In the Life: Ep. 1705, "A Visible History"

this month on in the Life how do you organize people who aren't visible to do something about their problems Pioneers in gay history our very visibility is what freaks them out the most Larry Kramer and act up why act up was so successful cuz everybody was terrified families matter they never knew that there was one other person in the whole world who had a gay parent and the film classic parting glances all this and more stories about the gay experience in the life is funded in part by the H van amaran Foundation additional support provided by the Ford foundation and by the Arcus foundation and by the annual support of in the Life members like [Music] you [Music] hello I'm Michael Billy and welcome to in the life if you look back in time what seemed extraordinary in one age might seem common today and today what some people call Visionary Others May find long overdue this month show is about the extraordinary people and places that Define history and chart the future of the gay community in June of 1992 in the life was first broadcast on public television but it was back in 1983 that the first show by and about gays and lesbians was produced for local TV it was called our time and was created by the Visionary writer and activist veto Russo veto passed away in 1990 he is best remembered for co-founding the organization glad the gay and lesbian alliance against defamation and for writing the book The Celluloid closet we never thought that when gay people came out of the closet that our problems were going to be solved our problems were just beginning because our very visibility is what freaks them out the most go VTO Russo was a man who five categorizations he was an author age activist film critic celebrity hero lover and friend he was a Man Who Loved life passionately and was a shaper of the times in which he lived it's a sort of interesting time in history because on the one hand people are learning more about lesbians and gay men than ever before in history because of this epidemic and on the other hand it's giving the right-wing an excuse to attack us his groundbreaking lectures on the depiction of lesbians and gay men in film grew into his book The Celluloid closet published in 1981 in it he accused Hollywood of lying about our lives on screen that was only one of the issues he addressed head-on when in 1983 he wrote produced and co-hosted our time I'm VTO Russo and you are watching our time which is a brand new idea in television this is a show by for and about lesbians and gay men this is V ruso for our time in Cleveland Ohio where one of the most incredible ambassador of Goodwill tours in America is taking place yes it is it's Mrs Judith Beasley emerging from the limousine outside Keys bar in Cleveland Ohio with a kiche in her hand waving to the crowd approaching the bar now waving to waving to the many fans waiting for her Mrs Beasley can you tell me why you've come to keys in Cleveland Ohio tonight well uh as you may know it has been publicized in quite a few of the papers across the country I am on a Goodwill tour as a Goodwill Ambassador on behalf of the league of concerned citizens from Calumet City Illinois which is my hometown and I'm so proud of it this particular evening I'm here on behalf of the heterosexual Community doing community outreach to the he homosexual Community uh and I've brought the kich of peace and I hope they'll accept it in the same spirit with which it's given is kich a very popular dish in couet City well it isn't I tell you quite truthfully a lot of us in cat City used to think that kiche actually caused homosexuality of course it doesn't but Harold thought so too it was years before I could get him to take a bite you know real men just don't eat kiche I know they can't spell it this history making show included segments with Lily Tomlin R May Brown and Brad Davis and a backstage visit with Tony Award winner Harvey firestein before the premiere of his hit musical laajo fall I think it's I think it's going to be come the gay anthem there is a song called I am what I am the community The veto loved so much showed that they loved him in return by honoring him with award after award he counted Lily Tomlin and B Midler among his friends but he was something of a celebrity himself when a young fan of his was told that veto had just been seen with Elizabeth Taylor he said no kidding you know veto Russo veto the author the film historian the teacher the activist and finally the person with AIDS instilled passion rage and hope in all whose lives he touched veto was a model for what life out of the closet could become you know I never cared about what people thought about me before there was such a thing as AIDS and I don't care about it now you know I'm not on this Earth so other people can approve of me that's not my you know that that's not why I'm here you know I'm here so that I could approve it myself the US Constitution guarantees freedom of assembly but it wasn't until after World War II that gay men and lesbians began creating spaces to gather and to establish Community but the post-war World saw only a few exclusively gay groups forming like the matachin society and the daughters of bolius decades later after the Stonewall riots in June of 1969 literally thousands of organizations came into existence this next story from 2003 looks at the history of gay spaces Gay Liberation Front was sort of um I guess