Gay usa documentary

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Unlike modern Pride Parades, these are low-budget affairs: no big floats, nary a corporate logo in sight. Restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive in collaboration with Frameline and Outfest, Gay USA was shot by 25 teams at Pride protests across the United States and is thought to be the first American feature-length documentary by and about LGBTQ+ people.

Synopsis

The Politics of Celebration

Documentary about the gay rights movement during the year of 1977, capturing the intersections of diversity in queer life; from vox pop style interviews with lesbian feminists, street drag queens, and straight allies to taking a look at the fight against Anita Bryant and her notorious "Save Our Children" campaign.

Popular reviews

to the woman who said jesus was gay and would definitely enjoy the parade: we need more people like you in the world!

My naive dream was that if we all saw ourselves in our numbers we would never buy into the guilt trip again. Gay USA offers a vibrant and beautiful snapshot of an incredible year in LGBTQ+ history and conveys a powerful message of hope to viewers today. 72 m. i’ve also spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to feel less of that, because feeling like that is miserable.

We hear both prejudice and love. Gay USA conveys the passion, anger, and defiant optimism of a community under attack (in that month of June 1977 alone: California's anti-gay Briggs Initiative had just been announced, Anita Bryant's vicious homophobia had helped repeal Miami's gay rights ordinance, and a gay man named Robert Hillsborough had only days earlier been the victim of a fatal gay-bashing in San Francisco).

Bressan weaves in audio of some of those homophobic voices and gives an overview of historical homophobia, including an account of gays and the Holocaust — and then illustrates the triumphant power of love and pride.

Here there is power in numbers, as people are free to be themselves.

In celebration of LGBTQ+ history month, the JBFC is proud to present the 1977 documentary Gay USA. US. English.
But I’m polite –
so – after you"

poem by Pat Parker

Gay USA captures a moment of queer history, of gay pride parades in the 1970s.

honestly it’s just so elating to see queer people happily existing throughout time

I can't think of a better description for this than the original newspaper tagline: "the politics of celebration." It's easy to write this off as just a pride documentary, but what makes it so interesting is how director Arthur J. Bressan, Jr.

(whose hardcore debut, Passing Strangers, climaxed at the 1973 Freedom Day parade) uses a nationwide celebration to probe the issues and feelings within a newly-energized queer community -- not just about figures like Anita Bryant, but about identity, language, and presentation.

i’ve found a lot of solace in learning about LGBT history and politics, it’s been one of my most effective ways of combatting the soul crushing alienation i find myself having to live with.…

just had the biggest smile on my face this whole time tbh, i feel like i should have sm more to say about this but no words come to mind.

Gay USA is a document of history, being a reflection of an era and all the differing opinions. In addition to the magnificent cross-section of footage from the marches in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Diego, and Philadelphia, Gay USA also gives us a fantastic look at rare footage shot by Lilli Vincenz of the very first gay pride parade in New York City in 1970 (which was then known as Christopher Street Liberation Day) as well as showing Bressan's own previously shot footage from San Francisco's first major gay pride celebration in 1972.

As an estimated 250,000 celebrants enjoy the 1977 festivities in San Francisco (more than double the attendance of the previous year), Bressan's camera crews interview dozens of attendees who share their stories - the lesbian couple who fled the homophobia of Wichita; the self-proclaimed androgynous hermaphrodite who describes feeling "like a whole person instead of just half a person;" the older straight woman ally who explains that, "Whenever anyone group in our society is attacked, we all must come to their aid;" and the irresistible guy standing in the middle of Market Street who proclaims: "Today I'm more than gay, I'm jubilant."

Gay USA's nationwide release, after its August 1977 San Francisco premiere, brought images of out and proud LGBTQ+ people to cities across the country.

Not from Anita Bryant or from [NYC] Mayor Koch or from Cardinal Cook. Not even from AIDS ..." —Director, Arthur J. Bressan Jr.

Gay USA

Followed by a Panel Discussion on LGBTQ+ History and Rights—Post-event Happy Hour with 50% off wine

1977. Meet your neighbors, make new friends, and raise a glass to Queer cinema!

Tickets: $15 (members), $20 (nonmembers)

Join today to save $5 per ticket and pay no online fees.

"Gay USA is simultaneously in its subject matter a reflection of our culture and, in its artistry, an expression of it."

"Gay USA's footage of pride parades of days gone by-and the surprisingly supportive and intelligent straight onlookers cheering them on-seems as vital and unpretentious as those crisp Sunday afternoons in June 1977 when these interviews were captured for posterity."

Supermarkets, movies, at work,
in church, in books, on television
every day and night, every place –
even in gay bars.

But mostly love. Arthur J. Bressan Jr. Frameline Distribution. thanks for your service ma’am

there was one shot amidst some of the older footage of a woman and it shows her sign ‘i am a lesbian and i am beautiful’ and i think it’s simplicity is what broke me, it’s very hard to see beauty in being a lesbian sometimes when you have grown up with slurs and objectification and being told by your own family members to not even say it out loud because it’s “inappropriate”, it’s very hard to see beauty when your entire life you’ve been presented as this warped idea of the feminine, that you are ugliness but it’s just something so special to see all these people, in 1977 and before, just, out and living life and revelling in their identity even when you know that so many of them didn’t make it to tell their stories, they are beautiful, we all are.

today i am more than gay.

People want the world to move to something better, that is not a new feeling. Director Arthur J. Bressan Jr. (best known for his 1985 gay drama Buddies) mobilized camera crews across the country to document the national Gay Freedom Day marches in June of 1977. Gay USA uses…

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Gay USA
Beautifully restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive in collaboration with Frameline and Outfest, Gay USA is the first American feature-length documentary by and about LGBTQ+ people.