Start with a classic teen triangle. Tunde's bestie from childhood, the supersexed Marley, is sleeping with the Nordic-blond-god jock Soren. Shocker! Tunde is also sleeping with Soren on the down-low. So many melodramatic possibilities here! Tunde must tell Marley her boyfriend is gay. Marley must confront Soren. Tunde must pressure Soren to come out. Let's raise the stakes by making Soren's father a right-wing talk show host. What if we make Tunde Black! That raises even more possibilities for melodrama. If we make Tunde the only son of Nigerian immigrants, then it's obvious that the homophobic attitudes of the homeland will provide more conflict. No . . . we won't go there. Tunde's father is an extremely successful visual artist, cultured and cosmopolitan enough to accept (with some difficulty, let us admit) his son's coming out speech. "Marley said it would behoove me to . . ." (When's the last time you heard "behoove" in teen soap dialogue?) OK, so we turn away from the easy target of African disapproval and access a brief wash of Significance when Tunde's father explains that the home culture regards death as a transition from one sphere of existence to another. What about being black at school? Well this is a prep school, and everybody's rich. Though Tunde is apparently only one of two black students enrolled (the other is a young woman who shows up later on TV news as another police fatality), the endemic racism of American society is mollified to a certain degree by upper-class chumminess. (Soren isn't even a football jock. He plays lacrosse!) Soren's fellow jocks call Tunde "Wesley" (as in Wesley Snipes) and make the occasional reference to Blade. That's not much of a micro-aggression, but they don't know he's gay. So rich white privilege isn't skewered very much, but it does provide plenty of lifestyles-of-the-rich viewing porn, not to mention the visual pleasure of watching the sex scene between the Nordic god and the very black Tunde. The house that Tunde lives in is stunning, and the cars he drives are black and fast and expensive. Ah but here's where the rubber meets the road. Being black in America? Bad news, often fatal when the cops get involved. And they do get involved with Tunde time and time again. That's the daring conceit of The Obituary of Tunde Johnson, which I just viewed as Frameline's centerpiece film. Tunde wakes up to the narrator's VO informing us that he was born in 2002 and that on May 28, 2020, he "departed this life." During the course of the day (usually at night), Tunde is gunned down by white cops. But then he wakes up panicked on the same day and lives through the same teen triangle referenced above -- with variations. Sometimes he tells Marley about his affair, sometimes not. Usually Soren remains in the closet but in one variation, he presents Soren to his smiling parents as his boyfriend of six months. Hovering over the teen soap is the dread that Tunde will once again by murdered by racist cops. Each time it happens differently, and each time it is a shock. The movie premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September of 2019, before Covid, before the mass demonstrations sparked by the George Floyd killing of May 25, 2020. (The proximity of the historical and "fictional" dates is eerie.) Since white cops killing Black youth is a thematic evergreen, that element of the movie is unfortunately always timely, but seeing Tunde choked to death in a long, agonizing medium shot hit w-a-a-y too close to home. This is the fatal flaw of the movie. The teen soap constituting its plot -- especially in its privileged setting -- is so trivial when set against the visceral horror of getting murdered by white cops over and over again. It's Groundhog Day with a Black Lives Matter overlay, but in this version what springs Tunde from this recurring nightmare is his realization that his Nordic god of a boyfriend has feet of clay. Is he a racist? Probably, but that's not the point. He's a coward who won't come out to his father! There are many other gestures towards Deeper Significance. Our teen players share a film class together during which Tunde quotes film critic Arlene Croce on The 400 Blows: “You are no longer looking at the film – the film is looking at you" -- this in front of the famous final shot of Antoine Doinel on the ocean's edge. And guess what? The opening shot of Tunde Johnson is a similarly framed close-up of the Nordic god on the beach. Our cinematic adolescent angst credentials have been established. But Tunde is particularly angst-ridden. He pops Xanax (a plot point that goes nowhere) and apparently tries to drown himself in the ocean--saved, however, by the Nordic god. "I'm Black and gay," Tunde tells his therapist (more white privilege), "and even those two hate each other." Now, even though that blares THESIS STATEMENT, it's an interesting line. Unfortunately, like the monologue that follows wherein he claims that only Soren sees who he really is, the ramifications get lost in the narrative and conceptual mess that passes for a hip, cutting-edge script. The film has its virtues. Georgeous cinematography, check. Excellent acting by its lead, Steven Silber, check. Inoffensive Hollywood soundtrack goosed by hiphop sampling, check. Is it lipstick on a pig? That's too harsh. And it depends on which movie you're talking about. If it's the one about how the systemic racism of American policing triggers the murder of Black citizens, The Hate U Give (2018) is far superior. If it's the one about the difficulty of being Black and queer in a white world, the competition isn't so stiff. (There are many films with Black queer characters where race doesn't seem that central to their identities.) And the film comes by its sophomorism honestly. The writer, Stanley Kalu, was literally a sophomore at USC when he wrote the script that was chosen as the Grand Prize winner of the Million Dollar Movie Competition. One can take issue with its failure to balance its thematic elements or its all-too-visible striving for depth, but I couldn't have produced anything comparable (and perhaps still not) at 19. It's an honorable entrant in the Black queer movie sweepstakes. And it clearly answers the question so beloved of those who don't inhabit intersectional identities: Is it harder to be queer or to be Black? Being queer can break your heart, but being Black can take your life. SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts

