In 1969, a movement known as the Stonewall Riots took place. This movement consisted of a series of riots by the LGBTQ+ community spurred by a police raid at a New York City gay club called the Stonewall Inn. Historical fiction film Stonewall, directed by Roland Emmerich, covers the events and was released Sept. 25 to much controversy.
The police who raided the Stonewall Inn were authorized because the club was serving liquor without a license. However, violent protesting began due to the fact that homosexuality was illegal at the time, and police had reportedly been specifically targeting gay clubs because of this. The Stonewall Inn was leased and closed three months after the riots.
The film includes significant historical inaccuracies for which Emmerich has been previously known. For example, in his Revolutionary War film The Patriot (2000), British soldiers were portrayed to be cruel and ruthless, at one point burning a village of people in a church—an event that never took place.
“If you’re going to make a movie about a historical event, follow the role of the event,” sophomore Mariah Shobande said.
One of the inaccuracies is who is depicted throwing the first brick at Stonewall. In the outbreak of violence, coins, beer cans and bricks were thrown by rioters. The first brick of Stonewall was actually thrown by a transgender black woman named Marsha P. Johnson. However, the film depicts a cisgender (someone who identifies with the gender assigned to them at birth) white man named Danny throwing the first brick. Although a black character gives Danny the brick to throw, this is a significant omission because the vast majority of the Stonewall rioters were transgender people of color.
“We see cisgender white men all time,” senior Minx Taylor said. “I feel like [the movie’s director is] doing that just because it’s a safer option. People are going to be more comfortable with having a white cisgender man play the role. The whole movie isn’t about [making the audience feel] safer or normalizing the experience, because it wasn’t safe for the people, and it still isn’t safe for many trans people and people in the LGBTQ+ [community].”
Senior Aggie Puckett agreed.
“Black transwomen are some of the most unprotected people in America,” Puckett said. “[To have] the opportunity for them to [be represented] and tell their story taken away by someone at the top of the food chain really infuriates me.”
Allies who are not LGBTQ+ themselves also gave their take on the matter.
“It’s probably hard enough dealing with judgement from others without adding [a lack of representation],” said sophomore Brittney Rigsbee, who identifies as straight and cisgender. “You would think society would have grown out of that.”
Social Studies teacher Melissa Hayden looked at the possible benefits.
“If they know the story, and if there is enough backlash from any community that says, ‘This is factually inaccurate,’ it might have a positive effect on the transgender community,” Hayden said. “They [then] have the chance to stand up and say, ‘Why are you ashamed to portray us?’ If the movement is getting big, it will have a good backlash, and people will want to learn more about the Stonewall riots.”
In an interview with Buzzfeed, Emmerich explained his reasoning.
“You have to understand one thing; I didn’t make this movie only for gay people,” Emmerich said. “I made it also for straight people. I kind of found out, in the testing process, that actually, for straight people, [Danny] is a very easy in. Danny’s very straight- acting. He gets mistreated because of that. [Straight audiences] can feel for him.”
A common inaccuracy in Hollywood is whitewashing, which is the idea of replacing the role of a person of color with a white person. This is considered racist and discriminatory.
“As a person of color, I absolutely hate it,” Shobande said. “When it’s in any film, I hate it.”
Whitewashing occurs in movies such as Stuck (2007), in which the character of Chante Jawan Mallard, a black woman, is played by white actress Mena Suvari and renamed “Brandi Boski” and Cloud Atlas (2012), where white actor Jim Sturgess plays Korean Hae-Joo Chang. Sturgess was also given prosthetics to alter the appearance of his eyes for the role.
“Whitewashing happens way too often in the media,” Puckett said. “I think that really the only people who get fair recognition and representation in the media are white, cisgender, heterosexual people. I think that’s unfair, but it’s completely typical, and it’s absolutely unacceptable.”
Another one of Emmerich’s omissions also includes ciswashing, which is the act of replacing the role of a transgender person with a cisgender person.
“[Ciswashing] erases the history [of the trans community],” Shobande said. “People can’t look at something and say, ‘I don’t like it; I don’t support it, so it never happened,’ because it did. You can’t erase that.”
Puckett is involved in the LGBTQ+ community and gets upset when they see LGBTQ+ representation being censored in media.
“Other people’s anxieties about not being able to understand things that they haven’t personally experienced has nothing to do with whether or not we, as an oppressed or marginalized group, deserve fair representation,” Puckett said.
Shobande explained the significance of representation.
“Representation is so important,” Shobande said. “It lets kids who face discrimination know that nothing can stop them.”
– By Rania Kazmi