Rebel without cause Don't you understand? I can't love you.
A year ago, director Ava DuVernay’s film Selma was released, telling about the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, which was organized in 1965 and is a major turning point in the fight for black rights. However, other equal rights movements have their own significant moments that have proved as revolutionary as the famous march from Selma to Montgomery. For the LGBT rights movement, such a historic event was the Stonewall riot of June 28, 1969, and in many ways influenced the formation of LGBT activism as we know it today. For any gay, lesbian, or transgender person at the time, life was divided into “before Stonewall” and “after Stonewall.” These clumsy riots, which were not organized and had no definite purpose, showed, however, that people were tired of hiding, sitting in closets, suffering discrimination, police brutality and ill-treatment. The violence that engulfed Christopher Street that day was intended to express only one idea, but no less significant. “Enough is enough” – as if the participants of the uprising, who were disgusted with the idea of spending at least one more day in the status of unprotected marginalists. In 2015, Roland Emmerich’s film Stonewall was released, in which he tells both directly about the riot and the time that preceded it.
The story of that fateful day is very simple. There was a gay club where marginalized youth and a couple of intellectuals could meet their peers and find something that satisfies their needs. For homeless, unemployed or lost LGBT teenagers and young adults, this place was the only permanent place in life. So when they felt that the police, who were constantly raiding the club, could take that one permanent away from them, all they had to do was act as if they had nothing to lose. It was easy because they really had nothing to lose. In the retelling of Roland Emmerich, this story took on a slightly different guise. He told it on behalf of a young man raised in a devout family who wants to work for NASA. This guy has a classic Hollywood appearance, which is not surprising, given that Stonewall was directed by a classic Hollywood director (in the worst sense of the word), who realized that disaster films no longer surprise anyone, but the topic of LGBT inevitably attracts the attention of the viewer. Roland Emmerich spoke about the Stonewall riot on behalf of a man who could well be there, but in no case is the quintessence of those riots. His story will not help you understand why Stonewall happened, nor will it tell you about the social and historical significance of the event.
It wasn't about melodramas or cheating. It was about people who were tired. From police brutality, from the need to feel morally and physically ugly. About such as the inconspicuous hero embodied by the very notable actor Caleb Landry Jones. To him, Roland Emmerich preferred a standardized performer whose face will merge in your memory with the many other faces you see on the big screen. It was not possible for the director to convey the spirit of the times - radio messages about the death of actress Judy Garland is perhaps the only thing that reminds you that the action of the picture takes place in the late sixties of the last century. Ultimately, Stonewall is useless as a historical film, uninteresting as a one-night stand, without any social significance, and certainly has nothing to do with cinema as an art form.