As part of National Coming Out Day in October SOUL, SUNY Brockport's GSA, screened the film Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride. One its members, Em Scrivani has offered to share her feelings about the film below. She is a Women and Gender Studies Major at the SUNY College at SUNY Brockport. She is the treasurer of Brockport’s GSA SOUL (Sexual Orientations United for Liberation) and works part- time in The College at Brockport Women’s Center.
Here at the State University of New York College at Brockport, we celebrated National Coming Out Day by hosting a screening of Bob Christie’s acclaimed documentary Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride. Thanks to a grant written by Melissa Kelsey, a double major in Women and Gender Studies and Health Science at SUNY Brockport, the director himself was at the screening, and he opened the floor for questions afterward.
I thought the film was excellent, and the director was very approachable and open. He mentioned during the question and answer session that he knew that the film was coming from the gaze of white middle class privileged males, and I really respected that he acknowledged that in front of the entire audience.
There was one aspect of the film that I was a bit critical of, a “freedom meter” that measured how many rights LGBT people have in different parts of the world. I thought that it placed emphasis on how the West, such as the US and Canada, is more lenient with LGBT rights than other parts of the world such as Eastern Europe and Southern Asia.
Overall, I thought the film was really well done and easy to follow. Bob Christie had mentioned that he had made the film for a more broad audience than the LGBT community. I myself really enjoy watching documentaries, and this was one of the best I have seen.
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