The Stonewall Movie
Aug. 7th, 2015 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI don't pay any attention to movies, so I didn't know there was one coming out about the Stonewall riot until I saw some responses to it from friends. Those responses make me unhappy enough with what I hear about it to want to share this write up with you. It describes the movie as a rewriting of history, eliding the roles played by African-Americans and drag queens in favor of a White guy who presents as male.
http://planettransgender.com/stonewall-movie-erases-black-trans-women-and-drag-queens-from-history/
It's far from the first time that a supposedly historical movie has failed to match actual history. Backstory, a history show on NPR, deconstructed Selma in a similar way recently, pointing out that the movie's portrayal of Lyndon Johnson was blatantly wrong. (It's ironic, then, that this write-up mentions Selma specifically as an instance of a historical movie doing things right....)
Sometimes history is changed to convey a particular message, or to be more accessible to a wide audience. That isn't going to stop. I think sometimes it's even a useful thing. But please don't take this kind of thing at face value. There's almost always more to the story.
http://planettransgender.com/stonewall-movie-erases-black-trans-women-and-drag-queens-from-history/
It's far from the first time that a supposedly historical movie has failed to match actual history. Backstory, a history show on NPR, deconstructed Selma in a similar way recently, pointing out that the movie's portrayal of Lyndon Johnson was blatantly wrong. (It's ironic, then, that this write-up mentions Selma specifically as an instance of a historical movie doing things right....)
Sometimes history is changed to convey a particular message, or to be more accessible to a wide audience. That isn't going to stop. I think sometimes it's even a useful thing. But please don't take this kind of thing at face value. There's almost always more to the story.