to be cor was the answer to a lot of people's prayers I mean it came out of nowhere and it was gone before you really could say G Liberation Front but what happened in that year year and a half changed so many lives glf was born at or new literally uh the first meeting a group of people said let's meet and see what we can do with the energy we have here from the riots alternate University a radical new school in greenish Village offered unorthodox classes on everything from Marxism to karate and on July 24th less than a month after The Stonewall alternate U became the birthplace of the glf it became the place for their first dances which was just unheard of that you would publicize a homosexual dance but disagreements began on the very first night in the overcrowded room in alternate you some women fell alienated and left to form radical lesbians the trans Community split off to found Street transvestite action revolutionaries and still others broke away and started the gay activist Alliance the founders of the gay activist Alliance uh from their point of view uh glf was not sufficiently structured to get things done and so they broke off and founded their own organization in December of 1969 they started talking really from the very beginning about needing to find some kind of alternative to the bars which were seen as being Syndicate run uh places that would encourage uh self-hate rather than than an affirmation so they managed to acquire an Old Firehouse on wer Street in SoHo and among other things they started to dance every Saturday night you would have maybe a thousand almost all men a few women coming to dance at what was clearly a political organization and indeed there were times when they would hold demonstrations at 1:00 a.m. in the morning and literally take the entire uh dance to go harass the uh city council Committee Member who's giving us trouble lesbian feminist Liberation lfl is what we called it grew out of glf Gay Liberation Front and GAA gay activist Alliance when the women felt that they needed to separate from the men lesbian women at that point really needed their own space we met first at the firehouse and then moved from there to around Union Square and then eventually purchased one of the city buildings on 20th Street and there were just social gathering places for women and they were wonderful and I miss that kind of space as black women we didn't think our needs were being met I'm not saying that they weren't doing the work but they weren't doing the work we needed something else so you know we went we get us a space and we named ourselves Sal so sisters we met at the Washington Square Methodist Church and and we met there for many years we would bring people together to have a space to talk and get to know each other I mean this was back then when there really were very few spaces that women could go to to do anything in 1983 many of these Divergent political and social groups came together when Community leaders acquired an old schoolhouse like 300 organizations existed there was a lot of activity but it had no Locus everybody was spread out in whatever found places they could be it was such a powerful idea to say ah we now can have a piece of real EST State that's gay and lesbian owned it's ours nobody can take it away from us and we have control over it one of the functions of the center is to create a common ground for lesbian gay bisexual transgender and AIDS activists many organizations have been born here there are some that people know better than others probably the most dramatic story is the birth of act up which happened in 1987 when Larry Kramer came he described what he saw saw as the epidemic in our community and put forth a call to action and act up was founded on that Tuesday night I W there are still people who think that this is a white man's organization when they come in the building they must see us here this is a support for all people our history and our culture needs a place to be born and then a place to to grow so that we can find out who we are how it started how it began where we came from where we're going and that I think is it more than the buildings but you need the buildings to do [Music] [Applause] it Audrey Lord was one of the most gifted writers of our time she wrote numerous books of poetry and pros and co-founded kitchen table press the only publishing house for women of color I believe in poetry I believe that all art makes us more powerfully who we wish to become Lord passionately believed in the connection between art and politics everything we do has got to contribute to the struggle because everything they do is grinding us into dust and we will not be ground the issue of basic rights has made it out of the closet and firmly into the light of public debate in this next story from 2004 we look at the history of the ongoing culture War over the lives of gay lesbian bisexual and trans people from the first sexologists who brought the issue of homosexuality into the realm of science to the early gay Pioneers Barbara Giddings and Frank Camy technically homosexuals didn't exist until the late 1800s though acts of same-sex love had been acknowledged and dubbed sins in the western lexicon the recognition of a gay identity didn't dawn until the earliest sexologists began publishing only 140 years ago starting in Germany in 1864 with Carl olrick uh before Carl rck of course homosexuality was against the law Carl rck was