Cinema as a Mirror: Representation, Memory and the Soul of the LGBT Community

As time and the world around our communities changes, the LGBT community will also change, but unlike before the changes are no longer uniform. Years ago there were generational differences that made it harder for people to discover their identities than today. Our previous generations dealt with being criminalized, unrecognized and openly shunned for who they were. However, our new generations will deal with more complex scenarios in regard to navigating through their generation and identifying themselves within that generation's norms; navigating through conversations about gender identity, new methods of LGBT migration, finding Community through virtual realities and lessening the divide among generations due to the rapid pace of cultural development.


With the constant evolution of our communities comes one enduring question: What will God join us together?


I believe our stories will provide us the answer; cinema has served as a vehicle for individuals to express their emotions and share their personal experiences as a collective. When discussing LGBT cinema we are referring to memory, identity and belonging. For decades, we had to go to extremes to tell our stories, with some being lost to history and others becoming unclear due to omissions in our industry.


Some of the films that initiated the social understanding of same-sex relationships include Brokeback Mountain, which placed same-sex love in the forefront of mainstream media and restored the visibility of these couples, Moonlight (which highlighted issues of sexuality, race and vulnerability), and Paris is Burning (preserving the cultural history of the ballroom community which influenced the development of queer culture). However, these films serve not only as vehicles for change, but are also development markers within the community and culture.

Movie-making has the potential to be political in that it creates identities and legitimizes collective experience through the telling of stories and establishment of common narrative, therefore establishing agreement with those values among the world's people. Although this type of film-making does not provide a solution to all problems, nor will it create an activist movement, it provides a means for people to connect with one another and to build a sense of belonging to a common foundation.

As long as the world has a need for people who have stories to tell, film-making will always be a primary medium for the LGBT community to use to convey and share their culture, document their history, and to enhance their sense of community.

"Our history isn't just in books; it's written in the very pavement of Old Compton Street."