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Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sacker. | :00:00. | :00:12. | |
It's 50 years since homosexuality was decriminalised in Britain. | :00:13. | :00:21. | |
In those 50 years, the campaign for LGBT rights has won landmark | :00:22. | :00:24. | |
victories in many parts of the world, perhaps best | :00:25. | :00:26. | |
symbolised by the normalisation of gay marriage | :00:27. | :00:28. | |
My guest today is American filmmaker Dustin Lance Black. | :00:29. | :00:37. | |
He won an Oscar for the film Milk and has just completed a major | :00:38. | :00:41. | |
series on the struggle for gay rights. | :00:42. | :00:43. | |
Has the time come to declare a famous victory? | :00:44. | :01:12. | |
Dustin Lance Black, welcome to HARDtalk. | :01:13. | :01:14. | |
Thank you for having the. To what extent do you think that your | :01:15. | :01:25. | |
experiences from childhood to now has a gay person have come to define | :01:26. | :01:35. | |
your creative output? Oh, boy. It is one of the many things about me that | :01:36. | :01:39. | |
does define me creatively. Certainly when I am teaching my students - | :01:40. | :01:43. | |
because I teach classes in screenwriting sometimes - and I say | :01:44. | :01:49. | |
to them, tell me about you, what is it about you that is unique, where | :01:50. | :01:56. | |
do you come from, what are you interested in, these are the things | :01:57. | :02:00. | |
that make you incredibly unique. And the things that make you unique | :02:01. | :02:03. | |
could make you marketable in the competitive film isthmus. They give | :02:04. | :02:08. | |
you that unique voice -- business. I encourage them to look at your own | :02:09. | :02:12. | |
voice and the core of who you are because it can make you marketable | :02:13. | :02:17. | |
and you can succeed. I think far too often writers and filmmakers try to | :02:18. | :02:20. | |
go for what is profitable, what is hot at the moment. And the truth of | :02:21. | :02:25. | |
that is you are going to get your butt kicked in the end because | :02:26. | :02:28. | |
someone else is going to be very passionate about that subject. So, | :02:29. | :02:32. | |
at the core of you and your sort of self identity, being gay is a really | :02:33. | :02:37. | |
important part of that? Sure, being gay is a big part of that, because | :02:38. | :02:42. | |
that has a connection to love and who I love and who I spend my life | :02:43. | :02:47. | |
with and the family that I am going to build. But also where I grew up | :02:48. | :02:50. | |
in the United States probably formed who I am. So, growing up in the | :02:51. | :02:54. | |
south in a very conservative atmosphere, growing up in the | :02:55. | :02:57. | |
military and understanding what that meant. The two are woven together in | :02:58. | :03:01. | |
a sense, because I think it is right to say that you had an awareness of | :03:02. | :03:05. | |
being different and of being gay whether you put it that way yourself | :03:06. | :03:10. | |
or not, you have an awareness of three early in your childhood and | :03:11. | :03:14. | |
that was something that in the community you came from, the | :03:15. | :03:17. | |
religion you were born into, that was tough. You mean with the | :03:18. | :03:25. | |
Mormons? Yeah. My mum, my father, the entire side of the family was a | :03:26. | :03:29. | |
devout Mormon, I was a devout Mormon growing. I believed what I was. | :03:30. | :03:37. | |
Including when I was seven years old church beamed in the prophet. He | :03:38. | :03:46. | |
came onto the screen. It was as close to God... It was Godlike, very | :03:47. | :03:52. | |
intimidating. I will never forget him saying next to the sin of murder | :03:53. | :03:57. | |
comes the sin of sexual impurity, homosexuality. Now, I might not have | :03:58. | :04:03. | |
known what that meant at that moment, but I soon learnt... At | :04:04. | :04:07. | |
first I thought it was a new Scrabble word, because it had a X in | :04:08. | :04:12. | |
it and all of those syllables. Soon I learnt I would bring great shame | :04:13. | :04:15. | |
