In the Life: Ep. 2010, "The Art of Change"

[Narrator] "In The Life" is funded in part by the H. van Ameringen Foundation... Patricia Kind in honor of her brother Henry van Ameringen... arcus Foundation... The Estate of Richard W. Weiland... and by the annual support of "In The Life" members like you. [Narrator] This month on "In The Life"... the intersection of art and social change. Four stories showing how art has inspired the LGBT movement and its allies in the fight for full equality. [Man at microphone] "Freedom!" Broadway organizing for marriage equality in New York [Gavin Creel] I want the Broadway industry  to be...in the history books. [Host] The play that presented   gay life-center stage. [Dialogue from the film "Boys in the Band"]   "You'll always be homosexual as well." "Always Michael." [Host] Portraits that challenge convention. [John Bennette] What she   shows us is normalcy. Everyday people in everyday situations. [Host] And the censorship   of David Wojnarowicz. [Jonathan Katz] They must stop editing us out of American history. ["In The Life" main title music playing]. [Silence]. [Performing singing] "Hair!" [Host] In the Broadway musical "Hair," young activists band together for social change. [Performers singing]. 'Hair!" Offstage, life imitates art. In 2008, three young Broadway professionals- actor Gavin Creel, actor Rory O'Malley, and production and management   assistant Jenny Kanelos- decided to take action in   response to Proposition 8. [Performers singing] "Let the sun shine..." [Host] Inspiring the Broadway community  to raise their voice for equality, they organized Broadway Impact. Their approach...keep it simple and fun. And with a singular focus- marriage equality in New York State. [Gavin Creel] I want our industry... I want the Broadway industry to be... in the history books. I want Broadway Impact to be in history books.  That we were there and we were part of it. [Performers singing]. [Rory O'Malley] You know that's were we came with the Broadway Impact. This is what Broadway's impact on this movement   and hopefully other movements in the future. [Creel] What our website hopes to do... is take all the information that's out there on all these other websites and everything and boil it down to the one video or one action. [O'Malley] One thing. One action. What are we doing today... to get this accomplished? [Protestor's chanting]. [Host] With the motto "Action Equals Equality"... [Protestor's chanting]. "Marriage is a civil right." [Host] Broadway Impact has inspired thousands of new activists in New York. [Unidentified woman] As a resident of New York City, I'm hopeful... [Host] It started with a a letter-writing campaign that delivered three thousand letters to the New York State Senate. [Jenny Kanelos] I thought, "Well... I have a lot of friends in different Broadway shows." Like, why don't we go to each company of a show and say, "Hey, can you write... everyone write a letter?" And that would be like 40 letters say per company. [Creel] If you want a law changed... you gotta knock on that door everyday. You gotta send an email, make a phone call, write a letter. You gotta annoy these people. [Oskar Eustis] The thing that I think is   special about Broadway Impact is it's an organization that is   really devoted to empowering the artists in the Broadway community and I don't mean empowering them just to take care of themselves but empowering them to be able   to take care of all of us. To be able to actually lead. [Cyndi Lauper] "For Gavin Creel!" [Crowd applauding and cheering]. [Host ]A centerpiece of Broadway Impact is its monthly cabaret where musicians can help celebrate the growth of the community's activism. [Performers singing]. [Sara Bareillis] To me, it's about human rights. It's a way to reach out to not   only the gay community but to...to the the straight community  as well and raise awareness about really just wanting to gain equality. [Lane Beuachamp] I'm a big Broadway geek.  Uhm...I am the one who sits in the audience and enjoys the show and I could spend   my life standing in the wings. [Room noise]. I've felt the energy and the empowerment and said, "I've got to be a part of this." [Host] From inspiring  people to call voters... to organizing a marriage equality rally... [Performers singing] "You may say I'm a dreamer." Broadway Impact clearly attracts a diverse group of activists. [Ron Zacchi] That fun, that energy...  that definitely helps motivate in the grassroots community. It definitely helps bring people together. [Anthony Hayes] I got a phone call from Rory O'Malley saying, "You know, there's going to be a rally   outside the Governor's office with the opposition." Uhm...opposition to marriage equality. [O'Malley] People were angry that these people show up on our turf, you know, and tell us that we can't have these rights in Manhattan and we wanted to have something   positive come out of the situation. [Hayes] Very daunted by the task on some level. We all just looked at each other and said, "Okay, let's do it." [O'Malley at microphone] "Alright New York!" [Creel] I was two blocks away and I could still hear this (Creel makes roar sound).   