TONGUES UNTIED originally broadcast on PBS stations across America on July 16, 1991, as part of their “POV” (Point of View) series. It is an experimental documentary by Marlon Riggs talking about the alienation of gay people in American society, specifically gay Black men. And the subject of gay people being silenced is ironic because while reading old newspaper articles about TU’s original release I came across multiple sources saying that 18 of the 50 largest television PBS stations (markets) refused to air the film. And others didn’t show it until late at night. Including one that didn’t show it until midnight! But let’s not go off into the weeds about dim-witted program directors in 1991…is TONGUES UNTIED a good film? Yes, it’s quite good.
As mentioned earlier: TONGUES UNTIED is an experimental film and it did take my perfectly chiseled honky buttcheeks a few minutes to get into the rhythm of the free-style, poetic, street rapping approach the film used, but once I caught on, I dug it and even wished the film had been longer. At 54 minutes I felt like Marlon really only scratched the surface of his story. (Maybe this has already happened), but I would love to see much longer different documentary about Marlon Riggs and the subject matter and events talked about in TONGUES UNTIED. For example: he briefly talks about having full on anal sex with other boys at age 6! Like holy shit, that could be a full doc all to itself! And don't even get me started on the breakdown of different kinds of snaps! I could watch a 12-hour film about that.
I don’t want to give away too much, you should just see the movie for yourself, but there was one segment that I want to talk about. They’re talking about how gays are openly mocked and ridiculed in society and during this segment, there is a close-up shot of poet and activist Essex Hemphill simply looking into the camera. At the same time, they play clips of popular movies of the time using the f-word. It was very simply done and yeah, it’s kinda like that one scene from South Park, but I personally found it very upsetting because I remember seeing all of those movies back in the 1980’s and it never even crossed my adolescent mind at how hurtful it was. And now as I’m going back and re-visiting and reviewing older movies, I’m straight up shocked at how fucked up some of these mainstream films are. I’m talking about you, CROCODILE DUNDEE. Anyway, I just found that segment to be heartbreaking.
Sadly, TONGUES UNTIED is not for all audiences, but it deserves to be seen by all (adult) audiences.
Double-feature with PARIS IS BURNING.
[Update: It is not part of the film, but I included a screen capture of Marlon Riggs' obituary. He died in 1994 at age 37. It's sad to think about the positive impact he could have had if he had lived longer. We were all robbed.]
