I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #220 - Word Is Out (1977, directed by The Mariposa Group: Peter Adair, Nancy Adair, Rob Epstein, Andrew Brown, Lucy Massie Phenix, Veronica Selver)

Word Is Out is the first feature-length documentary about lesbian and gay identity made by lesbian and gay filmmakers. There is a long history of queer cinema leading up to it - much of it rife with tragic narratives - and a flowering of the genre and queer filmmakers in the years that followed, but this landmark, released after the beginnings of the modern gay rights movement and before the AIDS crisis, really started the ball rolling.

The film was the brainchild of director/producer Peter Adair, who assembled a group of filmmakers - most of them completely inexperienced - around him to help create the film. The six filmmakers - three men and three women who ended up working in every aspect of the production and are all listed as co-directors under the umbrella name of The Mariposa Group (after the San Francisco street where they were headquartered) - interviewed hundreds of Americans who openly identified as gay or lesbian* from all over the country, from different racial and socio-economic backgrounds, and ranging in age from 18 years old to 77 years old (the oldest participant was born in 1898!). These were then narrowed down to the 26 who appear in film, and to a person they are engaging, warm, and articulate in sharing their thoughts about their status as gays and lesbians in 1970's America.

Each of the interviewees discuss various topics, ranging from first awareness of their sexuality, to coming out, to personal struggles, to reacting to societal norms and institutional pressures, to legal difficulties, and many other topics. As expected, the experiences are as diverse as the participants, each of their lives shaped by a unique set of circumstances; some had full support of their families and in some cases even spouses they separated from, others had families going ballistic, children taken away from them, or institutionalization (including shock therapy) to “cure” them. The film takes pains to make the uniqueness of the individuals clear - these are the stories of 26 individuals, not meant to be taken as a symbol of gays and lesbians as a whole; the subtitle of the film is even "Stories of Some of Our Lives" (italics mine), and within the first few minutes of the film one of the interviewees states “Even as a black lesbian, I wouldn’t want to be seen as ‘This is how black lesbians ARE’ I happen to be a black lesbian and there are so many of us - of black lesbians - who live their lives in so many different kinds of ways that I was hoping the film would be able to give, you know, a broader spectrum of a black lesbian than just me.”

But as fascinating as the differences are the commonalities - stories of the repression of the 1950s that many of them lived through as young (or even slightly older) adults coming to terms with their sexuality, stories of both family turmoil and familial love, and the same internal conflicts across the generations. And this holds true not just within the film and between participants, but for modern viewers outside the film as well. It’s startling to hear a voice from the mid-70s articulate a legal or religious struggle that still goes on today (even if perhaps in a slightly different form), affirming to hear that the same feelings and ideas - both positive and negative - that the participants grappled with decades ago are many of the same ones faced in our contemporary world.

Word Is Out premiered in 1977, got a wider release and was broadcast on PBS in early 1978, making the film widely available to thousands of viewers who might not have had the opportunity (or the courage) to see the film in the theater. The filmmakers’ PO Box in the credits was flooded with letters after its premiere, with many people crediting the film with literally saving their lives, letting them know that they were not alone in the world, that others have shared their struggles and come out OK. In intent, in concept, the film embodies the very meaning of Pride: showing those who haven’t yet found the courage to come out that it can be done, and that whatever challenges they may face in doing so, the end result is worth it. Representation, as shown with these 26 individuals whose diverse stories resonated with thousands of viewers then and continue to do so over the decades, matters.

The filmmaking collective only made this one film together, but several of them continued to make films - notably Peter Adair and Rob Epstein (whose next film The Times of Harvey Milk won the Oscar for best documentary), both of whom stuck to making films on LGBTQ* themes. And though the film summed up a history of representation on film and in the media and opened doors for LGBTQ* filmmaking in the future, there’s still nothing quite like this doc, no film I’ve seen on the topic that draws you in to its subjects so warmly and openly. And it’s that warmth, that delight in just listening to the interviewees, that makes it such a great film, even setting aside its landmark historical importance.

- Patrick Brown

* - in this review I refer specifically to gay and lesbian subjects, which is the stated subject matter of the film itself. The film’s creation predates the acronym LGBTQ, which came to prominence in the 1990s. However, there is one interviewee in the film who identifies as a gay male, but speaks of feeling in between genders, predating the modern ideas of gender fluidity and non-binary gender.