Like, the scream in midtown Manhattan and I was like that is something that literally these two white boys from Ohio,  and their straight friend, literally had this idea and went, "Oh crap.  Here we go. Let's try to make this happen." [Kanelos] And it happened it happened in 10 days. [Performers singing]. [Hayes] And it just snowballed into an unbelievable   event with thousands of people. We had Cheyenne Jackson... Audra McDonald... the Mayor [Michael Bloomberg]... Cynthia Nixon... David Hyde-Pierce. Each day we would add someone to the list and...and then more people would   show up to volunteer. [Crowd and performers singing songs from "Hair"]. [Will Swenson] When I met Gavin when we started "Hair" maybe he had just talked about the idea of Broadway Impact. He's done amazing things that are literally, you know, changing our country. [Music from "Hair" playing]. [Host] One of Broadway Impacts most exciting moments was mobilizing 1,400 activists and the cast of "Hair"  for the National Equality March in Washington, DC. [Cassie Levy] The march...there were so many young people there and it's kind of awakened this spirit of activism in this next generation and to be part of allowing that to happen is like the greatest honor you can imagine. [Ato Blankson-Wood] Like, Gavin and Broadway Impact and everything it's kind of like lit a fire in all of us and uhm... I hope that it keeps going and I hope to be a part of more things. Yeah. [Eustis] If all their dreams are are achieved, we not only are going to have a theater community that's active on this issue we're gonna have a theater community that wakens up to the idea that we have a really significant role to play in the cultural dialogue of the country. [Creel] It's gonna take visibility. People stop whispering about it. Or shoving us in the corner. Or acting like it's a gay issue. It's a human rights issue. It's not a gay issue. Months from now, or nine years from now...this is just the beginning. We're gonna be unstoppable and  I know it. I know it. [Music playing]. [Host] A year and a half after we filmed this interview Broadway Impact is unstoppable in the fight for marriage equality. [Cast] "Broadway supports equality!" [Host] Working side-by-side with the Empire State Pride Agenda, the Human Rights Campaign Freedom to Marry, and All Out they're helping organize the push to pass marriage equality in New York State this year. Governor Andrew Cuomo has promised  to make a vote on this issue a top priority. [Music playing]. [Silence]. [Music playing]. [Host] In 1968 Mart Crowley's play, "The Boys in the Band,"  swept both gay and straight audiences alike. This controversial work was adapted by Crowley into a 1970s film. Over 40 years later Crayton Robey's documentary, "Making the Boys," examines the seminal  work and its place in gay history. The documentary has been called "essential viewing" by The Hollywood Reporter. [Silence]. [Music playing]. [Crayton Robey] My inspiration for "Making the Boys" was just...I just look around today and I see that  we have all these freedoms and I feel that people... don't really connect the dots. I think that  the older generation and the younger generation really don't relate to each other and I think a  lot of that happened because the AIDS epidemic. Our history is not taught in schools and I uhm...  just feel like our legacy should be preserved. [Norm Korpi] I don't know what "Boys in the Band" is... That's just what a bad gay, when your like, "What's a bad gay?" "Bad gay." [Christian Siriano] Haven't really heard of a "The Boys in the Band." So, I know that's very embarrassing but uhm.. "I'm this boy, in this band" but I don't know otherwise. [Robey] "The Boys in the Band" is the play that was written by Mart Crowley in 1968. [Mart Crowley] It was tried out uh...you know, in a workshop  and then it was very cautiously moved off Broadway and nobody knew whether it was going to work there or not. [Music playing]. [Robey] Within a year it had opened nationally and internationally and this is all before Stonewall happened. Which is so...amazing and what this piece of work did, because it was reviewed in the papers, it created a dialogue about homosexuality. Within that same year he was approached by a couple  different studios and uh...it was made into a major feature film. [Michael Musto] I heard about "Boys in the Band"  when I was probably in my early teens. So I was too young to actually go and see it but it  had caused quite a scandal as an "out" gay film. This is the life I couldn't even dream about at this  point because though I knew I was gay, I didn't know there was a future for me. [Robey] At that particular time, you go see the play but then you go out for a drink that night and you could be arrested. [Dialogue from the film "Making the Band"] There was  a period in American history not so long