I saw this film on a Sunday in mid-June and was moved on more levels than this post alone can capture. Being Black-or of color in general, and different carries a uniquely burdensome stigma within our community. Without sounding exclusionary, and writing only from my own experiences of being Black and different, I found this film a head-noddingly accurate depiction of the seldom bespoken caveats.
Brother to Brother is the semi-fictitious narrative tale of friendship between recently denounced gay art student, Perry and a now homeless Richard Bruce Nugent; famed Harlem Renaissance pioneer. The fortuitous union of these two brilliant minds is where the story begins; at the base of the stairs of a brownstone in Brooklyn, New York.
Brother to Brother is a story rich in history, art, culture, love and character. Each of its characters replete with pride, rebellion and joie de vivre; Brother to Brother toggles seamlessly between the present and the past, the real and the imagined. The film dissects and sheds light on the struggle to find the delicate balance of acceptance between two worlds; Blackness and homosexuality. Then and now, the names, faces, and places change but the struggle remains the same.
Wallace Thurman, Langston Hughes, Richard Bruce Nugent, “Perry”, and this film: Black, gay and brilliant!
When I originally penned this review, one of my regular Tea & Honey Bread readers made the following opening statement in his comment: “This is the ‘difference within the difference’”. Compendiously all encompassing; “the difference within the difference”. But how, why? On the heels of the March for Equality, I have to open this up for discussion.
Moms of Hue readers, what are your thoughts on homosexuality? Gay rights and equality? Are we/they different? Or are we all equal? How so, and why?
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Right on sistah! You don’ made me break out my Marlon Riggs, lol. He says, “what lies at the heart, I believe, of Black America’s pervasive cultural homophobia is the desperate need for a covenient Other winthin the community, yet not truly of the community- an Other on which blame for the chronic identity crises afflicting the Black male psyche can be readily displaced.” He also says, “I am a Negro Faggot, if I believe what movies, TV, and rap music say of me. Because of my sexuality, I cannot be Black. A strong, proud, “Afrocentric” Black man is resolutely heterosexual, not even bisexual… I cannot be a Black Gay Man because, by the tenets of Black Macho, Black Gay Man is a triple negation.”
I am a queer ally and I believe that love and sexual expression should be free. I also believe that sexuality is never fixed, but continuous, and it is not the kind of sex you have, but how safe you have it
. Thus, no, we are not tremendously different, but equal as human beings and should be afforded equal rights!! When it comes to the minority rights fight and the gay rights fight I feel that we as blacks are always clawing our way to the top. We will claw through other minorities to assert that “our” struggle is more of the essence than theirs. Same thing when it comes to gay rights. We will claw our way through gay rights issues deeming them unimportant and most certainly not as important as civil rights issues, and queer history most certainly not as important as black history… forgetting that the black and the gay are sometimes one in the same!!
Barbara´s last blog ..Rewards
Amazing stuff, huh? We are right here on the topic-I can’t imagine for a minute negating the struggle of anyone. There are no gradient degrees of oppression, there is only oppression and you are either the oppressed or an oppressor.
t. allen-mercado´s last blog ..The Art of Living