Over a year ago, I was privileged enough to moderate a screening of Marlon Riggs’ ‘Tongues Untied’ at the Reggie Williams Exhibit in Cincinnati, Ohio. Though this film was ground breaking in its release in 1989, the moderation was my first exposure to the film. At its release, at early stage of American homosexual experience, Riggs depicted the Black male image as varied, transcending the static definition that had permeated American society. His examination of Black manhood in America was one of the first examples of including homosexuality in an academic setting, setting a standard for its pedagogy.
At its original airing date, the film was controversial because it was one of the first depictions of the Black male image as it pertained to male same-same relationships. Not only that, the film was aired as one part of a Public Broadcasting System (PBS) television series entitled P.O.V.; giving question to the issue of public monies being spent on borderline taboo material.
What made the moderation of this film special to me was that it was part of an exhibit celebrating the life of Reggie Williams; a Black gay AIDS activist and the co-founder / executive director of the National Task Force on AIDS Prevention (NTFAP) . Mr. Williams passed away in 1999 from complications of AIDS, but his memory lives on through his exhibit which has been shown in San Francisco and his home town of Cincinnati, OH.
It wasn’t the depiction of black men loving one another that was controversial, but the fact that it had never been portrayed in such a candid and honest way. At the time of the film’s release, the nation was just getting used to homosexuality as a whole, so when the hyper-masculine Black male image was seen through a gay-tinted looking-glass, the wholesome American psyche went into a sort of anaphylactic shock; not only stepping away from white culture, but also the construct of gay white culture which America had yet to understand.
Not only did this documentary cause a fold in the way in which America viewed homosexuality, it also helped Black men, who identified themselves as being gay, cope with their own societal displacement. Not being able to completely integrate into the Black community due to their homosexuality and not being able to complete assimilate in to the gay society because of its white construct.
As with societal differences in the heterosexual white and Black American experience, it was only safe to say that similar differences were present in the homosexual sects of the aforementioned parts of our society.
This dichotomy and the isolative nature of being gay AND Black in America gives more evidence to the fact that the American Black male experience is one that is very unique. This, coupled with the novelty of its 1989 depiction, both lent to ‘Tongues Untied’ being a controversial, yet informative film. The fact that the Black male has been subjected to racism, classism, oppression and, in the experience of the gay Black male, a new form of segregation because of their sexual preference all lent to the unique connotation.
As you can already tell, the subject matter of Black male identity as it pertains to homosexuality is a complex one; so complex that a full dissection of the subject could not be done justice from one simple article. In order to get more information and to begin the dialogue in order to understand more completely the trials and tribulations that a gay Black male must navigate in today’s America, I would invite you to watch ‘Tongues Untied’ produced by Marlon Riggs. No matter what your acceptance level is, the depictions will open your eyes to a world that you have never seen before.