The breakout film of 2016, Moonlight, can be described in two words: instant history. For the first time, we see a film with African American and gay themes reach groundbreaking box office success -- and this with a budget of only 1.5 million, Moonlight performed exponentially well by raking in 55.8 million. In yet again instantly historic fashion, Moonlight was awarded three Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay and, the most coveted, Best Picture. Contrary to the well-publicized award ceremony snafu, Moonlight’s stellar ascension is no mistake. With it’s unconventional triptych story structure and un-American reliance on silence, Moonlight feels influenced by foreign films. Sitting in the stillness or tension of the moment, the audience is left to interpret the meaning in subtle facial expressions and words unspoken. The characters communicate in a non-verbal language composed of lip biting, finger licking and side eye. As a Black man, I found this to be very genuine. Culturally, we “speak” two languages, one overlaying the other, one vocal and the other silent, one public and the other received only by the initiated. Theresa perfectly demonstrates this point during the scene where Little asks innocently, “What’s a faggot?” As Juan struggles to find the words, Theresa silently guides the conversation along using nuanced frowns and rapid headshakes. Moonlight serves up everything from nightmares to wet dreams. Demonstrating the fullness of each character, we see the protagonist, Chiron, playing the changes from running for his life as a child to breaking a chair over someone’s head as a teenager to tenderly leaning on his first love as an adult. Moonlight subtly exposes the audience to a wide range of human contact: the same hand that rinses Chiron’s seed in beach sand repeatedly strikes Chiron to the ground. The circle of children seen playing show-and-tell with their privates are seen as teenagers kicking their former friend while he's down. It’s great to see a film that gives Black actors an opportunity to display such range. One of the qualities that makes Moonlight so poignant and powerful is the cast of multi-dimensional, dynamic Black characters. In America, where we have grown accustomed to flat stereotypes of minorities as props (street urchins or comic relief), it’s enlivening to see a story showcasing complicated and nuanced African Americans. Unfortunately, it is rare to see inner-city Blacks represented in such a compassionate and human light. Black’s hard, muscular exterior sheaths his softness, vulnerability and sensitivity. Juan, a local dealer, rides herd on the dope boys working in his community but also gently cradles Little, the young protagonist, in the deep blue ocean. Some people appreciate mystery; some do not. In my conversations with people about Moonlight, I’ve heard two different responses to the film: (1) “Moonlight is a game changer! I love it! Everyone should see it!“ (2) “I don’t see what all the fuss is about, there’s no ending.” What seems open-ended in films to some comes off as unfinished to others. (What happened to Theresa?) Moonlight’s final shot of Chiron and Kevin leaning tenderly on one another deprives us of the gratification of a happy ending or knowing what the ending is. We find ourselves aching to see more. But unless there is a sequel, we will never know whether Black was touched again. As the credits roll, we are forced to imagine for ourselves what’s next for Chiron and Kevin. This is a film that would be great by any measure, the blue-violet color palette, the superb acting, the rich characterizations, but the fact that it set its gaze upon the humanity of a Black, gay man in the projects -- instant history. SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts

As I entered the screening of the recently-completed documentary Major!, presented by Spectrum Queer Media and part of Oakland’s 2016 Black Queer Arts Fest, I could feel this night was going to be memorable. I myself got excited when the usher told me Miss Major was in the building. Although the crowd was comprised of folks with many different identities and from all walks of life, a sense of community pervaded the Piedmont Theater. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a Black transgender woman who has been fighting for the rights of trans people of color for the past 40 years. Major!’s stories are told not only by Miss Major herself but many other transgender women and men in the community. Annalise Ophelian, a queer-identified white (cis) female who works as a clinical psychologist, directed and produced Major! Ophelian owns Floating Ophelia Productions, a company that seeks to distribute and produce independent LGBT documentaries with a social justice theme.  The film features Miss Major and her work but it’s a larger story than that. It concerns the struggle of transgender men and women of color and introduces the organization that is run by Miss Major called TGI Justice Project. TGIJP’s mission is to challenge and end the human rights abuses against transgender, gender-variant and intersex (TGI) people in California prisons and beyond. The film incorporated many people from Miss Major’s life, including candid interviews from the mother of her child, her child, her current partner, and people that consider Miss Major a mother, father, and grandmother. In the film Major speaks about her mother and her mother’s reactions to Major’s changes in gender and sexuality, about being in the Stonewall riots, and about her time in jail. The film wouldn’t have been so touching and beautiful if Major hadn’t been so open about her life. She told her life story, a difficult one marked by struggle, with grace, acceptance and a sense of humor. During the Q and A after the film, Ophelian explained that she didn’t want the story to be told from her point of view because, as a white cis woman, she has a different identity and therefore belongs to a different community. She wanted the story to come from the trans community so involved Miss Major in every step of the production. This film took Ophelian 3 years to make. Her mission for the film was to bring Miss Major’s lessons and teachings beyond Miss Major’s circle. She explained Her film, she explained, isn’t the common narrative of sex work, difficult interpersonal relations and unhappy life stories that popular media has created for trans people.  Miss Major has an optimistic, beautiful outlook on life and although she has dealt with plenty of racism, homophobia, and ignorance, the film focuses more on the positive and the great work she does to make a difference in other’s lives. The film evokes emotion. It makes you feel happy, sad, confident and inspired. Miss Major possesses a wonderfully crass, classy, wise and sassy humor that is highlighted throughout the film. During the film Major had the whole crowd tearing up from laughter as well as heartbreak and awe. Her words are eloquent whether cracking a joke or discussing the injustices in her life and what goes on today. To me Miss Major is an inspiration. She dedicated her life to create a better future for everyone because as she says in the film, a world where trans people can feel accepted is a better world for everyone. As the credits began to roll everyone stood to give a much deserved standing ovation to THE Miss Major, a woman who works to inspire greater love. Major! is a testimony to not only the work that Miss Major has done for the community of trans people of color but a testimony to the resilient and brilliant lives within the community. SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts

August Wilson's early masterpiece " Ma Rainey's Black Bottom " debuted on Broadway in 1984. The play broke revolutionary ground by making a Black woman a main character. The play went beyond revolutionary by integrating the fact of Ma Rainey's bisexuality (revealed through the 1972 publication of Chris Albertson's biography of Bessie Smith ) into its portrayal. This is done matter-of-factly. Ma brings her girl-toy Dussie Mae into the studio as part of her entourage, and though their relationship is clear, there's nothing overt about it in the play. The movie, of course, ramps up the sexuality whenever possible. The other protagonist, Levee, also hits on Dussie Mae. In the 1984 play, he's only semi-successful, stealing a couple of kisses. In the 2020 movie he has full-on sex on the piano. Of course we can't have lesbian sex in a big-budget film aiming for wide release, but there are scenes of physical intimacy between Ma and Dussie Mae that portray the obvious. And yet Ma's bisexuality seems beside the point. The hammered-home thesis of "Ma Rainey" is that the white man screws Blacks over every which way to Sunday. Part of Ma's heroic stature derives from the way she imposes her will on the whites around her. It makes her a bitch diva, but doesn't she have to be in a world stacked against her? She's dark-skinned, female, fat, and homely. No wonder she seems pissed throughout. Yet the title of the play -- and the song which Ma composed -- belies that portrait. The song is funny and slightly lewd in a poker-room context. "All the boys in the neighborhood/They say your black bottom is really good/Come on and show me your black bottom/I wanna learn that dance." The real Ma Rainey was also funny and slightly lewd (check out her " Sissy Blues "), but not in August Wilson's world. Pride of place goes to his tormented men. The play may bear Ma Rainey's name, but it's the men of her band who get the big emotional arias. "What's the colored man gonna do with himself?" Toledo asks in his famous "leftovers" monologue. The "colored woman" doesn't even get the question. And none of Wilson's men in any of his plays have a homosexual bone in their bodies. Where does Ma's bisexuality fit into all of this? I can't figure it out. It's potentially central. The sexual rivalry over Dussie Mae contributes to the conflict between Ma and Levee, but more fire and dialogue is given to their clashing views on music and performance. Although Ma is a commanding figure, compelling to watch, the play is ultimately Levee's. It is his oppression -- by the white man, by his uncomprehending boss (a queer woman), by his own self-sabotaging character -- that we are asked to bleed for. And yet it is the hapless innocent Toledo that he kills. Ma Rainey has left the studio. She seems strangely marginal by then -- along with her lesbian tendencies. There will be lots of criticism and analysis of the movie. Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman will be nominated for Oscars; kudos will flood to all involved. But this I prophesize -- there will be little discussion, outside of a throwaway reference, to the complexities of Ma's sexuality. SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts

The 2017 edition of Frameline, the San Francisco LGBT film festival, screened a gorgeously restored copy of Issac Julien’s Black queer classic, Looking for Langston, released during the Stone Age of queer cinema – 1989. Hard to believe it is already a quarter of a century old. I had seen it many years ago, but in the greenness of my years, I had little taste for non-narrative films, and Looking for Langston was nothing if not experimental. Seeing it now with a greater understanding and (presumed) maturity, I can only add my voice to the mountains of accolades the film has already accrued--among them a Teddy award at the Berlin International Film Festival. Although the film is non-narrative, there is a thematic and visual cohesion that makes it enjoyably watchable througout its 40 minutes and suggestive enough to sketch possible story lines in my mind as I think about it later. Sumptuously shot in black and white, the film begins with a funeral, presumably Hughes’ though, as an in-joke, it is Julien who lies in the coffin, and a voice-over of Toni Morrison’s eulogy of James Baldwin. If we take the funeral to be in commemoration of, at its most generic, a Black queer artist, then the camera’s descent into a highly stylized gay Harlem nightclub where most of the action takes place can easily be read as symbolic or Freudian or deconstructionist . . . or any number of ways. The thing that strikes me about Looking for Langston is at what a high point Black queer filmmaking begins. Oftentimes – and I’ve seen this with other oppressed minorities finding their voice – the filmic beginnings are raw, amateurish, and focused on the difficulties of being (fill in the blank). Witness the movies of Oscar Micheaux, who never made a film that measured up to what Hollywood was producing during that same era. Similarly, as the first feature-length film featuring a gay Black man growing up in the ‘hood, Moonlight deserved its Hollywood coronation as Oscar’s 2017 Best Picture. So sometimes a fully fledged artists comes shooting out of the gate and needs no ancestors on whose shoulders (s)he can stand. But that’s a rarity and a quirk of history. When considering top-flight movies featuring Black queer characters, what else comes to mind?  Dee Rees’ Pariah (2011) is workmanlike and adequate but not a masterpiece. (Cheryl Dunye’s Watermelon Woman [1996] is much more interesting.) As somebody who is currently working on a documentary about queers in the Harlem Renaissance, I was particularly interested in the film’s visual and literary references – recognized much of the archival footage used (and which I plan to use myself) as well as the literary texts quoted.  