to myself and my family if anyone found out that I had a crush on the | :04:16. | :04:20. | |
boy down the street, which I did. That I would also be going to hell. | :04:21. | :04:24. | |
I would not be with my heavenly father. So I... And if I did fall in | :04:25. | :04:29. | |
love it would have to be something hidden, suppressed. Imagine... That | :04:30. | :04:36. | |
is an enormous darkness to take through childhood, adolescents and | :04:37. | :04:39. | |
into adult hood without being able to discuss it. There was no one to | :04:40. | :04:43. | |
discuss it with. You would be in trouble. If I discussed it in the | :04:44. | :04:47. | |
military, you couldn't be openly gay. You would be kicked out. If I | :04:48. | :04:52. | |
discussed it with anyone in our society, which was very conservative | :04:53. | :04:56. | |
at the time, I would be in great trouble - in some places it was | :04:57. | :04:59. | |
still a crime. You would be expelled. I would certainly be | :05:00. | :05:03. | |
expelled from the things that create community where I am from, so my | :05:04. | :05:07. | |
church, from my neighbourhood and from my school I would be a pariah. | :05:08. | :05:15. | |
And that creates isolation, and that isolation makes young, talented LGBT | :05:16. | :05:23. | |
people fade and stop trying to stand out in positive ways. And for me | :05:24. | :05:28. | |
that isolation ultimately lead to thoughts of taking my own life. | :05:29. | :05:33. | |
Because you tell a young person that when they first feel love that | :05:34. | :05:36. | |
that's not going to lead to things like dates and the prom and marriage | :05:37. | :05:46. | |
but that it could lead to prison or electroshock therapy and certainly | :05:47. | :05:49. | |
disown them from church or home, you wonder what is the purpose of | :05:50. | :05:52. | |
living. You took the decision, you came out to your mother, it must | :05:53. | :05:58. | |
have been very difficult, when you were 21. Yeah, I was 21 years old. I | :05:59. | :06:03. | |
didn't mean to come out. We were living in Washington, DC and I was | :06:04. | :06:07. | |
home for Christmas. We would sit up and talk all night long. You have to | :06:08. | :06:11. | |
understand, my mum had been paralysed from a young age. So she | :06:12. | :06:18. | |
was different too but she was very conservative. At a certain point I | :06:19. | :06:21. | |
wasn't giving anything to the conversation. I wasn't speaking. She | :06:22. | :06:25. | |
filled in the blanks. She was mad about "Don't ask, don't tell", which | :06:26. | :06:32. | |
was a law at the time that as long as no one knew that you were found | :06:33. | :06:40. | |
out... Staying in the closet. It not only hurt the people in the | :06:41. | :06:44. | |
military. My mum didn't see it that way. She was angry because it let | :06:45. | :06:48. | |
gay or lesbian people in in any form. These people she had been | :06:49. | :06:51. | |
taught were next to murderers in terms of sin. These people who were | :06:52. | :06:55. | |
wrong and sick and broken. She just kept going on about it. I cant out | :06:56. | :07:00. | |
because at a certain point, even though I was literally praying not | :07:01. | :07:05. | |
to, I could feel the warmth of my tears hit my cheeks. And a good | :07:06. | :07:08. | |
southern mum can read those tears. She said she knew when I started to | :07:09. | :07:13. | |
cry, I will get teary just thinking back to that moment, because I | :07:14. | :07:17. | |
didn't want to come out, I wasn't ready to come out. That coming out | :07:18. | :07:22. | |
experience, her reaction to it I will never forget. She just got very | :07:23. | :07:26. | |
quiet, her heartbreaking, knowing her son would face challenges she | :07:27. | :07:29. | |
didn't want him to. She said why, why would you choose this? That is | :07:30. | :07:35. | |
what thought was. Will never forget pointing to her crutches, she was | :07:36. | :07:39. | |
paralysed from polio, on the debt, and I said, mum, why did you choose | :07:40. | :07:46. | |
those? And she didn't have an answer to that. That was the beginning of | :07:47. | :07:50. | |
