taking stock
by Douglas Messerli
Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. (director, with
Frederick Schminke, Pat Rocco, Grant Smith, and Bill Moritz) Gay USA /
1977
Anita
Jane Bryant was born in Oklahoma in 1940 and began singing on stage at the age
of six, performing occasionally on radio and television. In 1958 she was the
winner of the Miss Oklahoma contest and was runner-up in the 1959 Miss American
pageant at age 18 soon after graduating from Tulsa’s Will Rogers High School.
Throughout the 1950s Bryant had a total of 11 songs on the US “Hot 100,”
three of them, “Paper Roses,” “In My Little Corner of the World” and “Till
There Was You” selling over one million copies. In 1960 she married Miami disc
jockey, Bob Green, the two of them frequently representing themselves as the
ideal Christian couple with four children, two of them twins.
In
the 1960s she often toured with Bob Hope on holiday appearances for the United
Service Organizations during the Vietnam War, and received the Silver Medallion
Award from the National Guard for “outstanding service by an entertainer” as
well as the Veterans Foreign Wars Leadership Gold Medallion.
In
1969 Bryant became the spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission, winning
over millions of orange drinking converts with her commercials touting
"Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine” and
singing “Come to the Florida Sunshine Tree.” Soon she also appeared in
advertisements for Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Holiday Inn, and Tupperware while
also teaming up with the Disney “Orange Bird” character which she brought into
her orange juice commercials.
In
short, Bryant was an extremely popular family entertainment figure when in
March 1, 1969 Jim Morrison and The Doors played at the Dinner Key Auditorium, a
converted air hanger with 7,000 seats. The night was hot and muggy and the
crowd, most of it standing, had grown impatient for the performance. Morrison,
drunk as he was accustomed to being for many of his later performances, went
into what some observers, including a couple of his fellow band players,
described as a kind of hypnotic trance. After forgetting the lyrics to a couple
of songs, he encouraged the crowd to strip: “Love one another. Love you
brother, hug him. Man, I’d like to see a little nakedness around here...grab
your friend and love him. Take your clothes off and love each other,” he yelled
according to one report. As one reporter of the Matt Meltzer describes it
“aside from the vaguely homoerotic elements of his screams, there wasn’t much
that was so very offensive in his unorthodox performance.”
But
when, soon after, he stripped off his shirt and began shouting “You want to see
my cock?” to which the crowd yelled in delight and rushed forward, the event
turned into chaos. No one quite has the true answer of what happened that
evening, and some can’t even name the correct date. But hundreds claim to have
seen Morrison’s penis, although his fellow keyboard player onstage that
evening, later declared on radio, "They hallucinated. I swear, the guy never
did it. He never whipped it out. It was one of those mass hallucinations. I
don't want to say the vision of Lourdes, because only Bernadette saw that, but
it was one of those religious hallucinations, except it was Dionysus bringing
forth, calling forth snakes. And they started coming down on a rickety little
stage, and the entire stage collapsed.” Morrison and his band narrowly escaped
death.
A
circus media outcry followed and 22 days later Anita Bryant appeared with many others at a
Rally for Decency at the Orange Bowl to protest the event.
Wanted for his “crimes,” Morrison surrendered to the FBI in Los Angeles
that July and faced a Florida trial in 1970; he was ultimately found guilty of
two misdemeanors — indecent exposure and “open profanity.” Morrison was
sentenced to six months in jail and a $500 fine, but he appealed the sentence
and was released on $50,000 bond, granted unanimous clemency by Florida’s
Clemency Board and pardoned by outgoing Florida governor Charlie Rist. But the
event is generally described as the beginning of Morrison’s end; he would be
dead less than a year later.
Bryant, on the other hand, had found a new career in politics. Creating
with others the “Save Our Children” campaign, she became the campaign and later
foundation’s spokesperson. Bryant argued: "As a mother, I know that
homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must
recruit our children" and "If gays are granted rights, next we'll
have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards
and to nail biters." Those outrageous comments and many others gained her
national attention, which soon turned into an organized opposition to gay
rights that spread across the nation. Jerry Falwell Sr. and numerous others
traveled to Miami in support of her anti-gay beliefs which they declared would
be embraced across the nation.
In
1977, Dade County, Florida, passed an ordinance sponsored by Bryant's former
friend Ruth Shack that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation. Bryant led a highly publicized campaign to repeal the ordinance as
the leader of the “Save Our Children” coalition. The campaign was based on
conservative Christian beliefs regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality and
the perceived threat of homosexual recruitment of children and child
molestation. She described gay people as “human garbage.” Bryant argued:
What these people really want, hidden behind
obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that
theirs is an acceptable alternate way of life. [...] I will lead such a crusade
to stop it as this country has not seen before.”