In fact, the world that Julien creates in Looking for Langston is so compelling that there were external clips that threw me out of it. The footage of Hughes reading from Montage of a Dream Deferred to a jazz band in the background now seems corny, and the voice-over excerpts of Essex Hemphill’s sexually explicit poetry (“Now we think/as we fuck/this nut might kill us”) struck me as vulgar given the era’s sophisticated sheen. I can’t imagine anybody in Langston’s circle ever saying “fuck.”  I also didn’t realize, until doing further research, that the white character was “supposed” to represent Carl Van Vechten, that the handsome mustachioed lead was “supposed” to represent Langston himself, and that the hunky dark love interest was an imagined male lover named “Beauty.”  (See above photo.) Nor did it matter. Many people know that there used to be copyright disputes with the Hughes’ estate requiring that the sound be turned down or off during the two clips of Hughes’ reading from Montage. I believed, as did many, that was because the inheritors of the Hughes estate didn’t want to have his name explicitly associated with queer themes, but, as Wikipedia points out, the estate allowed Hughes’ poetry to be included in many anthologies of queer poetry. So it seems that the original difficulties, now ironed out, weren’t due to denial or homophobia on the part of the protectors of Hughes’ reputation but stemmed rather – and predictably--from the usual greed of the rights holders. SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts

Modern African nations are largely creations of Western imperialism. Once the colonial powers and their administrative authority evaporate, these societies frequently experience wrenching transitions. Without a properly regulated society, there is nothing to curb the values being implemented by the newest wave of extremism. Thus, Uganda is subject to mob justice and various other manifestations of extreme faith. Some of the most disturbing scenes in God Loves Uganda are of young missionaries praying with destitute mothers and their feeble children in remote villages, promising them God’s glory and grace. Unlike these American youths (who are likely acting on good intentions), poor Ugandans do not have the choice to ‘reinvent’ themselves, reestablish their religious identity, and can’t lean on an effective social or governmental system to provide them with their basic needs. It becomes increasingly difficult for the religious poor to distance themselves from an irrational dependence on evangelicalism to solve their problems and “absolve them of their sins.” This paves the way for a violent demonization of the homosexuals already condemned by Western evangelicals. In God Loves Uganda , Kato’s murder is no longer a stand-alone event. Images of presumed homosexuals being jumped in the street and discussions of gay lynchings draw attention to the increasingly regressive effects of devout Christianity in Uganda. Uganda was the first African nation to feature a barbarous dictator, Idi Amin. Although Amin was patently a buffoon and a murderer (100,000 to 500,000 people murdered under his regime), the very fact that he was able to remain in power for eight years, including a stint as the head of the Organizations of African Unity, demonstrates the weakness of the Western democracy Britain tried to leave as its legacy. Other forms of Western influence (Christianity, small-time capitalism), however, struck much deeper roots as evidenced by impassioned street preachers and the ‘hustle and grind’ mentality of Ugandan salesmen. Today, whichever Western values are backed by money and well-honed rhetoric easily penetrate Ugandan society. Unfortunately, the only influences attempting to reach Ugandans in this capacity are religious forces, while more useful and important aspects of Western democracy are denied the public by economic sanctions and ideological factors. Prior to the passage of Uganda’s anti-gay law, another Christian-based policy undermined development in the nation; the George W. Bush administration’s push for abstinence-based programs led to a rebound in AIDS rates in a nation that had previously been a model in the fight against the disease. Both Call Me Kuchu and God Loves Uganda explore themes of extremism, perception, and morality. While the former features scenes of Kato and his friends performing gender-bending drag shows, the latter depicts International House of Prayer devotees flailing and wailing in alarming mass prayer services. As third party viewers, we begin to wonder how extremism is defined, how context and cultural perception determine our perspective of each film. Western-style homosexuality is a modern phenomenon, unknown in traditional African societies. There are other, age-old forms of homo-social attraction and activity, but nothing approaching a unified identity. With greater visibility in the West came greater reaction, particularly from the Christian right, engaged in culture wars against abortion, homosexuality, and liberalism. The movement’s clear losses in the United States have prompted its leaders to look to other nations. “The West has been in a decline,” Engle explains, “But right now I think that Africa is the firepot of spiritual renewal and revival.” While America has developed a resistance to this bigoted faith, Uganda is a prime target. With the youngest population in the world, indoctrination begins early on. While evangelicals warn Ugandans against homosexuals and their ‘recruitment’ and brain-washing’ processes, scenes of faith leaders and missionaries literally whispering the word of God into Ugandan children’s ears during prayer are profoundly unsettling. This religious brainwashing creates a receptive audience for outrageous lies (homosexuals created Nazism) and distorted propaganda (presenting some extreme practices, such as coprophilia, as typical). All the while, Evangelical devotees engage in their own irrational and extreme behavior: speaking in tongues, practicing exorcisms, and preaching hate and violence against gays. Gay pride parades, effeminate dress, and other markers of Western homosexuality may be commonplace in the US, but films of two men kissing, drag queens, and discussion of sex practices among gays (used by Western-trained Reverend Ssempa) are shocking to most Africans. The liberal and culturally specific identity of homosexuals in the West is alien to citizens of underdeveloped nations, in which individual freedoms and personal identity have been suppressed for decades. Perhaps the degree to which gayness is perceived as ‘extreme’ in Uganda is indicative of an underlying truth: that some African nations are so behind in social evolution and the realization of freedoms that Western homosexuality is thought of as