The History of the Movement in One Man's Life

[William769]

The name Vito Russo might be unfamiliar to the newest generation, but an HBO documentary airing tonight explains why he's so important to LGBT rights.

To LGBT people who came of age in the 1970s and ’80s, Vito Russo is an icon. But among younger generations, Russo is barely known — and that’s something Jeffrey Schwarz set out to change with his comprehensive, affecting documentary Vito, premiering tonight on HBO.

“I felt like making a documentary could help introduce him to a new generation,” says Schwarz, producer and director of the film about the man who was author of The Celluloid Closet, a key player in ACT UP, and so much more.

Schwarz, 42, never met Russo, who died in 1990 at age 44, but the filmmaker has a long history with his subject nonetheless. “Vito has always been a beacon to me,” says Schwarz. “One of the first things I did when I was coming out was read The Celluloid Closet,” Russo’s landmark 1981 book about gay and lesbian images in film.

This was in the late 1980s, but Schwarz had been aware of Russo for several years before that. In 1982, when Schwarz was 12, he saw an episode of the movie-review show Sneak Previews, then hosted by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, about gay-themed films coming out that year, and the critics mentioned Russo and The Celluloid Closet.

http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/film/2012/07/23/history-lgbt-movement-told-through-life-vito-russo

[xchrom]

1. “Why We Fight”: Fallen Gay Activist’s Fierce AIDS Speech Remembered on His Birthday

http://unfinishedlivesblog.com/tag/vito-russo/




Vito Russo (1946-1990) would have been 66 today, had the AIDS pandemic not robbed us of him. As a gay activist and groundbreaking film historian, Russo is best remembered for authoring the 1981 book, The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. But Russo’s impact on LGBTQ equality and American culture and politics reached farther. He was a participant in virtually every landmark gay and lesbian rights effort since the Stonewall Rebellion in the streets of New York City in 1969–where he was actually present, protesting in the crowd who fought back against police oppression in what has come to be known as the birth date of the gay rights movement. He became a leader in the Gay Activists Alliance in the aftermath of Stonewall, and a co-founder of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) because of his concern about how gay people were portrayed by the media. In the 1980s, Russo became involved in ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) out of deepening frustration over federal and state governmental refusal to take the HIV/AIDS epidemic seriously. In 1990, he died of complications from the disease, but his legacy became secure after HBO aired a documentary film version of The Celluloid Closet narrated by comedy great, Lilly Tomlin. Russo’s family authorized a biography in 2011 published by the University of Wisconsin Press, Michael Shiavi’s Celluloid Activist: The Life and Times of Vito Russo. On July 23, HBO will premier a new documentary film, Vito.

Vito Russo's 'Why We Fight': Revisiting the Explosive 1988 AIDS Speech
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-schwarz/vito-russo-why-we-fight_b_1662657.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices

"Why We Fight"
(ACT UP Demonstration, Albany, N.Y., May 9, 1988)

A friend of mine in New York City has a half-fare transit card, which means that you get on buses and subways for half price. And the other day, when he showed his card to the token attendant, the attendant asked what his disability was, and he said, "I have AIDS." And the attendant said, "No, you don't. If you had AIDS, you'd be home dying." And so, I wanted to speak out today as a person with AIDS who is not dying.

You know, for the last three years, since I was diagnosed, my family thinks two things about my situation: 1) they think I'm going to die, and 2) they think that my government is doing absolutely everything in their power to stop that. And they're wrong, on both counts.

So, if I'm dying from anything, I'm dying from homophobia. If I'm dying from anything, I'm dying from racism. If I'm dying from anything, it's from indifference and red tape, because these are the things that are preventing an end to this crisis. If I'm dying from anything, I'm dying from Jesse Helms. If I'm dying from anything, I'm dying from the president of the United States. And, especially, if I'm dying from anything, I'm dying from the sensationalism of newspapers and magazines and television shows, which are interested in me, as a human-interest story, only as long as I'm willing to be a helpless victim, but not if I'm fighting for my life. If I'm dying from anything, I'm dying from the fact that not enough rich, white, heterosexual men have gotten AIDS for anybody to give a shit.

You know, living with AIDS in this country is like living in the twilight zone. Living with AIDS is like living through a war, which is happening only for those people who happen to be in the trenches. Every time a shell explodes, you look around and you discover that you've lost more of your friends, but nobody else notices. It isn't happening to them. They're walking the streets as though we weren't living through some sort of nightmare. And only you can hear the screams of the people who are dying and their cries for help. No one else seems to be noticing.


*** more at link

[William769]

3. I have my DVR set to record the Show on HBO this evening.

Lets just say this is something I relate to on a daily basis.

[closeupready]

2. Oh, yeah. A name I remember quite well.

K&R