On
June 8, 1977, Bryant's campaign led to a repeal of the anti-discrimination
ordinance by a margin of 69 to 31 percent. And in that same year Florida
legislators approved a measure prohibiting gay adoption, a law which remained
on the books until November 25, 2008. She lead successful anti-gay attacks in
many parts of the US which led to Senator John Briggs initiative in California
which would have made any pro-gay statements regarding homosexuals or
homosexuality by any public school employee a cause for dismissal; fortunately,
later statements against the initiative by current president Jimmy Carter,
Governor Jerry Brown, former president Gerald Ford, and former California
governor Ronald Regan meant that it was roundly defeated. She led “Save Our
Children” campaigns, furthermore, in Minnesota, Kansas, and Oregon. And after
being publicly “pied” in Iowa in October 1977, her career and her advocacy,
particularly with the pushback of gay activists began to take a downturn.
On
June 21 Robert Hillsborough, a San Francisco city gardener was killed in an
incident of gay bashing. Will Kohler describes the incident on the internet
site Back2Stonewall:
"Robert
Hillsborough, and his roommate, Jerry Taylor, went out to
a disco for a night of dancing. They left sometime after midnight and stopped
for a bite to eat at the Whiz Burger a few blocks from their apartment in the
Mission District. When they left the burger joint, they were accosted by a gang
of young men shouting anti-gay slurs at them. Hillsborough and Taylor ran into
Hillsborough’s car as several of the attackers climbed onto the car’s roof and
hood. Hillsborough drove off, and thought that he left his troubles behind him.
What he didn’t know was that they were following him in another car.
Hillsborough parked just four blocks away from their apartment. When they got
out of the car four men jumped out of the other car and attacked them again.
Jerry Taylor was beaten, but he managed to escape. Robert Hillsborough wasn’t so lucky.
Robert was brutally beaten and stabbed 15 times by 19-year-old John
Cordova who was yelling, “Faggot! Faggot! Faggot!” Witnesses also reported that
Cordoba yelled, “This one’s for Anita!” Neighbors were awakened by the
commotion, and one woman screamed that she was calling the police, which
prompted the four attackers to flee. Neighbors rushed to Hillsborough’s aid,
but it was too late. Hillsborough died 45 minutes later at Mission Emergency
Hospital. Cordoba and the three other assailants were arrested later that
morning.”
In may seem strange to begin a piece about the
celebratory film, Gay USA, about gay pride marches in the US cities of
San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Chicago, and New York City on
June 26, 1977 by describing one of the many homophobic monsters that have long
haunted US history and a brutal incident of gay hate, but as lesbian filmmaker
and historian Jeni Olson—one of the individuals behind the preservation of this
film—brilliantly points out, these series of events lay behind the insightful
and amazingly prescient achievement of a filmmaker that up until that day had
been perceived primarily as a maker of porno films. Although we’ve since
learned that Arthur J. Bressan’s earlier work was far more complex and
interesting than this mistaken description of his early works hint, it is still
almost mindboggling that he would be able to imagine such a project, coordinate
filmmakers in those six cities, edit the results, and produce a work that not
only commemorates and gives meaning to that day’s events, but presents the
history of those marches and charts out a future for gay pride that still has
significance today.
Bressan’s work, as Olson has described it, “is a remarkable collective
portrait of LGBTQ experience in the early years of the modern gay rights
movement. As an estimated 250,000 celebrants enjoy the day in San Francisco
(more than double the attendance of the previous year), Bressan’s camera crews
interview dozens of attendees who share their stories,” as well as straight
supporters, and, importantly, individuals who clearly shared Bryant’s
homophobia.
One man who claims to have attended the parade only as an objective
observer agrees that gay marchers have every right to march, but appears not so
be so very objective, nonetheless, in assessment of gay people as having an
imbalance of sexual hormones, creating a problem that represents “an
accelerating genetic process across the country that is not a healthy problem.”
An elderly woman detests the parades which didn’t happen in her day and
shouldn’t be allowed to exist today either. “I’m 70 and when I grew up
fortunately I never had this to face. And my now grown children didn’t have to
see it.” Why she had ventured out to watch it, nonetheless, is never explained.
A
New York man, citing Bryant, argues that gays are attacking boys and girls in
the (New York) Port Authority, the arrival point of millions every year who
travel by bus.
Another man questioned states that “If the country goes this way it will
be a very unhealthy thing,” the interviewer suggesting that “Gay people don’t
want the country to ‘go’ this way, they just want their rights.”
But many others who identify as straight, some having even brought their
children say that they’re worried for all human rights, and fearful of
anti-abortionists and for racial inequalities as well.
A
woman who has brought her two sons claims that she wants them to see what’s
happening and insists that they enjoy the noise and open fun. Her well-spoken
pre-teen speaks out: “I believe in equal sexual rights for kids.”
In
San Francisco some mention the horrifying effects of Anita Bryant and the
recent murder of Robert Hillsborough as being their reasons for attending.