frightening. As we in the West now know, homosexuality is not the product of indoctrination and recruitment, or individual choice but rather, genetically determined. The irony of fundamentalist claims regarding homosexuality is that they bastardize what is natural and unalterable, describing Christian fundamentalism as transmissible as DNA (an actual claim made by Reverend JoAnna Watson in the film). The degree to which notions of extremism and what is morally acceptable continue to be warped in Uganda is truly worrying. With prominent oppositional leaders being killed off (Kato), excommunicated (Christopher Senyonjo), and fleeing the country (Kapya Kaoma), hope for Uganda seems slim. However, both Call Me Kuchu and God Loves Uganda have prompted serious discussion regarding the damaging effects of exported Evangelism on Ugandan society. However, in spite of international condemnation, Ugandan President Museveni signed the infamous kill-the-gays bill into law on February 23, 2015. It will take further exposés, prolonged debate, and more honest and well-intended Western exports to re-educate and reform the ills of this nation and to free its repressed gay population. SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts

We were talking about Christmas, about the Christmas tree, and we never called it a Chanukah bush.  I must have heard that somewhere else.  We decorated it with bulbs and tinsel, and it stood beautifully in the corner with the fireplace flames reflected in the colored balls.  The cats would play with the ornaments, and there was the inevitable Christmas when one of them pulled the whole tree over.  My mother baked cookies to put in the playroom for Santa, and I wondered how he came down the chimney without getting sooty.     The mounted moose head above the piano wore false eyelashes and dangled a cigarette from its lips. And when some innocent visitor asked where the rest of the moose was, expecting no doubt to hear that it was packed in the freezer, my father replied, “It’s hanging out the back.”  And at Christmas we decorated his antlers with bulbs and tinsel.   But it wasn’t all Christmas, and after all, the tree was thrown by the woodpile after it had turned brown and its needles were falling to the floor.  The crickets sang outside my window every night, and sometimes I would run to the garage and piss in the bushes, shivering from the cold and knowing I would soon be under the covers again.  We were talking about Christmas, and every year we'd get Slinkies and every year we'd stretch or tangle them, but toys were made to be broken, and nobody much cared.  Only the wagon stayed relatively intact, rusting every year into further dissolution, but red, after its fashion, and four-wheeled, the essence of a wagon.        I'm not going to say we were talking about Christmas again, because it was all Christmas, even though my mother tried lighting Chanukah candles for a few years.  It never took. My sister killed the elm tree in the backyard lawn by hosing soapy water from the horse's washing into its pit. And I accidentally knocked a croquet ball into my brother’s aquarium after he had washed it and left it out to dry.  (And when I was seventeen, I tried to keep track of how many times I heard "White Christmas" between Thanksgiving and New Year's, losing count after thirty-six.)  I suppose we were different – my parents certainly thought so. I was not popular in school, but the difference didn’t explain why my brother played so well in Little League.  My childhood idol, Steve Lewis, organized our games of sandlot football before his father built a house on the playing field.  Steve was blond and big and athletic and tolerated my company, and it was only later that his father became a member of the John Birch Society. Maybe that’s why he stopped playing with me.    And we weren't talking about Christmas so much anymore because we had grown up some and the aerospace depression had hit, and there were better things to spend the money on.  But we still had a tree, and some of the neighbors hung colored lights from the roof eaves, and Hastings Ranch, just across the canyon, put on such a big seasonal display that tour buses started coming through. Each street would have a series of the same cut-outs in front of each house: angels in blue dresses holding gold books, four-foot candy canes tilted at a similar angle, giant Christmas cards with season’s greetings displayed in different languages. Individual houses boasted their own displays: Santa's helpers skating on mechanized wheels, an automatic slide show of the Nativity, sleighs and snowbells on irrigated lawns, a world of lights and cardboard wishing you a Merry Christmas.  (I laughed so hard at the six-foot figure of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer holding a champagne glass and hiccupping "Bingle Jells.")  And, yes, we caroled along with others in the neighborhood.  “O come O come, Emmanuel/To free your captive Israel.”   Blood. By blood. By tradition and blood. By memories, tradition and blood. What memories? What tradition? We were talking about Christmas; we weren't talking about the paschal lamb.  We were talking turkey if we were talking anything, and the calendar cut-outs at elementary school were pumpkins for the month of October and holly wreaths in December. We were talking about Christmas, though some were talking about Auschwitz, and the rain made the roof slick so that it was dangerous to climb and adjust the antenna, but nobody ever fell, and the mudslides from the mountains never hit us, though there was always a chance that they might.     -Robert Philipson  Read about the professorial foray that prompted this autobiographical essay, Chanukah vs. Christmas – The Underdog Loses SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts

