Friday, August 7, 2015

Roland Emmerich responds to the Stonewall Backlash


As you may know, the Stonewall film is getting dragged by the LGBTQ community. There are posts, thinkpieces, petitions and now boycotts over the Whitewashing of the story.

Director Roland Emmerich is truly feeling the heat, so he took to his FB page to address the issue:
When I first learned about the Stonewall Riots through my work with the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, I was struck that the circumstances that lead to LGBT youth homelessness today are pretty much the same as they were 45 years ago. The courageous actions of everyone who fought against injustice in 1969 inspired me to tell a compelling, fictionalized drama of those days centering on homeless LGBT youth, specifically a young midwestern gay man who is kicked out of his home for his sexuality and comes to New York, befriending the people who are actively involved in the events leading up to the riots and the riots themselves. I understand that following the release of our trailer there have been initial concerns about how this character’s involvement is portrayed, but when this film - which is truly a labor of love for me - finally comes to theaters, audiences will see that it deeply honors the real-life activists who were there — including Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Ray Castro — and all the brave people who sparked the civil rights movement which continues to this day. We are all the same in our struggle for acceptance.
Well, we will see about that. While there may be a shout out to Marsha, Sylvia and Ray, that trailer said otherwise.

He should've known that a trailer is the main message you send out about your film. What we saw was a White savior and his colorful team of supporters. But not just that, the ads as well. The majority of the ads features Danny, so what are we supposed to think?

I hope this is a lesson learned for Roland.

No comments:

The Stuff

My photo
Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.