The openly gay director of the upcoming major studio release Stonewall has taken to Facebook to respond to multiple LGBT activists and bloggers who are responding extremely negatively to the recently released trailer of his movie about one of the key catalytic moments of the LGBT equality movement that appears to diminish the roles of marginalized elements of the LGBT community in service of a more "palatable" or mainstream entertainment.
Roland Emmerich's response to calls for a boycott of Stonewall are today's Queer Quote:
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.If Emmerich is sincere in his words then maybe he or the studio can release the screenplay of the film and/or schedule community previews. he film is set to be released in about 6 weeks, so presumably a marketing strategy is prepared. I doubt that an LGBT boycott was part of what they intended or hoped to see as part of that!
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