A critically acclaimed doc provokes action—and anger
Kirby Dick was graced with an Oscar nomination for Twist of Faith, his tender and tragic documentary about a man confronting the trauma of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest. Not surprisingly, his doc about the almost equally seedy machinations of the MPAA, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, was then promptly ignored by the Academy. Go figure.
Dick’s fearlessness to bite the hand that feeds him is what makes him a richly provocative chronicler. To him, justice is a higher prize than molded faux Oscar gold.
Now Dick has turned his famously scrupulous sights on the gay hypocritical hierarchy in the righteously anger-inducing Outrage, now on DVD (Magnolia Home Entertainment). Solidly researched and remarkably pitched, this scrutinizing, pointed, and ruefully non-partisan documentary nails both jack-ass Democrat hypocrites and elephant-in-the-room Republicans who secretly rendezvous with fratboy lovers, biker bad men, and longtime companions, all the while wearing or marrying their obvious (and occasionally oblivious) female beards as they cast crucial votes against gay rights, AIDS funding, and other pro-gay legislation with painfully ignorant self-loathing vitriol. Some of their sins, such as Larry Craig’s stall sleaze, Governor McGreevey’s humiliating fall from grace, and Malcolm Forbes’ leather fetish, are painfully known. Lesser public and larger sins, like Florida-sized closet case Charlie Crist, are more revelatory, and all the more enraging.
Before you start jumping on the Palin-bashing bandwagon, look to our own clan. Our slam-closeted brethrens’ slippery evil is worse than any straight Nazi on Fox news. Dick’s documentary shows us who the real enemy is. We’ve met him. He is us. —Steven Foster
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