When Tongues Untied was scheduled to be aired on the POV television series on PBS (and even before it was broadcast), it triggered a national controversy. 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 and usually white) and only one overarching cultural standard ditto." Bush was using taxpayer's money to fund "pornographic art". Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan cited Tongues Untied as an example of how President George H.
Riggs' work challenged documentary film's generic boundaries of conformity at that time.Īt the time of its release, the film was considered controversial because of its frank portrayal of two men kissing. 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. The documentary dealt with the simultaneous critique of the politics of racism, homophobia and exclusion as they are intertwined with contemporary sexual politics. Other elements within the film include footage of the Civil Rights Movement and clips of Eddie Murphy performing a homophobic stand-up routine. These include the realization of his sexual identity and of coping with the deaths of many of his friends to AIDS. Besides including documentary footage detailing North American black gay culture, Riggs also tells of his own experiences as a gay man. The narrative structure of Tongues Untied is both interesting and unconventional. 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. Within their black communities, black homophobia is also present. These are the stereotypes and stigmas that oppress black gay men. With their gay identity, however, a black men is expected to be both hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine.
įurthermore, black men are supposed to represent hyper-masculinity, and when black gay men associate with homosexuality, they are seen as being weak. 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. In addition, Riggs gives examples of media in which black men are hypersexualized for white sexual pleasure and racistly portrayed black individuals. Riggs experienced this in San Francisco, California within the Castro District, in which he states, "I was immersed in vanilla" and witnessed the absence of the black gay image. They are excluded from gay communities because these communities are white-centered and fail to understand the intersecting identities of race and sexuality. Riggs brings awareness to the issues black gay men face. The "silence" referred to throughout the film is that of black gay men, who are unable to express themselves because of the prejudices of white and black heterosexual society, as well as the white gay society. The film blends documentary footage with personal account and poetry in an attempt to depict the specificity of black gay identity.