By now, the entire internet has expressed its outrage over the egregious whitewashing of gay history in Roland Emmerich‘s new movie Stonewall, in which – PRAISE BE! – a white cis boy from the Midwest arrives in New York just in time to save the Queer People of Color from danger at the Stonewall Inn and jumpstart the Gay Rights Movements. ISN’T THAT SPECIAL.
Shame on Roland Emerich. I mean REALLY.
The way I see it, we’re having this wonderful, long-overdue moment in pop culture where trans stories are being told with depth and humanity, and this was an opportunity to shine a light on gay icons who deserve their day in the sun. And not only is the REAL story of Stonewall cinematic enough and inspiring enough to stand on it’s own without the fictional trope of a cute boy for audiences to relate to – but it was a real teachable moment, and Roland Emmerich BLEW IT. (Feel free to send him your thoughts @RolandEmmerich)
The fact that Roland Emmerich is GAY makes it all even more unforgivable. If he couldn’t do the story justice, he shouldn’t have done it at all. Plain and simple. Go direct another Godzilla, we don’t need this silly bit of revisionist history.
I say we boycott.
The LGBTQ history education organization Quist has an interesting take on how to go about boycotting the movie. They write on their website:
Quist supports the GSA Network’s boycott of the upcoming movie Stonewall. Please sign on here with other youth concerned about the whitewashing of our history that the trailer below shows.
However, we also recognize many people will want to see the film is like the trailer or other reasons. If you are not going to boycott the movie, we call on you to make a matching donation for the amount of your movie ticket to an organization that honors transgender women of color like the Stonewall movie does not appear to do. We suggest donating locally or to one of the following:
- Sylvia Rivera Project
- Trans Women of Color Collective
- Transgender Archives at University of Victoria
- Happy Birthday, Marsha!
Go beyond feeling upset (to put it lightly) that our foremothers have been erased in this Hollywood version of what happened those nights in June 1969. Make August 2015 and beyond a time when they are so supported they can no longer be ignored. Make a donation in the amount of the ticket price to one of these or another trans-positive organization to offset the profit other will make off of this pinkwashing. Whether you offset your own ticket or a stranger’s, #DonateATicket.
Just as importantly – perhaps even more – to us at Quist is to educate yourself. Queer people need to teach each our history. We rarely learn it at school or from our families of origin. If you don’t know about the Stonewall Rebellion/Riots or its context, go read multiple sources about it. If we only learn from mainstream sources like this new movie, you’re barely scratching the surface of our incredible diversity of stories from all continents, all identities, all fields.
If you only know about Stonewall, go learn about the other centuries of our past. We used these online resources in creating our free mobile app about LGBT history and we hope you find all of the websites, apps, social media pages, etc. empowering.
Here, here. Forward the petition around. Tweet it, blog it, and Facebook it, as we as suggest the matching donation thing as well.
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