Dear White People (2014) is one of the smartest and funniest satires on screwed-up American Black/white relations ever. I can't think of another move that comes close to its range and wit on this particular subject. (Movies focusing on race relations usually take themselves very seriously.) Writer/director Justin Simien produces crackling dialogue, and his principal characters are as articulate as those of George Bernard Shaw. Best of all, Simien himself is gay. “I definitely got a subversive thrill out of, you know, sticking a gay character in the middle of a black movie that does aim for the mainstream,” he told a group of Harvard students gathered for a conference on non-white matriculates. The character, Lionel Higgins, a sci-fi nerd with an Afro the size of a 1950s beehive hairdo, seems as uninterested in his Black identity as his gay one. In a conversation with Lionel, the school’s Black dean admits, “Sure, sometimes our folks can be intolerant around people like you. Homo . . .” “I don’t believe in labels,” Lionel cuts in. But that doesn’t stop others from bullying him because of his sexual orientation. Students at the Ivy League stand-in of Winchester College are divided between several residence halls. Most of the Black students choose to self-segregate in the Armstrong Parker house, but Lionel has been placed in another house led by Kurt Fletcher, the bratty entitled son of the white university president. Kurt doesn’t slam Lionel for being Black, but his homosexuality is fair game. In a prank message put on Lionel’s answering machine, Kurt’s voice lisps, "Hey boyss, you've reached Lionel Higginss, the only bitch on campusss who'll give you a dicksscount. That's right, the bigger the dick, the less you'll have to pay me to sssuck it." Lionel is not the only gay character in the film.  George, the white editor of the main campus paper who recruits him to “go undercover” and write about the Armstrong Parker House, locks lips with him during the course of the movie. (In the Charlotte, NC theater where I was watching Dear White People last month, the predominantly Black audience groaned at this gay kiss.)  However, it becomes clear that George has fetishized Lionel for his Blackness, so even the possibility of gay love is foreclosed by the all-pervasive racism of campus life. Looking through the script, I saw that there was a shot of out and proud students at the university, but I have no memory of it. Otherwise there’s no sense of an LGBT community on campus. It’s not fair to ask a 90-minute movie to take on all issues it brings up—and race clearly holds center stage—but Lionel’s sexual orientation seems to be only another marker of his outsider nature. By the end of the film, once he’s embraced his Black identity, he’s shown, shorn of his ridiculous Afro, smiling and exchanging high fives with other residents of Armstrong Parker House. Interestingly, however, the violence of racial confrontation climaxes in a transgressive same-sex kiss about which next to nothing has been written. Kurt is editor of a Harvard Lampoon style paper that hosts a famous Halloween party every year. This year’s party features a Black theme that encourages attendees to “unleash their inner Negro.” Sickened by what he sees, Lionel smashes the DJ stand, provoking a confrontation that escalates into pushing and shoving. Kurt hustles Lionel out of the house, throws him to the ground and demandswhile sitting on top of him,“Why do you have to be such a fucking fag?” (And what does that have to do with Lionel’s objection to the racism of the party’s premise.) At this point, Lionel fully embraces his Blackness but uses “being a fag” as the ultimate weapon of aggression. ”Well,” Lionel replies, “you finally got me where you want me.” At which point, he raises his torso and plants a violent kiss on Kurt’s lips. This provokes not only a full-scale assault on Lionel but a student riot that requires the intervention of the police and commands the attention of national news outlets. There’s a lot going on here, but what’s not going on is any contextualization of Lionel’s gayness or of the radical nature of his “attack.” (Though he’s not the first movie character to use a same-sex kiss as a form of violence.) Nor has there been much commentary—and no analysis—on the few gay elements present in the film. Of course, when football players at Morehouse College created a loud outburst during the first gay kiss of an on-campus screening, that made it into the media but it’s hardly news that football players, Black or white, are homophobic. Simien himself makes it clear that the film’s focus is on race, which perhaps reflects the more pressing aspect of his dual-minority identity. “In Hollywood I experienced racism more than homophobia,” Simien declared in a BET interview . But then, outside of Todd Haynes and Gus Van Sant, how many openly gay American directors can you name working in mainstream cinema? Simien is a young director and, God willing, has many more films in him. Perhaps in the future we’ll see a deeper consideration of gayness from his screenwriter’s pen. Or perhaps race will continue to trump sexual orientation because race can never be invisible, and bigotry goes for the low-hanging fruit (pun intended). In the meantime, let’s take nothing away from the achievement of Dear White People . Turning an openly gay character into a “race man,” to use the label of an earlier era, is perhaps a unique act in American cinema – and hopefully a promising start. SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts

“Check It” is the name of a movie, but it was first the name of a street gang of gay and trans kids of color in Washington, DC. After starting off with a few people in 2009, the group has grown to over 200 members and has squelched many homophobic attacks by fighting violence with violence. These kids do not turn the other cheek. And those cheeks might well have rouge on them because ALL of the kids in the documentary are femme. This is an interesting fact that nobody commented on either in the film or at the San Francisco Frameline screening where I saw it on June 19. If you’re masculine and engaged in same-sex activities, you can do it on the down-low and present yourself as straight in the hyper-masculine and homophobic culture of thug life. If you’re femme in the inner city, you’re a target. These kids can’t present as masculine, so they revel in the snap-queen personae that we’re so so familiar with. While mainstream gay culture – white by definition – has successfully relegated effeminacy to the margins, Black gay and trans folks still make it a hallmark of identity and don’t try to run from it. The case of Skittles (pictured above), a talented amateur boxer who is nonetheless effeminate, makes for a fascinating footage. Unfortunately, he can’t follow through on his natural talent, whether due to character flaws or the challenge of his inner city environment is never ascertained. Other Check It members profiled in the documentary follow more satisfactory arcs, including Tray Tray whose interest in fashion and design is realized when a social worker hooks up interested gang members with a summer fashion camp. We also meet Alton, a trans woman who has been taking care of herself and her friends since she fled home at 14. And, sadly, we spend time with various cross-dressing boys working the prostitution corridor on K Street. Directors Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer are to be congratulated for compiling so much footage (4 years’ worth, we learned in the Q&A afterwards) on