arguing that those laws should not exist because it wasn't a matter of sin it was rather because that person was born into the third sex however the sexologists perspectives on homosexuality varied wildly but regardless of their perspective or terminology the sexologists did agree that homosexuality was innate and their work medicalized it moving same-sex love from the Arenas of sin and crime into the realm of Science and that budding science quickly became a battlefield many homosexuals decided that this was certainly preferable to being called a sinner or a criminal it's your fault if you're a sinner but if you're born that way you can't be accused of criminality or sin it was the beginning of a kind of politicalization for sexual inverts that is uh they were a group and they could begin to demand their rights it was not long after that that the German doctor Magnus herfeld founded the scientific humanitarian committee which was Guided by The Motto through science to Justice the early sexologists believed that homosexuality was a matter of nature Freud and the freudians believed that homosexuality was a matter of nurture he said that normal people develop heterosexual interests people who become homosexuals are fixated in an earlier form of sexuality because of some trauma that has occurred but not everyone agreed unknown scientist Alfred Kinsey both expanded Freud's notion of innate bisexuality and challenged his concepts of fixed adult orientation we came up with his Kinsey scale that said that you didn't just have homosexuals and heterosexuals but you had a broad range that went from Kinsey zero pure heterosexuality to Kinsey 6 pure homosexuality with five gradations in between but Kinsey's work was largely ignored by the fledgling psychiatric establishment and in 1952 homosexuality was classified a mental disorder in the American Psychiatric association's inaugural Diagnostic and statistical manual or DSM in fact even Freud's own writings couldn't dissuade the freudians from taking the young science in a New Direction in fact with the apa's new sickness branding psychiatrists developed a whole range of new treatment for homosexuality a homosexual would be shown a picture of an attractive person of the same sex and he or she would be given a a shock then shown a picture of of an attractive person of the opposite sex and there would be no shock and it got worse from hormone injections and lobotomies to castrations hysterectomies and forced incarceration in mental institutions really insane attempts to to convert people to a different sexuality we saw ourselves as diminished creatures uh but our only hope for any kind of Happiness would be to present ourselves uh to a therapist uh and undergo prolonged treatment as a result like countless others Arthur Martin duberman underwent nearly a decade of psychotherapy I definitely believe that if I stopped having sex uh and if I went to therapy five times a week uh I and worked very hard at transformation yes I could become a practicing heterosexual there are lots of scares uh from that kind of mistreatment which is what we now know it was uh that never go away but others refuse to be labeled sick how do you organize people who aren't visible to do something about their problems and that was the main thing we had to work on at first then it became clear that we had to start going after the the people in the Mental Health Professions on the sickness issue in the early 60s another pioneering voice joined activist Barbara Giddings in calling for change you had a whole establishment that had to be changed and reversed and in order to get them to do that you had to use political TX ICS Frank came along with a very uh a Clear Vision in his mind of what we needed to do a scientist by training Frank Camy scrutinized the studies that had been used to declare homosexuality a mental illness I found shabby shoddy slipshod sleazy pseudoscience masquerading as science moral cultural theological and social value judgments cloaked and camouflaged in the language of science without any uh uh of the factual basis for science they would say you're sick you don't deserve to have these rights you're unstable and we would say no we're not sick we knew inside ourselves that we weren't sick we would say that and they'd say that's your sickness talking overcoming such dismissal would require a Herculean effort that mixed politics and science the science that homosexuality was not in illness was much better than the science that said it was the Kinsey Report from a scientific perspective was probably the most important first uh strike at the psychiatric theory of homosexuality is illness the final nail moffen was Evelyn hooker's study which was published in 1957 straight psychiatrist Dr Evelyn hooker was the first to study homosexuality in the general population as opposed to those in treatment or in prison she took the test results and she gave them to expert readers of projective tests but she did not tell the readers of the test who were the homosexual subjects and who are the heterosexual subjects and the readers could not find any difference between uh the heterosexuals and homosexuals which was really totally in opposition to everything that psychiatry in the 1950s was saying in the early 70s gay rights activists began protesting the apa's annual conventions the result in 1971 the APA permitted Frank camon to organize a panel discussion on homosexuality this was