L G B T miniseries When We Rise

[Former Member]

I just got to see a preview of the miniseries, When We Rise, that will be airing on ABC in the US (and Canada?) starting on Monday, February 27. (It will be preempted on the 28th, but will return on March 1st through 3rd.) Running time is approximately 8 hours total. Wikipedia IMDB

 

 

It is a powerful story that reminds me of what it was like watching Roots way back in the ‘70s. It’s got an amazing cast with plenty of very well-known actors appearing. There were quite a few who surprised me because it took me a little while to realize just who they were! And one who shocked me – just because she appeared in this at all: Phylicia Rashad! (Aussies Guy Pearce and Rachel Griffiths have very prominent roles!)

 

 

We are taken on a journey through the history of the Gay Rights Movement with the struggles against the police and other authorities, HIV/AIDS, our increasing involvement in politics, the lawsuit against Prop 8, and the eventual SCOTUS ruling legalizing  Same-Sex Marriage in all 50 States and all US Territories (except American Samoa and not on Indian lands) and overturning DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act).

 

 

I highly recommend watching this – tell all your friends about it! (As usual, check your local listings.)

 

Uncle Walt is rolling over in his grave!  ;-)

Edited February 21, 2017 by Former Member

[Carlos Hazday]

Here's a review from Variety a reader sent me...

 

http://variety.com/2...ant-1201989559/

[Bill W]

Sounds good.  I'll be sure to watch. 

[wenmale64]

Set up the recorder and set it to the highest priority.

[Former Member]

Variety’s critics of bad wigs and CGI stem from the relative low budget for such a massive undertaking.

 

 

In places like the Castro, People of Color are marginalized. ‘The’ Black bar closed a few years ago. ‘The’ Latino bar is outside the Castro in the Mission. ‘The’ Asian bar (really a bar for white men who like effeminate, young Asian men in drag) is in the Tenderloin. In general, the Castro is at least somewhat hostile to people who are not thin or muscular, young, pretty white men.

 

 

The miniseries touches on a young Carole Migden running for the SF Board of Supervisors. There is a documentary about the four Lesbians who were in the California Assembly at the same time explaining the strategies and tactics they used to get bills passed. Political Animals was shown at Frameline40.

 

The fight for Marriage Equality was also featured. A much more detailed account was shown in the documentary, Freedom to Marry, which focused on Evan Wolfson who led the organization that hired the lawyers who successfully argued the case in SCOTUS. This was also shown at Frameline40.

 

Anyone who has seen Milk and wants a much broader background can get greater context from this miniseries.

[AC Benus]

...I liked the Pendulum.... It was fun

 

I have my DVR set to record the series. Thanks for the heads up; I might have missed this otherwise

[Former Member]

I’d been to the Pendulum twice, which makes it one of the Castro bars I’d been in the most.

 

 

The first episode, Part One, is hiding online if you know how to access it…

[Former Member]

Three articles from The Advocate.

• A Slideshow (I was surprised to see myself in one of the pictures, but I’m not saying which one or where I am)
• From the print magazine
• An interview with Dustin Lance Black from the Television section of their website

From where I was sitting in the Castro Theatre, I was unable to see anyone who wasn’t on the stage. The picture of the members of the SF Gay Men’s Chorus appears to be just a portion of the group who was there – they filled three aisles, single-file from the stage to the back of the theater. And Tom Daley did not join Dustin on stage.  :-(

[Former Member]

It’s amazing how distracting all these ads are after having seen this commercial-free!

 

But apparently, we buy lots of cars, switch phone plans frequently, see lots of movies, use makeup and hair color, eat healthy food, and need loans to pay for everything. At least that’s how I interpret what the marketers think about us…

[MrM]

I'll watch it on demand tomorrow night. I am excited!

[Valkyrie]

I've been recording it and hope to start watching it this weekend.  Thanks for pointing it out, because otherwise I would have missed it. 

[wenmale64]

I've been recording it and hope to start watching it this weekend.  Thanks for pointing it out, because otherwise I would have missed it. 

 

I agree also.  Thank you Droughtquake.  I started watching the first segment this morning and then got called away.  I think I will just let it record and catch it on the weekend.

[Bill W]

I watched on Wednesday, when it went over the very painful 70s and 80s.  That was the time when the conservative right attacked gay rights and attempted to make everything illegal, along with the start of the AIDS epidemic. Even though it was sometimes painful to relive those memories, it was good for those not around then to see, so they can oppose any attempts to take us back in that direction.  

[Former Member]

I’m not sure if this is up permanently, or if it’ll only be free during March 2017, but you can learn more about Del Martin (played by Rosie O’Donnell in When We Rise) and Phyllis Lyon in

, a documentary on the Frameline channel on YouTube. They were the first couple married when then-Mayor Gavin Newsom instructed the City/County Clerk to issue Marriage Licenses to same-sex couples. Edited March 2, 2017 by Former Member

[Headstall]

While the reviews might not be complimentary, I felt the first episode deeply... that feeling of overwhelming helplessness, and hopelessness. It's a story that needs to be told, and the message of it given, time and time again. Hatred and judgement is ugly, and it was/is our reality. The fact it is being told on primetime television, whether poorly or not, rushed or not, is what matters to me. Reminders of what we've all fought for, in our varied ways, are part of the process for continued acceptance. There was a time we were as low as the dirt on the heels of the so-called righteous, so Rising Up was a matter of survival. I hope everyone watches this and remembers the fallen.

