Small Town Gay Bar

This is a documentary about the history of homosexuality in a rural and religious part of America, with particular emphasis on a small local gay bar.

Instead of just focusing on the history of one gay bar, as a title suggests, it looks at the recent events related to homosexuality in the area. It tries to cover a bit of everything. It covers the tragedy of gay bashing, and the brutal murder of a young gay man. It covers the strong anti-gay stance of the local church. As a result, the negativity is both alarming and disturbing. Fortunately, to balance the tragic melancholy, it covers the joy of people having fun and meeting partners in the bar. It also empowers gay people to come out and live the life they want, as shown in the interview of a few drag queens in the limousine.

This is a comprehensive documentary of gay life in a rural part of America. I can imagine the difficulty in making this, and I do commend the filmmakers for their effort.

Winner of two awards and beaten at Sundance by a documentary on my "must see" list, this is a film about gay life in the Bible Belt.

Malcolm Ingram, who also writes, and even crewed on Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, is changing from comedy with his third film as a director, and doing a great job at it.

This film is like a roller-coaster in that one minute you are partying along with the patrons of "Rumors," a gay and lesbian bar in Shannon, MS; and the next you are hearing about a brutal torture and murder of a man in Bay Minette; Then we visit "Crossroads" in Meridian, where anything goes, and are partying big time. Other bars in North Mississippi are also profiled before we end up back at Crossroads and Rumors.

Oh, yes, Meridian is the birthplace of Fred Phelps, so you have to feature him in the film, too. Another piece of the puzzle that is this man? And, of course, you have Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association in Tupelo, so having a gay bar in Mississippi is a challenge.

This was an extremely interesting film about people that just want to be left alone to have fun.

When I say Small Town Gay Bar is the story of community in the Deep South that is forced to deal with the struggles of ignorance, hypocrisy and oppression, I don't actually mean it's a story. It's more of a patchwork. It is entirely horizontal; no depth, no highs or lows; simply a sequence of documented people and places. This is not an innately bad thing. If that were the way to tell an unequivocal account with responsible objectivity, then the film would achieve great impact. But the film offers nothing we haven't seen before and nothing we don't know.

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the South is the worst place in the country to be gay. Malcolm Ingram's documentary gives us nothing more or less to digest. We see two Mississippi communities and the film bases those visits around two small gay bars. As well, the film visits Bay Minette, Alabama, to look at the brutal hate murder of Scotty Joe Weaver. We focus on a group of folks who are less concerned with the national debate over gay marriage than they are with the life risks they take being openly gay in small Southern towns.

Absolutely. If I were gay, I would much rather live in Maine or California, where I would long to live the life that 60% of straight Americans can't seem to get right, but I would nevertheless be able to publicly hold hands with my partner. In Massachusetts, I may find myself using more discretion with public affection, but I could walk down the alter with my significant other just like my parents and siblings can. In the South, the only benefit of being openly gay would be the little hole-in-the-wall, whether it be 5 minutes away or 2 hours away, where I could unwind and get laid on the weekend. We watch as a community is disgusted by the debaucherous chaos erupting regularly at one gay bar, since they can never seem to get it into their heads that prohibition and repression naturally lead their victims to obsession and overindulgence. We watch, indeed, but we are never at any time surprised.

Various documentaries on homosexuality in America have been fascinating, staggering and moving. For the Bible Tells Me So, Family Fundamentals, Out of the Past and After Stonewall come to mind. They provide insight into the accustomed homophobia of largely decent Christian communities, the astonishing justifications of fundamentalist parents who refuse to accept their children's "choices," gay figures from history who made profound impacts on society despite their inner suffering and turmoil, and events that we must never forget in this uphill battle for equality. Small Town Gay Bar does no more than skim the surface. It doesn't even give us a voice of reason from the opposition; it gives us the psychotic, megalomaniacal ramblings of Fred Phelps, who no one listens to or likes, even FOX News.

Kevin Smith, a talented writer-director whose fanbase covers the vast majority of teenage and young adult people of this generation, is executive producer of this film. His films seem to always glean some insight into the gay community, whether played for crude laughs or for emotional drama. He is the farthest thing from a gay man himself, which is what the LGBT rights movement needs much more of. The gesture is noble, sincere and a mature departure for his body of work, but as he puts a bit too much faith in his fans, he does in his friend, Malcolm Ingram. Ingram also made an earlier narrative film for Smith's View Askew Productions, Drawing Flies. Had he made Small Town Gay Bar a dramatic narrative film as well, rather than a virtually redundant documentary, it would've likely been enormously impactful.

If the reality presented in this documentary is too much for some reviewers, that's too bad. Thankfully for the rest of us this is an incredibly well made, thoughtful documentary for people with enough maturity to realize that while not everything in life can be glowsticks and glitter, that doesn't make it any less worth living.

This documentary shows a lot of different sides of gay life through telling the story of several different gay bars in the "Bible belt," both hardships and the joys. Describing this movie as depressing (and deeming it unfit to see because of it) seems short- sighted in the extreme.

There are a lot of depressing moments. Any time Phelps gets any screen time it is dismaying, but he's a great figure to use to show the very extreme of anti-gay movements. If every queen is out getting blissed out of their mind and ignoring hate mongers like Phelps, his numbers only grow stronger. Know thy enemy. The filmmakers clearly juxtapose Phelps and his followers with the simple, sweet sentiments of the brother of a slain gay man. I think it was quite powerful.

And if anything, I think the film has a message of hope. Despite all the trials, the gay bars in little town are still sticking it out thanks to a few brave individuals, with arguably more heart and sense of community their well coiffed city counterparts can muster these days.\

The film does suffer a bit when it tries to tell the story of "Tula's" mostly because it explores it with less depth than Crossroads or Rumors and it feels a bit tacked on, even though some of the info it offered is interesting, especially in relation to the AFA. But that's my only real complaint.

As a young gay man, I found this movie inspiring. These people are the pioneers in the wild wild west of an oppressively straight (and yes, sometimes cruel) world. It's not safe for them, it's not easy - but they're finding their moments of joy and a place to belong without running away from the places they grew up.

It's easy to wonder - why stay? That's like asking a family in a bad neighborhood - why stay? If there are drug dealers at every corner and bullets flying through the window why do you stay? The truth is, it's not always easy to leave for a number of complicated reasons. There's economics, family, affection for a certain town or landscape... or a mixture of all of them. Should every LGBTQ person flee to a big city, protected in a gay ghetto bubble without having to worry about what is happening in the other 90% of the country? I don't think so. I'd never begrudge them for doing so, as almost every person in the homosexual community has had their fair share of knocks. But to write those who chose to stay off as stupid or miserabilists is unfair in the extreme.

I think they're heroes to be applauded, and I applaud the filmmakers for shining a light on them.

I've watched this film more than once. The only thing about it that is a "downer" is the discrimination and bigotry these people are forced to endure. They address a number of issues...the hostility toward homosexuals, the religious community that is against them, the fact that they have no sense of community with each other than within the walls of these bars.

Although they live under circumstances that are hostile to who they are, they seem like wonderful and delightful people. My favorite part is Jim Bishops speech in the limo. Now you have to watch it to know what I am referring to. You can find it on Netflix.