the first time that the profession had ever admitted that there might be gays who were not in therapy and didn't have any need for it meaning the three gay activist groups who stormed the panel the doors burst open and all these people came in and uh the elderly psychiatrist proceeded to beat them over their heads with their gold medals and pushed them back out the door we took the microphone and took turns uh trying to say that this was not good science this was Prejudice this was uh homophobia and we weren't going to put up with it anymore and it worked a panel discussion was planned for the apaa 72 convention and it became a major turning point two of the four panelists Frank and Barbara K my partner said you know this isn't right she said you have two psychiatrists on one side and two gay people who aren't psychiatrists on the other side and what you really need is someone who is both gay and a psychiatrist and they found exactly one who was willing to talk Dr H Anonymous who because of the stigma would not reveal his true identity as Dr John frier until 22 years later and there he was with this fright mask and a fright wig and a voice distorting microphone he really rocked the audience telling what it was like to be a closeted gay at a profession to be unable to be honest with his own colleagues he had an enormous impact on the organization in terms of how they came to understand the implications of the diagnostic system that they were using the culminating moment would come in 1973 when the APA met to determine whether homosexuality should be removed from its Diagnostic and statistical manual a very uhu outspoken gay activist named Ron gold gave a talk called stop it you're making me sick my illness at least in part was a direct result of the crimes perpetrated on me by a hostile Society you have been willing accomplices in such crimes Ron gold delivered his speech to an audience of 3,000 psychiatrists one of whom was Dr Robert Spitzer an APA member who then authored the resolution to remove homosexuality from the DSM and we went to his his hotel room and we wrote this resolution which turned out to be the thing that that changed the world on December 15th 1973 the APA board accepted Spitzer's proposal and finally issued this statement homosexuals should be given all protections now guaranteed other citizens this Albatross that had been around our neck for decades and decades was finally lifted we were working for rights and for a full first class citizenship in our society and we were never going to get it as long as their ideas prevailed 1973 was I think one of the most graphic examples of the way science gets caught up in political battles and those battles continue as people with so-called gender identity disorder petitioned the APA to stop calling it an illness while the diagnosis is necessary for some who need insurance to pay for sex reassignment surgery others say it improperly categorizes them as sick at the moment they're being intransigent just as they were with uh with homosexuality the idea they know better than us and we think this is a sign of they have a disorder called gender pathil which is a need or desire to pathologize behave gender behavior that makes you feel uncomfortable Dr drer says the APA is not considering removing G as a diagnosis but is looking at making the definition more specific he also points out that Psychiatry is a fluid science filled with individual human interpretation there was disagreement within the gay rights movement about this tactic of you know bellying right up to the bar of of the psychiatrist many gay people felt oh they won't listen to us we don't have the credentials we have to wait for the people with the appropriate training and expertise to do the studies that show that we are are okay and normal and then to get this information out to the unbelieving public and to persuade them to change their minds and a lot of us in the movement said no we're tired of waiting it will never happen if we wait for that or it will be beyond our lifetimes we want to do something now we cannot [Music] wait Martina and tennis and women it's a love match Martina naala who came out publicly as early as 1981 is the greatest woman tennis player that ever lived and a lesbian icon when uh I get all these um accolades for everything that I have given being true to myself I say who else would I be while winning more Wimbleton titles than any player in the world she's also become an advocate for Progressive causes especially lesbian and gay rights let's come out and dis the rumors and lies that are being spread about us let's come out and set everybody straight so to [Music] speak the last few stories looked at the struggles on the front lines of the gay movement the this next piece looks at a more subtle form of activism the everyday we'll meet out and proud families and learn about an organization that works to bring them together we have six children together here ages from 20 on down to six four of them are biologically mine um two are biologically sataras we brought everybody together not to say that it hasn't had its ups and downs it's a Brady Bunch yeah so how's your yearbook project going pretty good well I have two moms it's it's a normal thing I'm not eating with my hands mother not really so how I've been living with them for 10 years you know I mean it's like I'm kind of used to it I think the only time it becomes an issue is when it's someone