Page 20

HIGH GEAR/APRIL 1978

SPREAD THE WORD: SEE WORD IS OUT

By Mitchell Menegu

Recently opened in New York is a film worth traveling to see. Word Is Out, a documentary presenting interviews with twenty-six gay menand lesbians, so vividly conveys the variety and vitality of homosexual experience in so positive a way that we should hope that it gets wide distribution. Although it carries no rating designation, it could easily pass as a PG film because, except for a few widely used obscenities, it is about people and not about sex. It is about feelings and not about biological mechanics. It avoids sensationalism, but it is a sensationally effective film that should be a candidate for the 1979 Oscar for best documentary film.

The film was made by the Mariposa Film Group, a collective, who interviewed their subjects perceptively and organized the material effectively. Cuts from the interviews are gathered into three sections: "The Early Years," "Growing Up," and "From Now On." This format enables the film makers to present the problems that man, gay people face in coming to terms with the conflict between their own sexual preferences and what society demands of them and to conclude with a positive presentation of the healthy adjustments that are possible.

Every viewer will have his own favorites among the interviewees, but all are given suffident scope so that by the end of the film I found myself at least respecting the humanity even of two or three people whom I at first wanted to reject as representatives of gay life (most notably an actor who kept saying, "I'm weird." (For me the most memorable are the beautiful woman, about seventy years-old, a writer of great personal dignity, who speaks about coming to terms with and, in fact, growing because of a sense of loneliness; another woman, a member of the Women's Army Corps at the end of World War il, who was discharged as undesirable along with many others during a purge at about the same time as the McCarthy era and who speaks with irresistable animation and humor about her experiences and with nostalgia for a past in which clear definition of roles within lesbian relationships made life simpler; the young man, perhaps twenty-one yearsold, braces still on his teeth, beautiful in his openness, who relates his discovery within himself of an ability to love that established for him his reality as a person as a result of his love (involving no sexual activity: for another man; and finally, the two gay men in their late sixties who met and decided to join their lives when they were in their late forties and who, one of them says, discovered after the age of fifty depths of passion that they

had not even imagined when was such a time) who called they were younger.

There is much rollicking humor in the film. My favorite moment is the former WAC's description of the tiny butch lesbian who had to have all her drag, including suspenders, custom-made. It is sometimes sad to the point of evoking anger, especially when one man and one woman tell of their being treated by their families and physicians as mental cases when they revealed their homosexuality. Often it is poignant, sometimes when one least expects it, such as the incident in which one man chokes up with tears as he tells about an entertainner in a bar he frequented years ago when there were only a few gay bars in San Francisco (I guess there

forth feelings of gay solidarity by leading the crowd in singing. "God save us nellie queens."

The film makers avoid the inherent dangers of sameness in film interviews by thoughtful editing that makes use of contrasts and emphasis through similarities. There are also a few brief sequences that are not direct interviews, including a group of lesbians cutting down a large, dead tree that threatens the roof of the cottage in which one of them lives, the two older gay men gathering berries, and a charming and articulate young black athlete romping playfully and lovingly with his lover.

Several major points are made through the series of interviews. One is the common experience of young gay people's feeling that they are alone. One service

this film can provide if it gets the distribution that it merits is informing today's young gays that what they are experiencing is not unique. Another interesting point in the film is the effect of society's pressure to conform; several of the people interviewed had been married and some even had children, and, although none seemed to reject what was positive in those experiences, all seemed to regret the pain they had and their former spouses suffered as a result of their yeilding to the life pattern most of society idealizes. On the basis of their experiences, one can argue against the Anita Bryant idea that heterosexuality is a matter of individual will. Finally, although not all of the people interviewed had fully resolved all the conflicts resulting from their

gayness, most had, and their position testifies to the benefits for the individual and for society as a whole in gay people's acceptance of themselves.

The Mariposa Film Group deserves the gratitude of all gays for the effort that they made in filming Word Is Out. This is the document we have needed and waited for. This is a film for gays to see to broaden their own perspectives and to raise their own consciousnesses about the variety of gay experience. It is certainly a iiim for the straight world to see to undercut their stereotyping ideas about gays. If none of the commercial theaters in our area undertakes to show the film, we should certainly urge college film societies to sponsor it. Word Is Out can make a difference.

PARTYING AT THE TROUBADOUR

APRIL 8, 1978

TROUBADOUR'S THIRD ANNIVERSARY