I hope that at least some people watched this miniseries. Unfortunately, I think most of the people who are most uninformed about the history of the struggle for LGBT rights are not the ones who would watch it anyway.
But even those who are aware would have learned something – young people are sometimes a bit oblivious to what has come before them. But I lived through those times, and there were things brought out that I did not know.
It was a bit “messagey” at times, with dialogue throwing in bits of history that obviously no one would actually say, but that were needed for context for those who knew nothing about it.
But it told the story through the personal lives of three activists, real people, some of whom who are still alive today. The acting was absolutely outstanding in every way. There was some dramatic license taken of course, but overall the times, as reflected through those stories, was accurate and given a sense of reality and immediacy that was overwhelming.
I found the series both deeply, deeply affecting and inspiring. None of it was sugar coated. Anyone with feelings and especially those of us who lost friends during that time could not help but be moved to tears.
But an unintended effect, or perhaps totally intended, was that it produced in me feelings not only of sorrow, but even more of anger and absolute rage.
The personal stories, the families that were ripped apart, the treatment of the LGBT community, and the smug callous disregard of society at that time brought back memories unpleasant and unsettling. And the bravery of those involved in the struggle is too often overlooked.
We often deservedly extoll the courage of the civil rights pioneers, some of them who lost their lives for the struggle. Almost everybody knows the name Medgar Evers.
But the courage of those who were fighting for LGBT rights, those who died from hate crimes, the hundreds of thousands decimated by the plague of AIDS while the government barely acknowledged its existence -- they are mostly unknown and unremembered.
Perhaps it's the present political climate that made it seem so timely to me – the current crop of those in charge are eerily similar to the bigots and hate filled individuals who were in charge back then. The only difference is that these people are no longer exclusively focused on LGBT people – they’ve expanded to include everyone who doesn’t think like them as well as the environment and everything else good about this country.
So for anyone who missed it, I cannot recommend it highly enough when it comes around again.