else's problem unfortunately for the millions of kids growing up in the US with a lesbian or gay parent it is all often someone else's problem my friends call my mom n and I don't like it our friends like still make fun of gay people we're like we don't feel comfortable telling them we just kind of like combine our two moms into one CU like sometimes we're talking about one mom sometimes talking about another one being a child of a gay or less being a bisexual transgender parent is very similar I think to Growing Up up as a gay person in that you unconsciously are learning all of these defenses and you don't even know it's happening when you're walking with your two dads and you see kids from your school coming you step away from them wanting to just kind of edit your life a little bit or not be embarrassed there was this one girl in um my elementary school that I had considered a friend I told her that my parents are gay and later on that week she said to me my mom mom told me that if your parents are gay then you're going to be gay and I don't want to be your friend anymore because of that and I got really hurt by that to counteract the taunts stigma and isolation six young adults with lesbian or gay parents came together in 1990 to form collage which is headquartered in San Francisco our mission is to serve any daughter or son or person with a lesbian gay bisexual transgender questioning parent collage is here so that all all of the children who are growing up can feel like they have a home of people who understand their experiences and share their experiences of their family background well collage stands for um children of lesbian and gay environments or something like that I don't know what the E stands for we have 30 chapters around the country and um about 30 perspective chapters in the pipeline we have all kinds of stuff on our website and discussion groups and support groups and pimp pal programs and newsletters led by young people for young people we get between 5 and 10,000 calls and emails and letters every year there are still people who call here all the time who are so glad to hear about us because they never ever knew that there was one other person in the whole world who had a gay parent they thought they were the the only one I mean really in 2001 that still happens I grew up in San Francisco in the 70s with a gay dad and a lesbian mom I can switch from potluck mode to drag queen mode in heartbeat it's really not a big difference to me we're just parenting a kid like hundreds of thousands of other parents across the country are just parenting their kids you know and when we go to collage that's what it feels like it's just normal of all the muck and discrimination and general ignorance and misinformation that's out there you can sort of boil it down to about three points for kids who have clear parents that our parents sexually abuse us that because our parents are lesbian G bisexual transgendered we will be as well and that we will be socially stigmatized to a degree that we will not be able to function normally in society all the social science studies that have been done on us to date show that we grow up to be fine but I do believe that we are affected by homophobia I do believe that having to grow up in a world that is unsupportive of our families and our culture and our Our Lives hurts us and I think that it would be really great Society was less homophobic so that we could Blossom even more into the full potential of of Our Own True selves when gay families are brought together they often discover they have similar challenges and ways to support each other one of the things that was most fulfilling for me coming to collage was meeting other people whose dads had had either died from AIDS or who had or who were HIV positive because my dad is HIV positive and it was something that I was of course in great pain around Briana was adopted by my late partner Kevin she was just over a year old when Kevin and I met and we started living together as a family and then um Kevin got very sick with HIV Banna was you know right by my side and Kevin's side throughout his whole disease process Banna was five when Kevin died about a year after that I met Greg it certainly colored that aspect of her childhood but it also was an opportunity for her to experience the depth of love that she had for Kevin and his love for her and how much incredible Joy he received from her Presence by his side I mean it was amazing to watch um and I know that that has has enabled her to be as open and loving and trusting with people as she is when I came to collage and I met other people who had been through it and who had survived it and who were able to support me and who showed me that I would be able to survive it as well that was very very meaningful for me and that has been a gift that I have tried to pass on when I ask a a child what have you learned from growing up in a lesbian gay bisexual transgender home what they say is I have learned to be a stronger person from dealing with difference I have learned to have a greater sense of empathy and a larger commitment to social justice for all people because of the Discrimination that I have faced in my own life they're growing up into these incredibly vibrant fascinating interesting strong compassionate people who are going off to their own schools and their own careers and starting their own families and and spreading all of that change I mean