ago, some of us were alive, when gay people were virtually invisible. [Musto] In the 60's, gays were "evil," they were "nasty," they were "twisted" and "psychotic" or they were "pathetic." There was no middle ground. [Crowley] I didn't know what I was gonna write about. But, you know, what does one write about? One writes about what one knows and that's one's life. [Robey] What "The Boys in the Band" does  it just documents that moment in history and that group of people that assembled at that birthday party and that were just dealing with  their demons...or not. [Crowley] When I thought I had to do  something and I started to work on the play it was just reaching for a legal pad out of my briefcase and, you know, beginning to scribble   some notes on a yellow legal pad. And day-by-day, you know, they kept growing and the pile got thicker and thicker. [Robey] From historical perspective, we have to say  that it was the most significant and the most important gay play in terms of like  just advancing our causes because of the visibility that it gave us. People have their own personal experiences with the piece. Seeing these gay images of  themselves was so important but I think it's also overshadowed by the movement that had started- the gay liberation  movement- where people... they could not really like these particular characters because they had to celebrate their freedom. [Charles Kaiser] There were a lot of future gay activists sitting in the audience who were being imbued with the idea that this is something that we should be open about and proud of. Uh...you know, I say in the "Gay Metropolis" that the last speech which most people thought was very self hating... [Dialogue from the film "The Boys in the Band"] "But you'll always be homosexual as well." "Always Michael." "Always." "Until the day you die." [Kaiser] And in fact... that was a very liberating statement  because that was finally an acknowledgement that  this condition was not a choice or something that you could get over. This was who you were. [Robey] I like to call it a classic I mean, it's...it's something that we have... we have as a culture and it and uh...  it came around at a moment and just... rescued us in a very, very special way. [Silence]. [Music playing]. [Host] "In The Life" documenting the issues and people shaping the gay experience . [Music playing]. [Silence]. [Music playing]. [Dialogue from "States of Union"] [Alix Smith] To me, I love photographing   people in their own environment because it's like a set. It's like a stage. [Music and sound of camera taking pictures]. Everything in your house or your apartment you've put there for a reason and   it says something about you. [Smith] "I am really sorry guys. You're so good." My name is Alix Smith. I am an artist, a photographer. [Music playing]. [Smith] Right now I'm working on  a project called "States of Union," which focuses on gay and lesbian lesbian couples and families, playing off classical paintings in some way. I grew up on the Upper East Side of New York. I went to an all-girls Catholic private school. I always felt sort of out of place. Which is why photography was so important. When I was coming out there weren't any positive gay role models  out there. Everyone...the... most of the people in movies either turned out to be straight, died a drug-induced death or were a victim of hate crime. [John Bennette] The unfortunate problem with gay representation is you have extremes- either everyone is elegant and perfect; or, they're sluts and   depraved and decadent. What she shows us is "normalcy." [Music playing]. [Bennette] Everyday people in everyday situations. [Music playing]. [Smith] There was someone who told me a story that their parent had been... very conservative. And he said, "God...I wish   I was just normal." And this idea that he was growing up thinking he wasn't normal, uhm...I found it very sad. It's hard growing up in a society where  the stereotypes are so prevalent that you begin to believe them yourself and I think that part of the project is to dispel those stereotypes and to allow people to   embrace who they are. [Smith] "A little smile?" [Smith] How the shoots are are set up is I... contact the family and I give them about 20 images that I think might work and because portraiture is  so much a collaboration between the artist and the sitter, uhm...I want them to have a say. So they're given the images and I ask them pick which one you think would most describe you or is most akin to your family. [Sound of camera taking pictures]. For them, I chose the Renoir. The photo doesn't necessarily end up looking like the painting. It's just a jumping off point. [Leora Perlman] Well, I just saw the dog and I was like, "This is the one that had a dog and it had two kids" and had... you know, it only had one mom but I figured, "yeah, we'll just add another." Actually showed it to the boys. I was like, "What do you think?" [Meredith Greenberg] "Which one do you wanna be?" [Perlman] Yeah and (Nadal?)   