our conversation and it was a conversation that would go on for | :07:51. | :07:55. | |
quite sometime. It was not easy. She did not immediately accept me but | :07:56. | :07:59. | |
there was a lot of unlearning to be done. A lot of that happened when | :08:00. | :08:03. | |
she met my gay and lesbian friends when she came to my graduation from | :08:04. | :08:07. | |
UCLA film school and she heard the stories of gay and lesbian young | :08:08. | :08:11. | |
people. And they didn't match up with what she heard from the Mormon | :08:12. | :08:16. | |
prophet, the military, those personal stories, not political | :08:17. | :08:19. | |
stories, not about the Constitution or science, personal stories from | :08:20. | :08:24. | |
these young people and myself eventually and raced the generations | :08:25. | :08:28. | |
of homophobia she had learnt from the church and from the state and it | :08:29. | :08:33. | |
was gone -- erased. I will never forget after a night near my | :08:34. | :08:37. | |
graduation when she spent an entire evening with my gay friends, that | :08:38. | :08:45. | |
she finally held me and Huntony and in those tears I knew that the lies | :08:46. | :08:51. | |
and distortions were gone -- hugged me. That was love. Understood and a | :08:52. | :08:57. | |
standing who I am and that was love. You have said something important. | :08:58. | :09:01. | |
As I have looked at your career, research in meeting you, your faith | :09:02. | :09:05. | |
in storytelling and the degree to which it can make a difference to | :09:06. | :09:09. | |
the way people see and think. Because I want to take you forward | :09:10. | :09:13. | |
now, you said you want to UCLA film school and after that you developed | :09:14. | :09:17. | |
a very successful career writing, screenwriting. And I think by the | :09:18. | :09:25. | |
time you were 30- 31 you had extraordinary success. You became | :09:26. | :09:29. | |
preoccupied with telling the story of one man, Harvey Milk, the first | :09:30. | :09:34. | |
publicly gay elected official in any US city in San Francisco. Right. | :09:35. | :09:41. | |
What was it about the Milk story that you thought would change hearts | :09:42. | :09:45. | |
and minds? I will break that down a bit. First I think only a story can | :09:46. | :09:50. | |
change hearts and I think only hearts can change minds. That is how | :09:51. | :09:54. | |
I see it. If you want to change it, don't start here. That is a mistake | :09:55. | :09:58. | |
we see on TV programmes and news programmes all day and night. Start | :09:59. | :10:04. | |
here, tell a personal story. That is - personal leap over the walls built | :10:05. | :10:11. | |
by politics, region, religion and by race - go right through them. I have | :10:12. | :10:15. | |
always believed in the power of story to do that. And I get that | :10:16. | :10:19. | |
from the south, I learned it from a bunch of conservative southern folks | :10:20. | :10:22. | |
who liked whiskey and telling stories that night. Secondly, there | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
was a story - I was lucky enough at a certain point, my mum remarried at | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
a good Catholic, which meant he went to church twice a year. And he was | :10:32. | :10:38. | |
much more open-minded and he had orders to ship off to the Bay area | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
in California and my mum loaded up the car with three boys, a cat and | :10:43. | :10:47. | |
all of our belongings in the trunk and we took off to California. There | :10:48. | :10:51. | |
I heard the story of Harvey Milk as a teenager. A story of an openly gay | :10:52. | :10:55. | |
men. I didn't know that there was such a thing. I thought, boy, that | :10:56. | :11:00. | |
is a dangerous thing to be. That is how his story progress. Yes, like | :11:01. | :11:04. | |
you said, he won an election, winning at the ballot box. Let me | :11:05. | :11:08. | |
stop you there because Sean Penn makes an amazing appearance. Let's | :11:09. | :11:15. | |
give people a sense of what it was like in the 70s when Harvey Milk was | :11:16. | :11:21. | |