I I think it's incredible and I think in 20 years or 40 years we're going to see in America that's totally different because of that Larry Kramer continues to be one of the most outspoken and controversial figures in the gay movement as the founder of act up he was a lightning rod for AIDS activism as an author his novels and plays captured the gay Consciousness as it confronted the AIDS crisis this next story was first broadcast in 2002 correspondent an Northrup profiles Larry Kramer's Inspired Life [ __ ] act up Gay Men's Health crisis the normal Al heart all controversial all confrontational all groundbreaking but that's Larry Kramer he pushes the envelope and pushes us higher and better that's why I love Larry that's why I've worked with him all these years and now at age 67 Larry is continuing to break barriers continuing to ruffle feathers in December 2001 Larry became the oldest person living with HIV to have a successful liver transpl plan so organ transplantation is his new Crusade and he's gone back to work on his major novel the American people that he's worked on for two decades tonight we hear from Larry himself Kramer on Kramer his legacy and his life I have a 45-year old man's liver and my surgeon in all seriousness says you are as old as your liver so I am now 45 years old not bad for a man who in summer 20 2001 was suffering from endstage liver disease triggered by Hepatitis B after seven long months on an organ donor waiting list Larry got his new liver in December 2001 he knows he's one of the lucky ones I cannot tell you how many emails and calls I have had personally since the operation how do I find a liver how do I find a hospital it's going to get worse and worse because as HIV infected and H and hepatitis B and hepatitis C infected people live longer and longer there's going to be more of a demand for organ transplants um and we're just perched at this at this at this sort of this crucial moment on the Seesaw here and I'm afraid we're going to fall off unless we set up a system of you know iny face like we did with act up we must act up fight back fight AIDS [Music] act up to many Larry Kramer was act up but long before AIDS Larry was making waves with his written words morning Miss Brin morning yes of course there is that to consider his career took off early when he won an Oscar nomination for his screenplay adaptation of DH Lawrence's women in love his first gay novel appeared in 1978 its then shocking title and sharp edged take on sexual promiscuity caused the gay Literati to cringe but [ __ ] became a bestseller and has never been out of print and he soon began work on another book project it's called the American people it's basically a history of America told through its diseases and and its discriminations and um it's also a history of homosexuality in America and I've been working on it since actually before AIDS came of course Aid usurped what the book was [Music] about for Larry Kramer AIDS changed everything in 1982 he helped start New York's Gay Men's Health crisis of course he then fought with the organization and left it in 1983 he wrote a scathing Call to Arms in the New York native newspaper blaming the government and gay men for ignoring their responsibility to fight the oncoming plague Andy kept writing his 1985 play the normal heart was a claran call for action and abstinence now it's a history play people want to know what happened at the beginning to get us into this mess and that's basically what noral heart is all about the very first days of AIDS in this country anyway um it's being done all in the rest of the world in small countries remote places places I've never even heard of um where you never see the royalty checks from but I don't care now Felix you understand that your body no longer has any effective mechanism for fighting off anything I'm going to beat this thing you know good no that's the right attitude no no I mean I'm going to beat this I've always been lucky good I guess everyone says that well I'm going to be the one who beats it I wanted my job at the times and I got it I wanted Ned and I my God have I given it to him I don't know can he catch it from me now did he give it to me act up fight back fight AIDS then in March 1987 came act up the AIDS coalition to unleash power its co-founder Chief cheerleader and Rabel Rouser was was Larry Kramer Why act up was so successful because everybody was terrified everybody was terrified of dying uh which most of them did and everybody was young and angry with a lot of energy and that's why we were able to mobilize so many people that's what act up at its height was all about fighting to save our own lives the temperature rising it's getting warm the part's over so we went to storm the N it's just warm the for the backlash is not going to happen against the activist now the backlash is going to happen against the system is right is right people think all you had to do was go out there and scream and yell and you get your way and get your drugs wasn't that at all act up had a a Cadre of experts that we could send in inside to the meetings and once we got our seat at the table we knew how to use it very well and you know we did those drugs are out there now because of act up solely because of act up and the drugs that are keeping everybody around the world who can afford them alive are there because of us and all illnesses have profited from the anger of act up today many of those