was like, "That one." [Greenberg] "Oh, man." [Greenberg] When we got married we really decided that we would...we would never sort of leave it to chance anymore for people to know that we were a couple and that we were a family. We just have to treat ourselves uhm... as full human beings and never compartmentalized any piece of who we are and uhm...that's exactly    what she's doing. She just is capturing the fullness of what uhm...a family can look like. [Music playing]. [Smith] All art is narcissistic. Essentially, so you make something because it interests you.  So this idea that I was gay, that I didn't really see a lot of images that were like me, and sort of wanting to create those images. I mean, that's where it started from. [Music playing]. [Bennette] I think anyone who's going  to enjoy these pictures will spend a great deal of time trying to figure out the details because once you get past the fact that they're supposed to be art, we really only care about the   people in the pictures. We're trying to read their stories, We're trying to see how their stories are similar to our stories. [Smith] We're a group of people that don't have a visual legacy and it...I think it has a lot to do with sort of psychologically how we see ourselves because when you open an art history  book and you're straight and you can see these images that is sort of defining who you are or what group you fit into and being gay or lesbian, you don't have those images. So part of the concept is starting off with these paintings, starting off with this language of portraiture  and from there building our own visual legacy. [Music playing]. [Sally Lehman] There is this long history of art being a device to bring the public's attention to things that might not be right in front of them, might not be surrounding them. [Smith] Photography's always been  used for social change. Uhm...I mean, if you look  at Dorothea Lange for instance- the migrant mother image that's so famous- I mean, that image created a whole movement to help those farmers uhm...by the government, by volunteers, by donations. Even Annie Leibovitz's image of Demi Moore when she was pregnant- it was the first time you saw a pregnant woman on the cover of a magazine. Like...and at that point it was something that you covered up. That you were, like, not ashamed of...   but like you didn't flaunt it and from there women started to embrace pregnancy and their bodies and uhm...  it changed people's perceptions. [Silence]. [Music playing]. [Perlman] It's validating on so many levels and educating and thought-provoking. So the more people that think...I think, that's...that's where change comes from. [Music playing]. [Lehman] It's more subversive...than the most   overtly political work out there because the message is delivered so quietly and so... with such a gentle touch that you don't know that...you know, that your ideas might have shifted until after the fact. [Bennette] I think photography purpose is   basically uh...to catalog. To show you...what is there and her project will be a major    catalog of contemporary gay families. [Music playing]. [Smith] People hate what they don't know. Which is why it's really important to show people who they're voting against or who uhm... who this body is...who this community is uhm... because by keeping us in the dark, it just perpetuates  the hatred because if you don't have an image that dispels stereotypes then...  those stereotypes grow and grow. [Silence]. [Music playing]. [Unidentified man with bullhorn] "I don't want you to burn in hell." "Be joyful in the presence of the almighty god." [Music playing. Crowds yelling and cheering]. [Host] "In The Life"...documenting the issues and people  shaping the gay experience. [Crowds yelling and cheering]. [Host] On December 1, 2010 the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery stunned the world, and the art world in particular, by announcing the removal of "Fire In My Belly" by the late artist David Wojnarowicz. [Wendy Olsoff] Someone from the   press called and that the "Smithsonian had pulled a piece and what do we think of it?" I was thinking, "Why?" [Thomas Rauffenbart] It didn't surprise me. What surprised me was... that that was the image- the Christ on the cross with the ants. [Music playing]. [Jonathan Katz] We have "freedom of speech" in this country and I am profoundly disappointed. [Crowds whistling and cheering]. [Olsoff] It's not a finished piece. [Crowds whistling and cheering]. The film was edited and sound was added from David's archives...from an audio tape and that was what was pulled. [Crowds whistling and cheering]. [Katz] What we decided we would do was to take a tape that David had made of an ACT UP demonstration in which you can hear actually David's own voice  protesting and we ran that as the sound. [Host] The video "Fire In My Belly" was part of the Smithsonian's exhibit "HIDE/SEEK"- the first national art show covering gender and sexual difference in American portraiture. [Katz] One