Tongues Untied
Made, in Marlon Riggs’s own words, to “shatter the nation’s brutalizing silence on matters of sexual and racial difference,” this radical blend of documentary and performance defies the stigmas surrounding Black gay sexuality in the belief that, as long as shame prevails, liberation will never be possible. Through music and dance, words and poetry by such pathbreaking writers as Essex Hemphill and Joseph Beam—and by turns candid, humorous, and heartbreaking interviews with queer African American men—Tongues Untied gives voice to what it means to live as an outsider in both a Black community rife with homophobia and a largely white gay subculture poisoned by racism. A lightning rod in the conservative culture wars of the 1980s that incited a right-wing furor over public funding for the arts, the film has lost none of its resonance in its unapologetic, life-affirming declaration that “Black men loving Black men is the revolutionary act.”
Available In
Collector's Set
Collector's Set
Cast
- Essex Hemphill
- Poetry performance
- Michael Bell
- Featuring
- Bernard Branner
- Ben Callet
- Gerald Davis
- Kenneth R. Dixon
- Darnell Stephens-Durio
- Larry Duckette
- Gideon Ferebee
- AJ Honey
- Paul Horrey
- David Hunter
- Wayson Jones
- David Kirkland
- Richard Medford
- Cornelius Moore
- Bryant Navy
- Willie “Ninja”
- Michael Oatis
- Christopher Prince
- Timothy Riena
- Britt Tennell
- Taalib-Din Shakir
- Robert D. Taylor
- The Lavender Lovelights
- “Come Out Tonight” performed by
- Blackberri
- Kerrigan Black
- Gene Garth
- Arvid Williams
- Steve Langley
- “Do What You Wanna Do” performed by
Credits
- Director
- Marlon Riggs
- Produced by
- Marlon Riggs
- Photographer
- Marlon Riggs
- Editor
- Marlon Riggs
- Field producers
- Colin Robinson
- Ron Simmons
- Snap! graphics
- Rupert Kinnard
- Still photography
- Ron Simmons
- Associate producer
- Brian Freeman
- Musicians
- Idris Ackamoor
- Josh Piagentini
- Production assistant
- Donald Woods
- Additional camera
- Rick Cooper
- Nestor Davidson
- Vivian Kleiman
- Alex Langford
- Calvin Roberts
- Scott Sinkler
- Assistant editors
- Christiane Badgley
- Bob Paris
- Michele Zaccheo