this unlikely cross of gang life and snap queendom. Unfortunately the doc is so poorly structured that much of the time I didn’t know who I was looking at or how they fit into the overall picture. These faults were exacerbated by occasionally muddy sound and speech patterns that were slangy and quickly delivered. Subtitles would be an easy fix for that. According to the documentarians and the three young men from the movie who were present at the Q&A, Check It has evolved from its gang roots toward more legitimate enterprises, such as clothing manufacture, design and sales. Bravo for the few who have successfully leveraged themselves through the intervention of social workers and the documentary itself out of a dead-end ghetto existence. For many of the others, however, the basic challenges of growing up Black and poor in the inner city have not changed: poor schools, absent fathers, drug-addicted family members, violence in the home and on the streets. Effeminacy can only compound these difficulties by adding familial rejection and homophobic attacks to the list. But in Washington, DC, at least, these kids have a group to call their own. I just wish they had had better documentarians to tell their stories. SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts

One of the most unsettling features of “Kuchu” are interviews with Giles Muhame, the smirking 22 year-old editor of  Uganda’s Rolling Stone Tabloid. Muhame and his team made it their mission to print libelous stories outing hundreds of gays in Uganda and accusing them of various crimes. The most notable headline, "100 Pictures of Uganda's Top Homos Leak," listed the names, addresses, and photographs of alleged Ugandan homosexuals alongside a yellow banner that read "Hang Them." The tabloid produced several other erroneous articles, one in particular accusing “Homo Generals” of executing a terrorist attack, which have increased significantly in Uganda in the last decade. Before being condemned by the international community and subsequently removed from circulation, Rolling Stone exemplified exactly the kind of ignorance and credulity that still plagues the Ugandan public in regard to social and political issues. Despite threats by Western nations to leverage sanctions against the country, the Anti-Homosexuality bill became law on February 24th, 2014 criminalizing homosexuality with life sentences and punishing efforts to raise or discuss gay issues. There has since been talk of revisions to this bill, some of which aim to decriminalize relations between consenting partners, but lawmakers hope to strengthen other areas of the law. The sickening official statements on the part of Ugandan legislators describe the revised bill as a Christmas present to the people of Uganda. In the face of so much internal opposition, the sympathetic perspective of Call Me Kuchu offers some hope to the LGBTQI population of Uganda. Its stunning cinematography and heartfelt sentiments provide an international platform for its foremost activists. The skillful storytelling and resilient, lighthearted spirit of the individuals depicted in the film inspire continued global dialogue. While many viewed the murdered activist, David Kato, as decidedly un-Ugandan, the film immortalizes his reformist spirit. His bold individualism and courage struck me as the mark of a true leader.  On a larger scale, the film brings to light issues of poverty, fear, religion, and humanity which simply cannot be ignored until tangible progress is made. As a witness to Uganda’s beauty and the kindness of its people, I still believe that it is possible for the LGBTQI community to find peace in its home country. At their core, Ugandans are truly loving and community-oriented. Unfortunately, as is the case in many underdeveloped nations, conservative faith (be it Islam or Christianity) has dug its roots into the heart of this society in transition and remains the only constant to which this largely impoverished population clings. It could be that gay rights cannot be implemented before the nation is both politically and economically sound, and at its current rate of growth and reform, this may take several decades. However, as long as brotherly love, acceptance, and sheer tenacity of spirit continue to manifest themselves in such influential figures as Kato and sympathetic Bishop, Christopher Senyonjo, Uganda may face change much sooner than expected. SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts

In 2004 a first-time filmmaker, Rodney Evans, edited and produced a narrative film, Brother to Brother , that encompassed an extended and serious portrayal of the queer Harlem Renaissance. A graduate of California Institute of the Arts in film production in 1996, Evans had to blast through the usual challenges of bringing a first independent feature to the big screen, including losing one of his main actors and thereby having to reshoot because the production had to stop for such long periods of time while Evans raised more money. But when it appeared in 2004, it accrued a slew of accolades, including a Special Jury Prize for Dramatic Competition at Sundance. It also aired on PBS’s Independent Lens, unusual for a narrative film. What recommended it to the program that exclusively features documentaries was its meticulous research and portrayal of the queer Harlem Renaissance, subject matter that was then only known to academics and specialists. Having read long and deeply into the Harlem Renaissance, I was impressed by the range and accuracy of Evans’ portrayal. (He also wrote the screenplay.) Though remembered through the eyes of an aging Richard Bruce Nugent, the most openly queer member of literary Young Turks challenging the art-for-racial-uplift agenda of the old guard, Evans brings to light how much and how relatively open same-sex activities were in Harlem’s working class and Bohemian wing. Both Nugent and fellow writer Wallace Thurman are depicted as far more “out there” than the repressive nature of the times would have permitted (besides which, Wallace never admitted to being gay), but such poetic license is understandable in a fiction film. The astonishing thing is that, 14 years and much more historical excavation later, Brother to Brother is still the only filmic representation of the queer Harlem Renaissance. (New York’s Black queer ballroom culture, by contrast, has spawned two documentaries, several fiction films, and a hot new TV series.) But allow me to allay a possible misunderstanding for those who are not familiar with the film. The historical segments of Brother to Brother (cleverly filmed in black and white) are part of a larger plot in which a young Black gay artist