making his name. Let's have a look. My name is Harvey Milk and I am here | :11:22. | :11:29. | |
to recruit you! I want to recruit you for the fight to preserve your | :11:30. | :11:35. | |
democracy, brothers and sisters. You must come out! Come out to your | :11:36. | :11:41. | |
parents, come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends. | :11:42. | :11:44. | |
Come out to your neighbours, come out to your fellow workers! Once and | :11:45. | :11:50. | |
for all, let's break down the myths and destroy the lies and distortion! | :11:51. | :11:59. | |
So, that is Harvey Milk at the sort of height of his compelling | :12:00. | :12:04. | |
rhetoric. The sad, terrible thing is that no sooner had he sought of won | :12:05. | :12:08. | |
an audience for this powerful message than he was murdered, shot | :12:09. | :12:13. | |
and killed, 1977, because he had a lot of enemies. Right. I wonder | :12:14. | :12:20. | |
whether you from Harvey Milk's life that you were going to have to fight | :12:21. | :12:24. | |
very hard and confront people and difficult things to get your message | :12:25. | :12:29. | |
out there? Well, I take my lesson from Harvey in many ways. It is that | :12:30. | :12:35. | |
you have to reach out to unexpected allies. And by unexpected I mean | :12:36. | :12:39. | |
some of those people who you might think are your enemies. If you are | :12:40. | :12:43. | |
going to build the coalitions to create progress. Now, that means | :12:44. | :12:47. | |
looking past yourself, looking past your needs and desires, and I don't | :12:48. | :12:54. | |
just mean 1978, I mean 2017. Minorities need to live listen to | :12:55. | :13:01. | |
the message, how do you breach the coalition of the uses? Care for your | :13:02. | :13:07. | |
neighbour and your own needs. How do you understand every single person | :13:08. | :13:10. | |
in this planet right now is a minority in one way or another. It | :13:11. | :13:14. | |
depends how you slice the pie. You can help them find the interest that | :13:15. | :13:18. | |
they have in your plate if you help them with yours. He went to the | :13:19. | :13:23. | |
union workers, white, working class union workers who could not afford | :13:24. | :13:27. | |
to put their talented kids through school, and created an alliance with | :13:28. | :13:31. | |
him, with them, that is how he got elected. What you have said to me is | :13:32. | :13:35. | |
incredibly positive and it is about building alliances and coalitions, | :13:36. | :13:39. | |
perhaps some of them unexpected, but you also have to take things on and | :13:40. | :13:44. | |
it seems to me one of the things you have done, you have had to do, is | :13:45. | :13:48. | |
confront to a certain extent your own religion and your own | :13:49. | :13:52. | |
background. Sure. For example, you have had a lot of successful TV | :13:53. | :13:56. | |
scripts and films in your life and you have taken time-out to be a | :13:57. | :13:59. | |
political activist. One of the things you were most activist on was | :14:00. | :14:06. | |
proposition aid, came the fight to stop gay marriage in California. For | :14:07. | :14:10. | |
a while they were successful. My church was leading the way | :14:11. | :14:13. | |
financially. You had to take on the Mormons and you made a film about it | :14:14. | :14:17. | |
which, too many people inside the faith that you had been born into, | :14:18. | :14:19. | |
was disgraceful. Was a betrayal. I would imagine it was also a | :14:20. | :14:31. | |
revelation to many of them. The director of the documentary said | :14:32. | :14:38. | |
would you take part in this and help make the documentary that holds the | :14:39. | :14:46. | |
church accountable? I was nervous and I called my mother and she said | :14:47. | :14:54. | |
he do you go again. I said, yeah, but I just want to tell the truth. | :14:55. | :14:59. | |
What trouble can we get in if we do that? We were just following the | :15:00. | :15:06. | |
money. On the other side of that, there was no attack from the church. | :15:07. | :15:13. | |
