Pride Month Movies

I feel like it ended up being a very good selection. That was mainly luck, though it is the luck that you get from putting yourself out there. 

Two of them came up when I was searching on George Takei; he narrates Who's On Top and appears in Do I Sound Gay?. The other two were in my Netflix suggestions, I think because of watching Rustin and a Hannah Gadsby special.

I am writing about these in the order in which I viewed them, not in the order they were released. 

Disclosure (2020)

This is about the portrayal of transgender people by Hollywood. 

One of the most illuminating parts was going over the reveal in The Crying Game (1992). The person finding out vomits, and then all of these other films coming after doing that too. They are mainly comic films, like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, but still, it enforces that this is the standard reaction.

That is dehumanizing, but the film is great for showing many of the humans that it hurts.

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017) 

I have not found much in the way of books on Johnson, which had been part of my plans. This documentary was a good start, giving more about her life and death, just as it describes.

One of the most emotional parts is a former roommate wondering if his actions put her in more danger. 

I knew there were questions about her death, and this does a good job of laying them out.

Do I Sound Gay (2014)

Filmmaker David Thorpe starts getting very bothered by his vocal inflections; hence the title question. (It is worth noting that this happened just after a breakup, and thinking of getting back into dating may have increased insecurity.) Thorpe works with a speech coach, as well as talking to friends and actors about "sounding" gay.

I found it interesting that apparently a big part of sounding gay was ending sentences upward, as if asking a question. One of the exercises for not doing that was a phrase with a specific cadence: "I am right. I am always right." Now that's a phrase that encourages finality.

It made me wonder if part of it was a lack of confidence, and a way of being deferential to be more acceptable. If that's the case, maybe it is something to work on, but if changing the speech patterns is pursued due to self-loathing, then maybe a therapy other than speech would be better?

(Now I am doing it, but I watched a 77-minute documentary. I should not be that confident making assessments.)

Who's On Top?  (2020)

As indicated earlier, this came up on a library search for George Takei, and I impulsively requested it. I had no idea it was set locally, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Yes, the title sounds like a double entendre. The documentary is about a group of four LGBT people (and it is literally one Lesbian, one Gay man, one Bisexual woman, and one Transgender woman) preparing to climb Mt. Hood together.

I really felt for each of the individuals, learning more about them and what being "on top" would mean for them. Seeing Portland and familiar locales was great. It was even cool recognizing all of the newscasters in the clips of stories of deaths, injuries, and search and rescue efforts on Mt. Hood. 

I may have heard before, but it did not really register, that Mt. Hood is the second-most climbed mountain, with only Mt. Fuji having more annual climbers.

I cannot stress enough how little I am interested in mountain climbing. There are so many other activities you can do with less danger, that don't require going to special low-oxygen rooms to condition and starting at midnight so the sunlight doesn't melt your path. I mean, Touching the Void was pretty horrific, but they were experienced climbers so the movie focused on the unusual things that went wrong. 

These are mostly beginners, so there is more time spent on that process of just getting to where you can reasonably expect to safely make the top. It's not that I was really thinking about it before, but knowing more now, uh-uh.

That wasn't the point of the movie, but understanding it was part of getting to know the climbers. 

The movie was great. It was also the one I watched most recently, and it appears I still have some emotions about it.