With Flag Wars, documentary filmmakers Linda Goode Bryant and Laura Poitras have touched on a subject that many in the queer community are aware of, but is one which has yet to reach the mainstream television viewing audience. The topic, gentrification of deteriorating urban communities by gay men and lesbians, is given an effective treatment in their P.O.V. documentary for PBS, which is scheduled to air June 17.
The ‘flag wars’ of the title takes on more than one meaning. First, it refers to the rainbow flags that hang outside of some LGBT homes, and the response to the decorative and declarative items by the non-gay residents in the Columbus, Ohio, neighborhood where the documentary was filmed. It also refers to the ominous presence of right-wing Christian activists, and the burning of a rainbow flag that had been flying outside of the Ohio state house.
Gregg Shapiro: What is the source of your interests in the subject matter?
Linda Goode Bryant: It started when I went back home—I’m from Columbus—I went home to be on a panel. My parents bought their house in 1946 and still live in the community in which we filmed. My father picked me up from the airport, and as we turned on to our street, I noticed there were pastel flags hanging from a couple of porches. Being from New York I didn’t immediately reference rainbow flags, because it was the neighborhood. He said, ‘That’s what the gay guys put up when they move in.’ I was surprised. I came back to New York and Laura (Poitras) and I are filmmakers, who were colleagues, and we were having lunch and I mentioned that experience to her. She said, ‘Linda, that’s what Deanna and I are doing,’ because she had just moved to Harlem … .
GS: … and Deanna is her partner?
Laura Poitras: Yes, she was my partner. Linda was actually in my apartment (in Harlem) and I said, ‘Linda, what are you talking about? Look at my apartment.’ I lived in an apartment (building) where most of the residents were elderly Blacks and women and everyone moving in was young, white, and gay and lesbian. It had stuck with both of us and we thought it would make a really interesting documentary. The question that we wanted to explore was how two groups that are both marginalized in larger society will try and live together in this neighborhood.
GS: Linda, you mentioned that your parents live there. Are they at all in the film?
LGB: Yes, but they are not identified.
GS: Chief Shango Baba Olugbala and the gays had a chance to bond over collective discrimination—but it never occurred. Since the time of the filming, have they come to any kind of understanding?
LGB: Not that we’ve observed, no. We finished the film the first week of March (2003) and we screened it the third week of March at the Wexner Center in Columbus. There were three screenings and Q&A periods after each one, as well as a panel that was held on that Saturday where the characters from the film walked off the screen, essentially, and became the panel. Nina the realtor, Baba, Judge Pfeiffer, Randy Black (the man from the Historic Resource Commission of the city who helped Linda in the end), and then the prosecutor, Patsy Thomas, for Baba, were the panel. I’d have to say, that even through all of that, there was no bonding, no.
GS: I was wondering what it was like to get these people who were at odds with each to cooperate with you on the film?
LP: When Linda and I started making the film in 1999, we began by doing a series of interviews with people who we thought were important to be in the film. For instance, Nina the real estate agent and Baba. We told them what we were interested in; a neighborhood that was going through changes and how these two groups, the Black community and the white gay community, coexist.
GS: One of the people who was especially forthcoming was the late Linda Mitchell, who … was blaming the gay men and the prosperity they were bringing to the neighborhood instead of taking responsibility for her situation.
LGB: I don’t share the perception that you have in terms of Linda and the way that she dealt with her situation. I think that what the film reveals and what we learned in working with her is that she had made a commitment to her father, before he died, that she would not lose the house, and that included the two cars and the camper.
GS: Right. The non-functioning vehicles on the back of the property.
LGB: She did everything she could do to keep her promise to her father. Was she difficult to deal with as a character, probably no more difficult to deal with than any other character (laughs). … There were times when we, as filmmakers, had to step out of that ‘role’ and provide her with transportation to the hospital when she was deathly ill. The scene where you see her in a coma was a situation where we hadn’t seen Linda for a couple of days … we went by the house … we broke down the door and found her and rushed her to the hospital. She remained in a coma for four weeks.
GS: In the scene in which the single gay man is talking to a another gay man about the trend of gays and lesbians moving into urban areas that are on the decline and how they are able to revitalize them and turn them around. Laura, as someone with experience in that area, can you comment?
LP: When Linda and I set out to do the piece we did some research and it is a trend that is going on in urban areas where largely white gays and lesbians are moving into neighborhoods that have been economically depressed and usually have a nice Victorian housing stock available at low costs. You can see it in Chicago, Atlanta, Asbury Park, New Jersey. There are many reasons for it. The gay community, unlike straight whites, has a real interest at stake in finding a community where they can establish themselves and be among other gays and lesbians. I think the fact that often times gay couples don’t have children makes these neighborhoods attractive. And I think the housing stock, being able to go in and renovate these houses, is another factor that comes into play.
GS: The most frightening aspect of Flag Wars was the sub-story of the fundamentalist Christian preacher, Chuck Spingola, and his anti-rainbow flag and anti-gay crusade. The film’s focus shifted from being about the longtime residents and the gays.
LP: We were filming about the neighborhood and the gay residents of the neighborhood participated in the gay pride parade in 1999 and we followed them. We were on the float and we were filming them in the parade and there was the protest from the Christian right minister. We were struck by the two young boys who were protesting. We happened to spend some time filming them and then continued on with the day. We heard later that he had shimmied up the flag pole at the State House where they had hung a rainbow flag in conjunction with the parade and taken the flag down and burned it, and he was arrested. Here we were making this film and it was called Flag Wars. There was the rainbow flags in the neighborhood and the Black Nationalist flags that were being hung by the Black residents. We thought it was interesting and we proceeded and we spent a lot of time filming him and his family. Both his story and when the KKK comes in is a way to look at the larger forces.
LGB: What I think the film clearly reveals is intolerance from everybody. There is a certain intolerance that gays have for the beliefs and values of the African Americans in that neighborhood. There’s a certain intolerance that African Americans have for the beliefs and values of gays and also in terms of gay lifestyle. There’s an intolerance that Chuck has in terms of gay lifestyle that he rationalizes based on his interpretation of the bible. What was interesting, personally, was that when we first approached Chuck, and we approached him when he was about to be arraigned for tearing down the flag, I was certainly fearful because I had a stereotype of what he represented and that stereotype was not about me. What I learned over the course of the nine months that we spent filming with him and his family and his colleagues is that he was not one dimensional. He was as multi-dimensional as all of us are. As a result of understanding, though not agreeing with Chuck and certainly not agreeing with his interpretation of the bible or his stance on homosexuality or abortion or any other issues (laughs), what I ceased to be was frightened by him. He is no less human than Nina Masseria and her pledge to capitalism or Chief Baba Olugbala and his dedication and commitment to the Yorba religion and African culture.
GS: What are your future film projects?
LGB: I’m in pre-production on another cinema verite’ documentary. The working title is The Vote. What I plan to do is park myself in a low voter turnout county in the South, a county hotly contested by all the parties involved in the 2004 election. I hope to observe through organizers and from the perspective of voters why we don’t vote.