When fear and paranoia get their hooks into a society, they can invade people’s minds in revealing metaphorical ways. Donald Trump, in his rise to the presidency, stoked fear and hostility toward immigrants, and also churned up racism against African-Americans. As monumental — and hideous — as both those hatreds are, you can argue that there were times when the former issue became a conduit for the latter: anti-immigrant fervor as a code for anti-black racism. There’s no better example of this than the “birther” issue. That was a pure racist fantasy, yet in spreading the canard that Barack Obama was a Muslim born in Kenya, Trump suggested, in effect, that Obama was an “immigrant.” The two corruptions overlapped and dovetailed and, at moments, became one.
An equally horrific psychological bait-and-switch went on during the repressive 1950s. In the opening minutes of “The Lavender Scare,” Josh Howard’s essential and...
An equally horrific psychological bait-and-switch went on during the repressive 1950s. In the opening minutes of “The Lavender Scare,” Josh Howard’s essential and...
- 6/7/2019
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Just in time for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots comes “The Lavender Scare,” a compact and fairly well-made documentary on the purging of homosexuals from government jobs; it began with an executive order from Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 — shortly after he was elected president — and only ended in 1995 when Bill Clinton signed an executive order to reverse it.
This is a movie with a clear hero: Frank Kameny, who was fired from his position as an astronomer in Washington, D.C. in 1957 and made it his mission to fight for the rights of homosexuals. Some of his letters are read by David Hyde Pierce, and we only get to see Kameny himself towards the end of the documentary, which details the lives of others who had been fired before him as well as the gay social life in Washington during the 1930s and 40s before the crackdown in the 1950s.
This is a movie with a clear hero: Frank Kameny, who was fired from his position as an astronomer in Washington, D.C. in 1957 and made it his mission to fight for the rights of homosexuals. Some of his letters are read by David Hyde Pierce, and we only get to see Kameny himself towards the end of the documentary, which details the lives of others who had been fired before him as well as the gay social life in Washington during the 1930s and 40s before the crackdown in the 1950s.
- 6/4/2019
- by Dan Callahan
- The Wrap
Last night the internet was ablaze after reading a tweet by Rachel Maddow announcing that she would be revealing a Trump Tax return. At 9pm Est, viewers tuned in to her CNBC show only to find that just a couple of pages of his 2005 tax return were in fact revealed. It was somewhat disappointing because it took nearly 30 minutes for Maddow to lead up to it and the conclusion from the segment is that the President is still hiding a ton and we have a lot more uncovering work to do. The two-page document, which Maddow introduced with
The Best Part of the Rachel Maddow Trump Tax Reveal is David K. Johnson’s Laugh...
The Best Part of the Rachel Maddow Trump Tax Reveal is David K. Johnson’s Laugh...
- 3/15/2017
- by Nat Berman
- TVovermind.com
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