluid. Trevor, Post Production Because as the police moved back, we were conscious, all of us, of the area we were controlling and now we were in control of the area because we were surrounded the bar, we were moving in, they were moving back. Franco Sacchi, Additional Animation and Effects Jerry Hoose:And we were going fast. Fred Sargeant Fred Sargeant:The tactical patrol force on the second night came in even larger numbers, and were much more brutal. And I had become very radicalized in that time. He brought in gay-positive materials and placed that in a setting that people could come to and feel comfortable in. Martha Shelley:In those days, what they would do, these psychiatrists, is they would try to talk you into being heterosexual. We could easily be hunted, that was a game. There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future. David Carter, Author ofStonewall:There was also vigilantism, people were using walkie-talkies to coordinate attacks on gay men. Sophie Cabott Black Doing things like that. [7] In 1989, it won the Festival's Plate at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. It was tremendous freedom. The events that took place in June 1969 have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement, but that's only partially true. That was scary, very scary. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. MacDonald & Associates Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. It's like, this is not right. In a spontaneous show of support and frustration, the citys gay community rioted for three nights in the streets, an event that is considered the birth of the modern Gay Rights Movement. It eats you up inside not being comfortable with yourself. But we went down to the trucks and there, people would have sex. Frank Simon's documentary follows the drag contestants of 1967's Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant, capturing plenty of on- and offstage drama along the way.

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