They gave me a phone call. They said speak with us. We want to meet with | :15:14. | :15:19. | |
you in Salt Lake City. The lessons are learned from my mother, keeping | :15:20. | :15:26. | |
channels open, I said yes. I went there. Day invited me to a Mormon | :15:27. | :15:40. | |
Tabernacle Spectacular. It is their biggest show of the year. They | :15:41. | :15:44. | |
invited me and some gay and lesbian families. What became evident was | :15:45. | :15:52. | |
that those lesbians and their children, they were having as much | :15:53. | :15:56. | |
trouble keeping those children quiet as the straight couples. The | :15:57. | :15:59. | |
challenges were not different. I will never forget the white-haired | :16:00. | :16:14. | |
man, the bleak -- public relations manager of the church, he took my | :16:15. | :16:18. | |
hand, and said, do you want a family one day? I said yes. He got tearful | :16:19. | :16:30. | |
and said I did not realise that. In the subsequent conversation, it | :16:31. | :16:37. | |
became clear the mission was about breaking down the institution the | :16:38. | :16:42. | |
Mormon church holds dear. And what they learned in those days and weeks | :16:43. | :16:47. | |
was that we want our families protected and respected, along with | :16:48. | :16:53. | |
our children. That is the bottomline. That is interesting. | :16:54. | :16:59. | |
Although you are now a campaigner and activist for gay rights, you | :17:00. | :17:07. | |
sound like a conservative, especially when you talk about what | :17:08. | :17:12. | |
marriage means to you. We have language in common with | :17:13. | :17:16. | |
conservatives and progressives. We all have children. We start speaking | :17:17. | :17:22. | |
the same language when we are all together. What is interesting in | :17:23. | :17:27. | |
politics, both in the United States and much of the West, is the fight | :17:28. | :17:35. | |
you are fighting, the right for a marriage, it has been won. -- gay. | :17:36. | :17:46. | |
63% of Americans believe it is right and accept and embrace it as part of | :17:47. | :17:52. | |
America. You have just made a film called When We Rise, looking at 40 | :17:53. | :18:01. | |
years and more of gay rights, you have been filming and reporting and | :18:02. | :18:06. | |
remarking on a journey that has reached its final destination. | :18:07. | :18:14. | |
Absolutely not. Gay marriage was the prime mover unexpectedly of our | :18:15. | :18:21. | |
movement. We all got together with some folks, legal minds, and we sued | :18:22. | :18:29. | |
the State of California and the Federal Court over the proposition. | :18:30. | :18:41. | |
If we were going to do it right, we needed some allies. We had a lawyer | :18:42. | :18:47. | |
go to The Supreme Court for us, the same who went for George Bush to the | :18:48. | :18:55. | |
White House. We told the personal stories, because we understood we | :18:56. | :19:00. | |
could get five out of nine votes of The Supreme Court but if we wanted | :19:01. | :19:04. | |
to change the culture, make the world safe for LGBT families, we had | :19:05. | :19:16. | |
to tell stories, about them and children. Those are the stories were | :19:17. | :19:22. | |
told in public in those five years on the way to The Supreme Court. | :19:23. | :19:28. | |
They were told in court. They did not only convince those five of nine | :19:29. | :19:34. | |
judges, but public opinion is well. I was doing what I did with my mum | :19:35. | :19:40. | |
on a massive scale. Getting back to the point over whether you have | :19:41. | :19:43. | |
reached their destination, a sense of achievement, how deep it runs, | :19:44. | :19:49. | |
Donald Trump is now in the White House... I can barely hear you say | :19:50. | :19:55. | |
those words. It is tough for me. I wonder whether you believe the | :19:56. | :19:58. | |
election of Donald Trump... Certain things already happened. For | :19:59. | :20:08. | |
example, is rollback, the predisposition of allowing | :20:09. | :20:15. | |
transgender children in schools to choose which button they want to go | :20:16. | :20:19. | |
