When Roland Emmerich’s movie about the iconic Stonewall gay rights riots was preparing for its US release last year, it came in for a lot of criticism for whitewashing the events. Many felt that by concentrating on a young, white, ‘twink’ (played by Jeremy Irvine), it was sidelining the importance of trans people and people of color to the events.

The very angry condemnation helped ensure the movie bombed horrifically at the box office.

However, the director isn’t backing down. Now that he’s on the press trail for Independence Day: Resurgence he’s decided to double down with a comment that can’t help but sound racist, even if he didn’t mean it that way. He told The Guardian, “My movie was exactly what they said it wasn’t. It was politically correct. It had black, transgender people in there. We just got killed by one voice on the internet who saw a trailer and said, this is whitewashing Stonewall. Stonewall was a white event, let’s be honest. But nobody wanted to hear that any more.”

Over the last 45 years there has been much discussion about the contribution of different groups to the riots, and at this remove it is difficult to precisely say who threw the first rock or how many members of different parts of the LGBTQ community were represented and exactly what they did. Photographs of the riots show many different people involved though.

Some people undoubtedly feel the contribution of trans and people of color has been overstated, while others believe that emphasising the white men there is an attempt to play down the fact it may well not have been them who were key to what happened. It is certainly true though that for the first 20 or so years after the riots it was almost exclusively depicted as about mainly white men fighting back, with other people’s contribution almost totally ignored and sometimes deliberately silenced.

While the criticism of Emmerich’s movie was hyperbolic – partly because the vast majority of it was based on the trailer rather than the actual movie – he still doesn’t seem to get what the criticism actually was, which is that while insisting events are seen through white eyes may make commercial sense, it still has a tendency to marginalise others.

Although there’d been a little grumbling about Stonewall ever since the synopsis was released, the upcoming film about the riots that helped spark the moderns gay rights movie walked into a firestorm of controversy when the trailer came out.

It was immediately his with accusations of whitewashing and erasing the importance of trans* people by having the film centred on a young, gay, cisgender white man.

Although director Roland Emmerich and star Jeremy Irvine stepped forward to defend the movie, many still weren’t happy.

However, no one has actually seen the film yet, and to remind those curious about it a new poster has arrived via Out, which seems to deliberately push Irvine to one side and instead give space to people of color and genderqueer characters.

The movie itself reaches US cinemas on September 25th.

We reported yesterday about the anger at the trailer for Stonewall, which had many up in arms accusing the movie of attempting to whitewash history, and replacing queer people of color with a white, cisgender gay man (played by Jeremy Irvine). As we suggested, it might be a little early to judge the movie, as we’ve only had a single trailer so far and no one has actually seen the full movie to see how it actually handles the story of the riots of summer 1969.

Director Roland Emmerich agrees (unsurprising), as he’s issued a statement, saying on Facebook, “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.”

Jeremy Irvine also felt compelled to respond via Instagram, particularly picking up one of the things that got people the most angry – that it looks like his character threw the first brick of the Stonewall riots, when it’s believed that in real-life it was a trans woman of color. He says, “To anyone with concerns about the diversity of the #StonewallMovie. I saw the movie for the first time last week and can assure you all that it represents almost every race and section of society that was so fundamental to one of the most important civil rights movements in living history.

“Marsha P Johnson is a major part of the movie, and although first hand accounts of who threw the first brick in the riots vary wildly, it is a fictional black transvestite character played by the very talented @vlad_alexis who pulls out the first brick in the riot scenes. My character is adopted by a group of street kids whilst sleeping rough in New York.

“In my opinion, the story is driven by the leader of this gang played by @jonnybeauchamp who gives an extraordinary performance as a Puerto Rican transvestite struggling to survive on the streets. Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ character represents the Mattachine Society, who were at the time a mostly white and middle class gay rights group who stood against violence and radicalism. I felt incredibly nervous taking on this role knowing how important the subject matter is to so many people but Roland Emmerich is one of the most sensitive and heartfelt directors I’ve worked with and I hope that, as an ensemble, we have not only done such an important story justice but also made a good movie as well.”

While many people have already made up their mind about the movie, dismissed it and really don’t care what either Irvine and Emmerich have to say (despite the fact none of them have actually seen it and only have hearsay to decide precisely how it tells its story), there are other more moderate voices which are currently being drowned out, who feel that by creating controversy now we may end up ruining a chance to bring the story of one of the most pivotal moments in gay rights – including the importance of  trans* and people of color – to a mainstream audience.

However both sides of the debate may want to wait until some people have actually seen the movie and can judge it on its own merits, not on just a two minute trailer. Perhaps it is as bad as some people are suggesting, but at the moment we really don’t know.

From the moment it was revealed that Roland Emmerich’s upcoming Stonewall movie would centre around a white, cisgender man, played by Jeremy Irvine, there were murmurs of discontent, as central to the riots of 1969 were trans* people of color, and so there was concern the movie would whitewash the birth of modern gay rights.

While the likes of Emmerich have attempted to address these concerns (at least obliquely), the moment the trailer hit a couple of days – which put Irvine’s character front and centre, with people of color and trans* people on the sidelines – some people got very angry and they’re already calling for a boycott.

For example, a petition has been started, which says, ‘To all considering watching the newest whitewashed version of queer history. It is time that black and brown transwomyn and drag queens are recognized for their efforts in the riots throughout the nation. From the preview alone, we know that will not be happening. Majority of characters casted are white actors, cis men play the role of transwomyn, and folks who began the riots do not seem to be credited with such revolutionary acts.

‘WE ARE CALLING A BOYCOTT OF STONEWALL. Do not throw money at the capitalistic industry that fails to recognize true s/heros. Do not support a film that erases our history. Do not watch Stonewall. Tell your own history! Use social media to recall what you know to be true of Stonewall. Film your own short films. Make videos, write poems, sing songs. CONTINUE TO TEACH TRUE HISTORY.’

While you can understand the frustration and anger, it seems a little early to call for a boycott, as no one has actually seen the movie yet. Although unlikely to mollify the critics, it has been suggested that Irvine’s character is mainly used as a gateway to the Stonewall story and to characters a general audience may not easily immediately empathise with (even it is questionable whether they should pander to such prejudices, even if it might seem to the makers to make commercial sense in order to get more people into the cinema in the first place). However, the fact the synopsis is keen to point out it’s a fictionalised take on the true-story certainly gives us pause.

The petition certainly seems to be prejudging the movie based on only a short preview, although there are real questions to be answered, as pointed out in the article 5 Tweets That Sum Up Why People Are Upset About Stonewall.

The likes of Marsha P. Johnson, Silvia Rivera and Stormé DeLarverie are undoubtedly central to the true story the film is based on, and hopefully Stonewall can do justice to them and people like them who helped fight back against the prejudice of society, and who certainly weren’t all white, cis men.

It has also been hinted at that Irvine’s character doesn’t actually directly start the riot, but instead starts out as a timid, rather wasp-ish character, who is inspired by the diverse people around him in New York in 1969 to become more active and proud, and that it is the actions of those others that teaches him to stand up and be counted. However we will have to wait and see exactly how the movie handles the story and whether it does completely white-wash the Stonewall riots.

The film is out in the US on September 25th.

If you want to know a bit more about the true story of Stonewall versus the film’s trailer, it’s well worth taking a look at Matt Baume’s take below: [Read more…]