| Tongues Untied | |
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 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Marlon T. Riggs |
| Produced by | Marlon T. Riggs |
| Starring |
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| Narrated by |
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| Distributed by | |
Release date |
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Running time | 55 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Tongues Untied is a 1989 Americanvideo essay[1][2]experimentaldocumentary film directed byMarlon T. Riggs,[3] and featuring Riggs,Essex Hemphill, Brian Freeman. and more.[4] The film seeks, in its author's words to, "...shatter the nation's brutalizing silence on matters of sexual and racial difference."
In 2022, the film was selected for preservation in the United StatesNational Film Registry by theLibrary of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[5]
The film blends documentary footage with personal account and poetry in an attempt to depict the specificity of Black gay identity. The "silence" referred to throughout the film is that of Blackgay men, who are unable to express themselves because of the prejudices of white and Black heterosexual society, as well as the white gay society.
Riggs brings awareness to the issues Black gay men face.[6] They are excluded from gay communities because these communities are white-centered and fail to understand the intersecting identities of race and sexuality. Riggs experienced this in San Francisco, California within theCastro District, in which he states, "I was immersed in vanilla" and witnessed the absence of the Black gay image.[7]
In addition, Riggs gives examples of media in whichblack men are hypersexualized for white sexual pleasure and racistly portrayed Black individuals. Black gay men are placed in a divide because their voices are excluded from these LGBTQIA+ communities, but their bodies are sexualized for white viewing pleasure.[7]
Furthermore, Black men are supposed to represent hyper-masculinity, and when Black gay men associate with homosexuality, they are seen as being weak.[8] With their gay identity, however, a Black man is expected to be both hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine.[7] These are the stereotypes and stigmas that oppress Black gay men.[8]
Within their Black communities,black homophobia is also present.[7] Riggs displays footage of church leaders preaching that gay relationships are an abomination and Black political activists who consider being Black and gay to be a conflict of loyalties.[6]
The narrative structure ofTongues Untied is both non-linear and unconventional. Besides including documentary footage detailing North American Black gay culture, Riggs also tells of his own experiences as agay man. These include the realization of his sexual identity and of coping with the deaths of many of his friends toAIDS. Other elements within the film include footage of theCivil Rights Movement and clips ofEddie Murphy performing a homophobic stand-up routine.
The documentary dealt with the simultaneous critique of the politics of racism, homophobia and exclusion as they are intertwined with contemporary sexual politics. The film is a part of a body of films and videos which examine central issues in the lives of lesbian and gay Black people. Riggs' work challenged documentary film's generic boundaries of conformity at that time.
At the time of its release, the film was considered controversial because of its frank portrayal of two men kissing. Presidential candidatePat Buchanan citedTongues Untied as an example of how PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush was using taxpayer's money to fund "pornographic art". In his defense, Riggs stated that, "Implicit in the much overworked rhetoric of community standards is the assumption of only one central community (patriarchal, heterosexual andusually white) and only one overarching cultural standardditto."
WhenTongues Untied was scheduled to be aired on thePOV television series onPBS (and even before it was broadcast), it triggered a national controversy. Along with his own funds, Riggs had financed the documentary with a $5,000 grant from the Western States Regional Arts Fund, a re-granting agency funded by theNational Endowment for the Arts, an independent federal agency that provides funding and support for visual, literary, and performing artists.POV also received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts in the amount of $250,000.[9][10]
News of the film's impending airing sparked a national debate about whether or not it is appropriate for the federal government of the United States to fund artistic creations that offended some.[10]
ReverendDonald E. Wildmon, the president of theAmerican Family Association, attacked PBS and theNational Endowment for the Arts for airingTongues Untied but hoped that the film would be widely seen, because he believed most Americans would find it offensive. "This will be the first time millions of Americans will have an opportunity to see the kinds of things their tax money is being spent on," he said. "This is the first time there is no third party telling them what is going on; they can see for themselves."
Riggs defended the film, saying it was meant to "shatter this nation's brutalizing silence on matters of sexual and racial difference."[11] He observed that the widespread attack on PBS and theNational Endowment for the Arts in response to the film was predictable, since "any public institution caught deviating from their puritanical morality is inexorably blasted as contributing to the nation's social decay."[12]
Riggs said, "implicit in the much overworked rhetoric about 'community standards' is the assumption of only one central community (patriarchal, heterosexual and usually white) and only one overarching cultural standard to which television programming must necessarily appeal." Riggs stated that ironically, the censorship campaign againstTongues Untied actually brought more publicity to the film than it would have otherwise received and thus enhanced its effectiveness in challenging societal standards regarding depictions of race and sexuality.[12]
Marc Weiss, executive producer ofPOV, and Jennifer Lawson, Vice President for Programming atPBS, vigorously defended the broadcast[13][14] and, although some public TV stations did not air the film, many stations did, saying it should be available for people who wanted to see it.
The broadcast of the film was criticized by several conservative US Senators, who vehemently objected to using taxpayer money to fund what they believed was pornography.[15]
At the same time, the national broadcast ofTongues Untied was applauded by many others who resoundingly defended the work, among themNorman Lear'sPeople for the American Way.
In the 1992 Republican presidential primaries, presidential candidatePat Buchanan citedTongues Untied as an example of howPresident George H. W. Bush was investing "our tax dollars in pornographic and blasphemous art." Buchanan released an anti-Bush television advertisement for his campaign using re-edited clips fromTongues Untied[15] that violated U.S. Copyright law. The ad was quickly removed from television channels after Riggs successfully demonstrated Buchanan's copyright infringement.
The year 2019 marked the 30th anniversary of the release ofTongues Untied and 25 years since Riggs' death. What began as an idea formulated by Signifyin' Works PresidentVivian Kleiman, eventually garnered support from theFord Foundation, and Signifyin' Works seeded international events to introduce the work to a new generation. A nine-day retrospective curated by Ashley Clark was launched at theBrooklyn Academy of Music and was entitledRace, Sex & Cinema: The World of Marlon Riggs.[16] Discussions and panels were led by the likes of Raquel Gates,Yance Ford, Vivian Kleiman,Steven Thrasher, Katherine Cheairs, Herman Gray, and Steven G. Fullwood.[17][18]
In May, 2019, thePeabody Awards honored Marlon andTongues Untied with a tribute, whichBilly Porter of the award-winningFX seriesPose presented. In conversation before the event with Vivian Kleiman, he noted that he sawTongues Untied when it was broadcast on PBS, and the film changed his life, and gave him his voice at an early age.[19]
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of theTeddy Awards, the film was selected to be shown at the66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016.[20]
New York Times critic-at-largeWesley Morris wrote "Tongues Untied is Riggs's unclassifiable scrapbook of black gay male sensibility (a hallucinatory whir of style, memory, psychology).... This is storytelling that arises from joy and pain and pride (Riggs's clearest emotional forebear isJames Baldwin)."[21]
Onreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, the film holds a score of 100% based on 12 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10.[22]
In 2022, the film was selected for preservation in the United StatesNational Film Registry by theLibrary of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[5]