finds inspiration and support when he befriends an aging Nugent at a homeless shelter where he works. The young artist, Perry, is hit with all of the problems faced by a Black queer teenager: thrown out of his home by a homophobic father, lonely, attacked as a fag in his Black studies class, objectified as Black sex object by his white would-be boyfriend. Perry’s got plenty to be unhappy about. But when meets Nugent, the older artist takes him on a journey through the past of the queer Harlem Renaissance from which he, presumably, finds spiritual sustenance. (We’re not shown how.) Although there’s a wash of sentimentality in the film’s (and Nugent’s) ending, Brother to Brother depicts a genuine (non-sexual) relationship of growing affection and mentorship between an older and considerably younger Black gay man. That’s rare to see on screen. One of the great virtues of Brother to Brother , when looked at through the lens of Black queer portrayals, is how vivid and individualistic its characters are. (No lesbians, of course.) Nugent and Thurman were remarkable, multifaceted men. They could not be flattened to stereotypes. (Outside the frame of the film, Thurman was in fact self-hating on a number of levels -- in the closet, too Black, acutely aware that his writing talent didn’t match his ambition—and drank himself to an early death at the age of 32.) The closest we have to a stereotype is the young Perry who suffers the generic miseries enumerated above, but Anthony Mackie’s acting gives him individuality. How good is Brother to Brother as a movie? Pretty good. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an aggregate critics’ rating of 77%. It’s not the masterpiece that is Isaac Julien’s Looking  for Langston , but it’s a real testament to the ambition and determination of a newly-minted Black queer filmmaker. For that alone he earns our respect. And he has blazed a path the others still have not gone down. SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts

This coming Saturday, HBO will air a biopic of Bessie Smith, one of the highest paid Black singers of the 1920s and a foundational voice (she still sounds fabulous) in the development of the blues. Directed by Black lesbian director Dee Rees ( Pariah , 2011) and starring the rumored-to-closeted Queen Latifah, Bessie brings images of Black lesbianism to a large mainstream audience for the first time in U.S. movie history. For this alone the HBO-backed film would be notable. The wonderful repertoire of songs reintroduced to the American public, however truncated in the film itself, will hopefully spur a renewal of interest in a musical legacy that cries out for rediscovery. Last Tuesday, an enthusiastic audience gathered at Oakland’s historic (if somewhat groddy) Grand Lake Theater for the Bay Area premiere of Bessie that Dee Rees attended. It was somewhat of a homecoming for her as Rees had interned at Frameline, a co-presenter who has been a big supporter of her career. Based initially on Chris Albertson’s meticulously researched biography, Bessie , in which he reveals the bisexuality of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey with eyewitness accounts, the project had been kicking around Hollywood for 20 years when Dee Rees came on board two years ago and rewrote the movie that was actually shot. The script itself is strictly middlebrow, predictable in its three-act structure. Young naïve Bessie rises to the top of her profession, overextends with success and spirals quickly to the bottom from which she rises again triumphant. How many times have we seen that before? Although the script uses the large outlines of Bessie Smith’s biography to trace this time-honored arc, the characters who are slotted to fill the necessary roles (Ma Rainey as the good mother, Richard as the faithful lover with whom she ends up) are either fanciful creations or severely wrenched from the roles they actually played in Bessie’s life. The prime example of this is the extended relationship depicted between Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Rees lays the lesbianism on thick in the beginning of the film as Bessie becomes Ma Rainey’s protégé in both love and show business.  In point of historical fact, there’s little evidence that there was much of a relationship between the two women other than the fact they worked in the same traveling show together for a season. This takes nothing away from the pleasure we get as viewers seeing Queen Latifah and Mo’nique, who plays Ma Rainey to an authoritative turn, engage in a supportive, sometimes competitive woman-to-woman relationship that strikes at the heart of the movie’s sensibilities. (The husband Jack Gee, intensely played by Michael Kenneth Williams actually transcends his slotted role but the invented bootlegger/faithful boyfriend is entirely one-dimensional.) And this will be the nature of Bessie ’s achievement. Middlebrow art, precisely because it appeals to a wide sensibility, can bring “new” images of positivity to minds and hearts that are surprised into empathy with “the other” (in this case Black lesbians).  Will and Grace advanced the acceptance of gays and lesbians much more than Angels in America . And make no mistake. Dee Rees is a superb director. The movie is a visual delight (although everything, in usual Hollywood fashion, is art-directed down to the last spangle), visually fluid and gorgeous to look at. I suspect she’s a much better director than writer ( Pariah certainly broke no new ground either in themes or in originality of dialog). Much of the acting is also first-rate. The one-dimensionality of many of the characters—and there are a lot of them—and the frequent descent into cliché take nothing away from the film’s overall entertainment value and the places where it really rises above its pedigree, namely the glimpses it gives into the power and pleasure of the early blues. Of course, as the director of a documentary that explored the bisexuality of both Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith (“ T’Ain’t Nobody’ Bizness ”), I might be overly severe about Bessie ’s deviations from the historical record. Hollywood biopics are always much less impressive than the achievement of the characters they claim to portray. And life is always messier than art. Mainstream narrative film has enshrined the three-act structure: rise, then fall, then rise again. Bessie adheres to the time-honored conventions, perhaps to its detriment as Art, but the cultural work that it does is invaluable. And any movie that allows Queen Latifah to strut her stuff, both musically and in terms of acting, should be celebrated. SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts