Outrage

Outrage is a documentary about closeted gay politicians.  It goes through a list, touching upon sexual rumors and accounts, then dissecting their voting records.  Many are still closeted like Larry Craig, Charlie Christ, and Ed Koch.  Others are more repentant about their abuse.  The film concludes that openly gay politicians will be more sympathetic to equal rights for gay people, as opposed to closeted gay people.  Well, men.  Republican men. It's mostly Republican men.

The beginning is handled sensitively.  It starts with Larry Craig, it exposes an already told story.  It goes even further to detail his treatment of others.  He is shown thoroughly to be a hypocrite.  For a moment the film pauses to look at the whole picture, filling us in on the environment that Craig grew up in, so we understand to an extent, why he is the way that he is.

This formula is repeated throughout except for that last step.  With the other politicians we can deduce that their upbringing and  environment made them closeted.  It's like they shut down a part of themselves, to an extent where they have no empathy for others who were in their situation.  They don't want to have empathy, because, to them, that would mean the unthinkable.  They must expunge and segregate themselves from that which they fear, then they blame, judge, castigate, and cast aspersions.  They deny everything from domestic partnerships to adoption.  This is how one can tell it is unjust.  It affects people who have nothing to do with it, it hurts whole families, not just individuals.

The theme of erasure emerges.  The opening line of the film is a terrifying statement, the rest of the film eventually proves to be true.  A scene of Bill Maher naming a name is censored from CNN.  It is not just that it happens, it is that it is pushed upon society.  There really is a conspiratorial effort to suppress our existence.  It is not just this film that make me think this.  Just this morning I saw a biography on Montgomery Clift that was about his personal life, but completely omitted the fact that he was bisexual.  The Tectonic Theatre Project, which also produced this film,  recently updated the Laramie Project deals heavily with this occurance, as it exposes the 20/20 special that took the murderers word for it that it was simply a robbery gone wrong, even after he testified in court that it was because he was gay.  Many people would rather take the words of the killer than believe in the final verdict and the officers involved.  'It's like this massive denial,' one of the characters note.  It is a very powerful force instigated by a very hateful agenda. 

But ignorance can only work if people allow it to work.  Films like this cut through the facade.  They cannot forever deny that we exist as people.  Knowing this would mean we deserve equal treatment under the law.

Larry Kramer, who is interviewed in this film, wrote a great piece about homosexual erasure.