of the animating ideas behind the show is that we've been looking at these images  for, in some instances, over a century, but we haven't talked about the specifically LGBT content of these works. I'm incredibly grateful that the   National Portrait Gallery they said finally this "is an extension of our purpose and our promise" and I applaud them for that. They also completely screwed up in taking the video out of the exhibition. [Crowds whistling and cheering]. [Unidentified TV Reporter] "Conservative lawmakers and the Catholic League have called it hate speech." [Host] The controversy was started by   Catholic League President Bill Donohue who claimed that "Fire In My Belly's"   depiction of a crucifix with ants on it was anti-Catholic hate speech. [Rauffenbart] When I heard who started it,  this Donahue character from the Catholic League, it didn't surprise me. His whole life is saying the Catholic Church is being persecuted. [Katz] They're a right-wing fringe group.   They're anti-Semitic. They're homophobic. It looks like it's representative of the Catholic Church when in fact, of course, it has absolutely no relationship. There's a perverse sign of progress in all of this because it used to be...the old game was, right...  there's a queer, excise it. That's a politics of diminishing return. So what they've done is they had to invent a red herring- religious hate speech. [Olsoff] It was an interesting choice for a piece  to be censored from that show because I think... you know, they saw a crucifix with ants, "Oh...let's pull that." But they didn't know anything about the artist. [Host] During his life, David often fought against censorship even incorporating it into his art. AIDS also influenced him. [David Wojnarowicz at microphone] "When I put my hands on your body... on your flesh...I feel   the history of that body." [Host] Like much of his work, Wojnarowicz made "Fire In My Belly" as a response to the AIDS epidemic. [Olsoff] David's work changed a lot after he was diagnosed  and after people and friends started dying. [Rauffenbart] I think a lot of people think David was... well they know him through his work... which is very strong and  very tough. We were together for about seven years until he died in 1992. He wasn't just a painter. He was a writer, he was a photographer, he was a doodler. He would make things. It was in his blood. I mean, I don't know you know...it's not like somebody says, "Oh... maybe I'll become an artist," you know. He was an artist. [Music from "Fox & Friends"]. [TV Reporter] "The federally funded Smithsonian is coming under fire this morning." [Host] After the Smithsonian removed "Fire In My Belly," Republican lawmakers began attacking   the Smithsonian's funding and the show HIDE/SEEK. [Representative Jack Kingston] "Really perverted sick stuff." [Rauffenbart] What really upset me the most... was this future Speaker of the House  Boehner getting involved and threatening the museum with their funding. [Katz] The won midterm elections   and they think this is their moment and they're trying to reignite a cultural war  because culture wars have paid off in the past. What's happened now is that the museums and  the art world have broadly supported us and this film is being shown in venues all across  the country and indeed throughout the world. [Music playing]. [Olsoff] In tonight's meeting, I think, part of the  focus is "put...the...piece...back." By putting it back, it makes people realize a mistake and apologize to the legacy  of this great artist. [Katz] While we're protesting, I also want to... with an eye on the future... why have we given a free pass  to our cultural institutions and not held them to a standard that they must include our lives? Or to put it another way- "Stop editing us out  of American history." [Silence]. [Host] Thank you for watching "In The Life." To learn more about the   issues in tonight's program or to tell us your thoughts  about the show text ITL to 69866 on your mobile phone and visit ITLMedia.org to watch more web exclusives on art and social change. [Silence]. [Dialogue from "Letter to Sam," Ed Hardy] Sam didn't uh... didn't think that tattooing...I mean, he really   actively discouraged me and I... I guess...you know, I've said   that other places that uh... he...he just...he really...he said, "It's a dying art. It doesn't have any, you know, future." And, you know, "You should not pursue this." He really didn't want to help me and...and I thought the complete opposite, you know. I thought this is just this totally  undeveloped thing that has tremendous kind of beauty and fascination and weirdness. [Narrator] "In the Life" is  funded in part by the H. van Ameringen Foundation... Patricia Kind in honor of her  brother Henry van Ameringen... arcus Foundation... The Estate of Richard W. Weiland... and by the annual support of "In The Life" members like you. [WNET Channel 13 New York station identification music]. [American Public Broadcasting station identification music].