Tongues Untied

Riggs weaves community with individual experience and uses editing choices to give the film a powerful poetic tone. There's passion and confidence in the talking heads sections and the political invective is hard to miss. Gay black men were attacked from all sides at the time and this is a concise but impacting depiction on the effect of those social pressures on a man's psyche and attitudes. Despite the air of frustration and despair, however, it still has fun moments of levity as well.

Viewed March 16, 2022. Directly addressing the camera, Riggs uses his own story — recollecting moments from his life, visiting places from his past — as an emotional framework on which he builds a wide-ranging collection of historical scenes. A humorous sequence about “snap divas” sits next to a scathing montage of homophobic jokes from Eddie Murphy’s standup specials. Riggs’ percussive editing and rhythmic sound design gives this both an angry sense of urgency and a life-affirming grace.

Powerful & poetic, radical & revolutionary, personal & universal, elegiac & triumphant. The perfect companion piece to Paris is Burning and a film that should absolutely be included in every queer film canon list. Never has there been a more poignant and succinct exploration of the relationship between different oppressions and the unique sub-culture that exists at the intersection between them.

Still powerful 23 years later, Marlon Riggs' seminal cinematic queer black polemic is full of moving poetry, particularly from a stunning Essex Hemphill, and performance. And beauty. "Black men loving black men is THE revolutionary act."

I don't always like this kind of essay movie type of thing, but this one is very well done and nice and short. As a straight white person, wrapping my head around what it is like to be black and gay in America is not always easy, but this does a good job of getting its ideas across.