[wenmale64]

I agree with Gary 100%.  I am 8 years younger than him and I remember the way others talked about gay people.  My community was exceptionally bad for it and still is.  I never had a chance, nor the guts to try.  It is painful to watch the actions of the police and others of that time and know that they were encouraged to be that hateful toward another human being....  Very sad.

   As was said by George Santayana  "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."  is so very true......

[MrM]

I hope the young ones will watch this.

It would be nice if just a few of them will learn what we older gays went through.

 

The Band Played On rather described my world in the 80s. Just when I should have been making boyfriends and learning how to socialize the AIDS crisis was in full bore and Reagan's gob.ment wasn't doing ANYTHING about it.

 

I was so frightened! I just put the key into my closet door and locked myself in.

 

When We Rise is giving me an appreciation for what the gay situation was when I was born. I have a number of friends who are AIDS survivors who are in their 70s and this time would have been when they were young like our male protagonist in this story. They relate to this TV Show though they see a number of inconsistencies. It will be interesting to talk to my friend David tomorrow to see what he thinks of the story.

[Former Member]

Thursday’s episode mentioned Randy Shilts. He was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. He later wrote And the Band Played On, a definitive chronicle of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. HBO produced an award winning movie based on the book.

 

Especially the book will provide a whole lot more detail on the AIDS crisis and how the government, the Gay community, and various organizations responded (or not, in the case of the Feds).

 

 

I did my little bit by walking in many walkathons to raise money for several different AIDS organizations. I volunteered for my local AIDS support group, but, as usual, I did my own thing. I started out doing clerical work for a phone bank scheduling people for AIDS prevention meetings. I got disgusted with how my coworkers spent most of their time playing around and started making calls myself. After that particular part of the program lost its funding, I started working with the Education Department and helped staff booths and distribute condoms – I even got to do an event in a Gay bathhouse (which still exists today).

 

Eventually, I decided that I would make weekly announcements about the AIDS Project at the Men’s Groups at the local Gay Community Center. I hate being the center of attention, but I forced myself to get up in front of 40-60 guys every week. I got used to it and people began to expect me to get up and speak.

 

I also decided, based on my retail experience, that nonprofits were woefully and painfully missing the point of posting flyers on the Gay Community Center’s bulletin boards. The boards were a sea of xeroxed pages with just a bit of color provided by the occasional pastel-colored sheets. Now, you have to realize that at the time, my computer was an old Apple IIe with a dot-matrix printer – not really suitable for graphics. So I started using and abusing the copy machine at the AIDS Project to copy and scale up and down images I’d drawn on graph paper or text that I’d typed on my parents’ typewriter or that I’d put together with rub-off lettering sheets. I’d play with the designs and tape them together in literal cut-and-paste.

 

Then I’d go back to the Project and copy my designs. Then I’d go home and hand-color them using felt-tip pens. When I posted these flyers at the Community Center, they just popped against the bland flyers that everyone else produced. I had decided that I would create a new flyer every month, themed to the month, just like stores do with their sales.

 

As I did a few, my skills increased and I found out that the staff at the Community Center was moving my old flyers to a different board because they liked them so much.

 

The original program that I’d volunteered for was Stop AIDS, whose logo was based on a stop sign. I decided that the overall theme of the posters should be a stylized condom package set on end to look like a warning sign. The initial flyers had it colored yellow just like a traffic sign. With later flyers, I got more creative and used more interesting colors and layouts.

 

I used my graph paper to create a version of a dot-matrix font – the dots echoed the disk shape of the condoms too.

 

 

Eventually, the Executive Director of the Project decided I was too much of a loose cannon and wanted approval of anything I created, so I stopped making them.

 

I’ve recreated some of the designs using professional graphics software on my Mac. I was able to incorporate a few tiny little jokes. One of the Dingbat fonts that I have has a spy image. I hid the image near a corner and have him saying things that I find amusing. Most people will never see it because it’s so small. But I’ve never posted the computerized flyers and have only shown them to a few of my therapists. I don’t really have a venue to post them anymore.

[Former Member]

The series is available on Hulu, ABC Go, and iTunes (probably limited to certain markets). International viewers (and others) can currently find all of the episodes on the usual torrent sites – but I certainly wouldn’t suggest that anyone do anything illegal!  ;-)

[TetRefine]

I just started watching it on Hulu. It's interesting and visually pleasing, but seems very sanitized and toned down to appeal to a straight, suburban family audience. Sigh...

[Former Member]

There are plenty of alternatives out there. I’ve reviewed some of them from Frameline40.

 

The hope is that some of that straight, suburban family audience will discover that we are more alike than dissimilar and might think twice before voting against us. This is ABC, after all, owned by the very family-friendly Disney!

[Former Member]

 

Gilbert Baker died today (March 31, 2017) in New York City at the age of 65. He was best known as the designer of the Rainbow Flag. Gilbert Baker originally designed the flag as a symbol for the 1979 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. It was internationally adopted as a symbol of the LGBTQ Community.

 

Edited April 1, 2017 by Former Member

[Former Member]

Here’s an interview with Michael K Williams regarding his role as Ken Jones on When We Rise.