Others note the parade’s vast diversity, and still others describe its
combination of seriousness and fun.
A
completely masked man’s sign reads “I am the homosexual you don’t want to see.”
A
woman insists that “To be with this many people and out in the streets and with
so many men and feel so safe has never happened before.”
After a rather long series of queries about how people define
themselves, with a microphone poked into their face with the question “Are you
gay?” one individual responds “Today I’m more than gay, I’m jubilant.”
At another point in the hour and 20-minute movie a 30-year-old man who
was once arrested and jailed for several days just for being gay, announces
that he’s proud and joyful for this moment.
A
woman from Kansas tells of the limitations she’d experienced in her home state
and of the several jobs she’d lost. Two lesbians from Wichita explain why they
eventually had to move to New York.
Poet Pat Parker reads from her poem “But Gays Shouldn’t Be Blatant”:
Have you met the woman
who's shocked by 2 women kissing
& in the same breath,
tells you that she's pregnant?
but gays shouldn’t be
blatant.
Or this straight couple
sits next to you in a movie
& you can't hear the dialogue
Cause of the sound effects.
but gays shouldn’t be
blatant.
And the woman in your office
Spends your entire lunch hour
talking about her new bikini drawers
& how much her husband likes them.
but gays shouldn’t be
balant.
When the screen shows the inverted pink Act Up insignia and a float
featuring blow-ups of Stalin, Hitler, Anita Bryant, a Ku Klux Klan member, and
Idi Amin, the director intercuts with footage from Leni Reifensthahl’s Nazi
parade documentation, and a narrator describes some of the history of how gays
were rounded up and sent to concentration camps by Hitler and the Nazis to die.
And at another point, after an interviewee describes the changes from
the early 1970 Christopher Street day parade celebrating Stonewall, Bressan
interweaves brief previously forgotten footage of that parade along with a
discussion of the history of the Gay Pride parades.
An
older man, when asked what he thinks about the outrageousness of some of the
gay men in drag costumes recounts some important gay history of a time when
homosexuals were often forced to hide their identity in order to keep their
jobs and function in the majority heterosexual society: There were always those
among us who stood out as being what people describe as outrageously gay. We’d
always say “So and so was not for ‘streetwear.’ You couldn’t be seen walking
with them down the street. They’ve always been there and,” he admits, “gave us
cover. We could stand on the side and say that’s what a gay person looks like.
But today we can join them, march with them, and hold hands.”
Bressan and his colleagues’ coverage has so much to say and more. But it
is the row upon row of marching faces: the black, Hispanic, Asian, white, and
native American teachers, philosophers, dancers, hard hat workers, lesbians,
parents, writers, singers, drivers, historians, drag queens, cooks, cops,
farmers, dykes on bikes, firefighters, actors, scientists, and so many others
marching side by side down the streets of six cities as far as the camera’s eye
can register that finally brings tears to the human viewer. So many thousands
of people dressed in sweaters, dresses, pants suits, extravagant attire, or
half naked joining with one another to say “we’re here, we’ve always been here,
and we’re not going away” makes anyone with a heart and brain to go with it
extraordinarily proud of being an LGBTQ individual in the USA.
As
Bressan’s central figure Robert says in the director’s 1985 film Buddies: “...
Gay Day is great. Just look at all those people, most of the year passing for
straight and then, wham! they’re out. The world has to see them and deal with
them. ... You know, a chance to be yourself without worrying who’s watching or
what they’re thinking. ...For me it stands for not letting the world say that
I’m not here. That there’s only supposed to be straight people, straight
love....”
But Robert was speaking from a perspective of eight year later when gay
marchers were not merely expressing their pride but their anger for their
government and fellow citizens ignoring them in the time of AIDS.
1977 was a seminal year in part because it was one of the last years
when the simple joy of being able come together and show your face among so
many thousands of others still stood as a forceful anecdote against homophobic
hate. In the few years since the Stonewall riots the LBGTQ movement had grown
up to become a powerful force that truly could, so it seemed, change gay
people’s lives.
Just six months earlier Harvey Milk had been sworn as the first gay San
Francisco city supervisor. Despite Anita Bryant and all the others like her,
gays knew that they had begun to win their cause, and celebrated that
realization in a manner that could never be as innocent and pure-minded ever
again.
Bressan’s important film, aired alas only on Public TV and watched
mostly by gay viewers—just imagine how powerful this film might have been if
seen by general audiences throughout the nation—expressed that well-deserved
pride and joy shared by the whole community. It was a time for taking stock.
Only 5 months and 1 day later, on November 27, 1978, San Francisco City
Supervisor Milk was shot and killed by Dan White. On June 5, 1981, less than 4
years later, the AIDS epidemic was formally recognized by medical professionals
in the United States.
Los Angeles, June 26, 2021
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (June
2021).
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