Tongues Untied Film Analysis

Tongues Untied (Riggs, 1989) is an award winning documentary by Marlon Riggs with the assistance of many other homosexual black men. The documentary put poems together to recreate an image of what it was like to grow up as a homosexual black man during the 80's. Men in the film spoke about the discrimination they had to face on everyday bases. They were called names like faggot, homo, and punk, but if they kept silent about being homosexual they felt like the silence was just as impairing. Some even reveal that they were treated as a threat or invisible. The film also shows how black homosexuals were able to meet one another in places like gay bars or gay pride meetings and rallies. Each city had their own particular way of how homosexual men interacted. All of them came together in the end to march in the gay pride parade. They risked their life to AIDS to fight for who they really were. Every sexual encounter with another man gave risk to catching AIDS. The film ended with obituaries of men who had fallen victim to AIDS (Riggs, 1889).

The main issue in the film (Riggs, 1889) was discrimination. Some forms of discrimination depicted in the film were the mistreatment of black

Some people spend their whole life's hiding from the people they love because they are either unsure or scare to not be accepted. Many men in the film fund themselves invisible and alone, because they had to stay silent about their sexual orientation. Even if families do not agree with homosexuality they should strive to make each other feel like they would accept each other either ways. Also, parents and children both should look further into educating themselves and each other on the reasons for different sexual orientations. Being educated that not everything is black and white, or concrete can open up a greater understanding of things likes sexual