in, it has been rolled back. -- decision. It is disgusting. You said | :20:20. | :20:24. | |
it was so important to build bridges and understand people with different | :20:25. | :20:32. | |
views. How do they sit together? I think first and foremost, if this | :20:33. | :20:36. | |
was a man I truly believed did this because of his belief, I would be | :20:37. | :20:41. | |
more curious about where he is coming from, but it is incredibly | :20:42. | :20:44. | |
apparent this man is using fear to get power. That is what that is. | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
This is not a man of true faith who believes there is something actually | :20:51. | :20:54. | |
wrong here and is taking action on it. This is a man who, like Nero, | :20:55. | :21:03. | |
believes if you divide, you can conquer, and he did. People of | :21:04. | :21:05. | |
perversity, who -- diversity, who have become drunk | :21:06. | :21:23. | |
on their success a little bit, need to look at this. I remember going to | :21:24. | :21:26. | |
The Supreme Court remembering how proud we were. But I believed we had | :21:27. | :21:35. | |
lost sight of how we got there, through coalition of the usses. | :21:36. | :21:38. | |
Anyone on their own is vulnerable. You would hear the chanting, black, | :21:39. | :21:50. | |
white, same fight. But I did not see many LGBT people at those rallies. | :21:51. | :21:54. | |
We are losing the people that got us where we are. From the passion I am | :21:55. | :21:58. | |
hearing in your voice, we clearly have to keep fighting. I wonder if | :21:59. | :22:02. | |
you still have to keep the filmmaking on hold to continue this | :22:03. | :22:08. | |
political fight. You know, I am doing some filmmaking addressing it, | :22:09. | :22:18. | |
like When We Rise. It was billed as a reminder and warning, if we lose | :22:19. | :22:22. | |
sight of our brothers and sisters and other movements, we are | :22:23. | :22:28. | |
vulnerable. That is why it is called When We Rise, not When LGBT Rise. It | :22:29. | :22:35. | |
comes from the black movement, and the peace movement from the 70s | :22:36. | :22:50. | |
which we have forgotten about. I was writing this as a warning to get | :22:51. | :22:54. | |
back to coalitions so we would not be defeated and the pendulum of | :22:55. | :22:57. | |
progress would keep going forward. Instead, we were conquered. Now it | :22:58. | :23:01. | |
is a warning. I am doing projects which show a path forward. It is not | :23:02. | :23:05. | |
unique to be in this position where the pension is so far back. It is | :23:06. | :23:11. | |
part of a process, and there is a way forward. -- pendulum. You have | :23:12. | :23:16. | |
talked a lot about what drives your filmmaking and activism. You also | :23:17. | :23:23. | |
said earlier you want a big family. You are married, happily married. | :23:24. | :23:29. | |
Yes. Children is definitely something you want to embrace. | :23:30. | :23:34. | |
Absolutely. Yeah. I am wondering how would you will fit all of this in. | :23:35. | :23:38. | |
The wonderful thing about writing in particular is that reduction is | :23:39. | :23:43. | |
difficult, but with writing, you are also looking for distraction, and | :23:44. | :23:49. | |
children provide that. You need something when your brain is | :23:50. | :23:55. | |
exhausted. No eyes are better than children's eyes to help you do that. | :23:56. | :24:00. | |
I want to raise children and look through their rise, to make mistakes | :24:01. | :24:07. | |
and encourage them to learn more and more and more. -- eyes. That is why | :24:08. | :24:12. | |
I have been in this fight for so long. For me, it is about family. | :24:13. | :24:22. | |
Dustin Lance Black, we have to end it there. But thank you so much. | :24:23. | :24:24. | |
Thank you very much. Yesterday was one of those days | :24:25. | :24:47. | |
for the southern half of the UK. Yes, the covers were | :24:48. | :24:51. | |
on the court at Wimbledon. The rain was heavy at times | :24:52. | :24:53. | |
and the umbrellas were out. It wasn't just across the south-east | :24:54. | :24:56. | |
of England where we saw rain. | :24:57. | :25:00. |