Gay USA

Gay USA (1977)

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.

Date of release
1977-08-27
TMDB
5.8 / 10 (20)
Runtime
1h 12m
Genres
Documentary
Director
Arthur J. Bressan, Jr.

Casting

Interesting facts

Gay USA, is a 1977 American documentary film directed by Arthur J. Bressan Jr. The film is the first American feature-length documentary by and about LGBTQ people, that focused on the gay rights movement. It has been widely hailed in the gay press as an instrument of solidarity for gay audiences.

Background and production

Bressan conceived the idea for the film while marching in a San Francisco demonstration on June 7, 1977, against the Dade County referendum. Bressan said he had his movie camera "jammed in front of San Francisco City Hall", and as he "stood there and felt the energy swirl" around him, he wondered "if this was 'defeat' what would Gay Freedom Day be like?"

Within a matter of nineteen days, he had organized film crews throughout the country, and by June 26, eighty-five people were ready with cameras and sound equipment. In San Francisco there were nine film units, three sound units, and a camera in a helicopter for aerial footage. The San Francisco parade alone was made up of almost 250,000 participants.

Bressan said the cost of the film was $8,000, and they started out with no cash, and he ordered the film COD, and when it arrived at the Greyhound bus station, he called his friends and told them he needed at least $900 to pick up the raw footage.

Bressan told the Bay Area Reporter in 1984, that the remembered the film as "a big response to the Anita Bryant witch hunt", and he thought if "people could see lots of gay people and their straight friends in a moment of celebration, it might be the antidote to the sort of venom and negativity which the Anita Bryan movement was about."

Joseph Knutson, one of the producers, said the film took "80 days from the time the concept of the film began to the time the film opened in San Francisco." He went on to say that "things began when Anita Bryant started things in Florida", and they were outraged about it and decided to "put this gay anger to constructive use."

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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