former activists are on the inside working within the system to Kramer that's understandable but it's not enough I don't see any gay activism and I don't see any AIDS activism and uh the organizations that represent us in Washington are are pathetic we have a poultry maybe 5 10 people in Washington fighting for us so while we criticize HRC and they're eminently criticizable we can't really condemn them because they're not really getting our support until we are strong enough to have enough lobbyists in Congress as the Jewish people do as the Catholic Church does as the automobile industry does we are not going to have any rights if every city with a gay population in this country had a fundraiser once a year and raised $200,000 to fund their own lobbyist in Washington imagine how many lobbyists we would have we would have a huge network of lobbyists hundreds of them for his part Larry Kramer can find Solace knowing that his words still resonate his followup to The Normal Heart the destiny of me opened in London in the summer of 2002 it's was just such an unbelievable treat for me to have this play I don't know know what to say re-recognize it got wonderful reviews in New York but it was never done anywhere else in the world and I've never been able to understand why every single actor in it was phenomenal and in many instances much better than the ones we had here in New York uh and the audience was just like this you could have heard a pin drop the whole time and Larry continues to hammer away on the American people the book he began more than 20 years ago I was terrified that I would be dead without finishing it and um now that I have been granted more life that's number one on the agenda to finish that book I started out to be a writer and not an activist and I want to be taken seriously as a writer that's the thing I want to be remembered for when I die that's what this attempt to write this gigantic novel is all about um I want to be remembered as a writer who was an activist not an activist who was a writer the old act up is no longer useful enough there are not enough of us few people go to meetings our chapters have evaporated our voice has dimmed in its volume and its luster our protests are no longer heard we must be heard we must be we should not accept crumbs we must not accept crumbs in 1977 after four tries Harvey Milk became San Francisco's first openly gay supervisor known as the mayor of Castro Street milk devoted his life to lesbian and gay rights and the rights of all minorities he led the passage of a gay Civil Rights bill for San fr Francisco and was instrumental in the defeat of one of the first anti-gay initiatives after only 11 months in office he was assassinated by fellow supervisor Dan White his early death was and still is a great [Music] loss in 1986 parting glances hit theaters as one of the first films to address HIV and the complexities of gay relationships it's a classic of queer Cinema but the original print of the film was in dire need of restoration now more than 20 years later the alest Legacy project has preserved this important work in October 2007 a newly restored parting glances had its New York Premiere at Lincoln Center bringing life to a pivotal period in gay history pardon glances centers around Michael and Robert A New York couple who are about to temporarily separate when Robert is transferred overseas Michael's ex-lover and best friend is Nick who is HIV positive oh not that or not I like this stupid thing I left imp plan it and I the plot takes place within a 24-hour period and begins as Robert prepares to leave Michael and New York for a 2-year work assignment in Africa I want to leave look I'm not going to last 2 years over there I'll probably be back in 6 months we just need a break you know the centerpiece of the film and its most memorable scene is a going away party for Robert hosted by their close friend Joan come on let me just put on a light [Applause] surprise it was extremely important because men needed to know that there were other men out there leading lives like theirs with friends and love and uh lovers and illness as an actor this was a a great love story and this was a great story of I mean drama is based on conflict and this film is about conflict from the very beginning about old loves about leading your life about not being afraid um about uh challenging yourself and challenging convention and challenging ignorance my character um is HIV and at that point I don't think there was any other films that that were dealing with this if you're trying to Market a film it's probably not the thing that people would flock to see there was a screening in New York uh and we invited the audience uh to talk back um afterwards and I'll never forget there was a woman who stood up and said um this film really Disturbed me and I'm like okay take a deep breath talk to me and she said I have a brother who who's homosexual and I said oh my sister and you have something in common and she said uh what really upset me about the film is you made it look so normal and I just said Thank you and I said you need to go home now and think about what you just said because yeah that's what it's about writer director Bill Sherwood's desire to make parting glances grew out of his frustration with the usual content and style of gay themed films he had a way of capturing Snippets of his life and writing them down and and making you see so clearly what what he had lived that time in 1985 86 no one was talking about AIDS and Bill Sherwood was really the first one with this cast in uh parting glances to to discuss this and it was labeled a very independent film at the time it was one of the first you know queer Indies it's not your fault it's nobody's fault it's not that it's sometimes when I'm over there all I can think of is I'm so glad I don't have it who wouldn't be don't worry a few years down the road we have lung cancer heart attacks look forward to it's different when you're 50 or 60 impending death doesn't freak you out as much I bet it does I bet it's a fuing drag even if you're 80 I think if Bill had lived that he would have turned out movie after movie and that just like in his real life there would have been this incredible mishmash of characters that were gay and straight and and gay straight and women who acted like men and men who danced like little girls he had a very vivid imagination my pants don't hang down in the back straight guys pants always hang down in the back Michael do my pants hang down in the back yep I ended up playing Joan and parting glances because I worked with Bill Sherwood as a secretary at one of the local television stations Bill actually saw me on stage um which was good for for me because when I auditioned for the film um my audition was so terrible that he told me that he wouldn't have hired me unless he had seen me on stage Steve was not at all Bill's original conception of of Nick Nick was supposed to be 65 and strong and with bushy black hair and uh instead we found Steve Bui who is totally wonderful in the part right but you didn't think this kid from bensen Hur had so much dashed away did hahaa he was concerned that I wouldn't take it because I was working on the fire department and I wouldn't want anybody to know I was playing this part and I think that when I first read the script there was an element within me that just thought can I really play this part but I think any actor who would have turned down playing that part because the character is gay would be insane Richard was fresh out of acting school and Bill cast him in in this role it was difficult role because it was Bill and he was very much a control freak we would shoot a scene and he say now on this line you should say it more this way but then on this line you could be a little bit and you'd go through every line and then we do the scene and the scene would end and he'd say geez Steve can't you have any spontaneity he's mad good hey you think I should go beat up Robert yeah yeah yeah oh yeah right you don't believe me do you I'm going to call a garden I'm going to book it right now you better call an ambulance too parting glances opened doors for several of its cast members for Kathy Kenny and Steve bumi it became their ticket to Hollywood listen we had more fun in one weekend and the entire state of New Jersey's had since signing the Declaration of Independence that's not saying much actor Direct director Steve Bui has gone on to star in such films as Reservoir Dogs Fargo and most recently 28 days while Cathy Kenny has reached cult status as Mimi on the television hit the Drew Cary show off go for it have a little Adventure yourself when I came out here to Los Angeles everyone was like oh we saw you in parting glances what a wonderful movie you were so wonderful you know let me see if I can help you the day the film was released I got a call um from an agent at ICM so uh that's what really got me started in uh getting film work I do know I got a part on a series in Los Angeles because of parting glances the director had seen parting glances and said that I was good and wanted me in it you're leaving because you don't want to be around when Nick dies you don't want to deal with me going through that I think parting glances holds up very well I think it's kind of the grandfather of a lot of contemporary gay films we're community that has so few actual monuments to our history so so little you know public visible mainstream acknowledgement of who we are and the impact that we've had on this planet and the Legacy project the collection at UCLA preserving films like parting glances so many so many films and moving images that made so many of us who we are that work is building a moving um Dynamic Monument to this community and the history that has um been told by the brave Visionary artists who have been chronicling our lives for the past 30 years on film parting glances is still important because it gives you permission to just live your [Music] [Applause] [Music] life I think many people in the mainstream think that if they just keep trying to squelch us long enough we will finally disappear and go away well I I can assure them we are not going to disappear we will not go away this is very frustrating for our opponents because they squelch us here and we just pop up somewhere else we'll keep on doing that until we've achieved full equality and then we can be on our own thank you for watching in the life to sign up for monthly air dat alerts or to download past episodes 247 please go to our website at inthe tv.org or call 1 1800 627 ontv we'd love to hear from you I'm Michael Billy thanks for tuning in and please join us next month in the life is funded in part by the HB amaran Foundation additional support provided by the Ford foundation and by the Arcus Foundation and by the annual support of in the Life members like [Music] you