nicole_powers

Kirby Dick's previous film, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, exposed the secret practices of the motion picture ratings board. It fascinated film lovers who have long wondered how the MPAA determines what qualifies as an R and what is PG-13, when seemingly mild films get restrictive ratings and harsh ones pass for family viewing.

Now, Dick uncovers a secret at the heart of our political system. His new film, Outrage examines gay politicians who live in the closet, yet support anti-gay policies. The film includes interviews with Max Linn, the 2006 Reform Party nominee for Florida governor who outted the state's current governor Charlie Crist; former New Jersey governor James McGreevey, who came out as he resigned from office; and Blogactive's Michael Rogers, who actively outs gay politicians who vote anti-gay.

SuicideGirls' all too brief interview with Dick did not allow enough time to cover the many aspects of such a vast and under-explored issue -- that affects the private lives of millions. Even the 80-some minute film had to focus very specifically on closeted politicians who support hypocritical legislation, though it touched upon other related areas like censorship, the gay marriage debate and political scandals.

Well versed on the topic after years of production, Kirby Dick took the opportunity presented by our interview to address other issues raised by the film. Perhaps he is preaching to the choir though, as anyone seeing or reading about Outrage is likely already interested in gay rights. However, his goal is to bring to light hidden issues in politics, and that can begin with Outrage.

Fred Topel: How do you account for the fact that this country ended slavery, ended segregation, gave women the vote but homophobes are 100% sure being gay is wrong and they have to fight it?

Kirby Dick: You know, I am equally baffled by this. I cannot believe that in 2009, that everyone wouldn't say, "100% rights for every citizen in this country." I'm baffled by it. I think that should be the position of everyone and there should be no equivocating, no "this has to do with religion," anything like that. If you're denying rights to a portion of the population, it's wrong. That has to be changed. That has to be called out.

FT: Die hard traditionalists, Republican or otherwise, are sure it will ruin all marriages if gay marriage is legalized. Why are they so threatened by something other people do?

KD: Right. I think a lot of these issues are sort of established in people when they're even in grade school. It may be something that they carry with them that's so deeply rooted, they may even be ashamed of themselves. Even that shame about this issue may contribute to the reaction, this kind of reactionary position. Again, it really has to be called out. There should be no equivocating. It just should be, You're wrong." You absolutely cannot feel this way and it should be called out all the time. I think that's the only way it's going to change. In that regard, we have to applaud [San Francisco Mayor] Gavin Newsom for what he did. He said, "Look, the time has come. Same sex marriage is a right and I'm granting it."

FT: Did you hear the news that Washington, D.C. has recognized gay marriage?

KD: Yes, and one of our subjects, David Catania, I'm sure was leading the fight there.

FT: How big is that? Having the center of our country recognize it, what will that do for the movement?

KD: Well, if it was a Republican Congress, I think that they might have tried to overturn that because I believe they have the power to, but with a Democratic congress, I don't think that will happen. I think everybody who's in this position to make this kind of decision should step up right now and do it. I applaud them for it.

FT: What will the next issue be after civil rights are given to gays?

KD: Well, I don't think civil rights inevitably happen. I think that any minority is always at risk of having civil rights taken away from them. Again, that's why I think the automatic position should be 100% civil rights for all citizens all the time. What would be next? Oh, that's an interesting question. I mean, there's a real xenophobia around immigration right now. You saw the whole thing around the swine flu, that's sort of a veiled xenophobia right there. Any combination of a minority and any kind of health issue or illness is just radioactive and immediately can lead to all kinds of taking away of rights from a minority.

FT: It should be inevitable because the previous movements worked and this one seems to have the same strength. Just no one learned from the past so it has to happen all over again.

KD: Well, also, a lot of this is deliberate on the part of reactionary forces. It's deliberate to create hysteria around a minority in order to advance their own political ends which have absolutely nothing to do with that. This is a strategy that is continually used throughout history in our country and around the world. This will come up again, this attempt to demonize a minority.

FT: Have you been speaking to any anti-gay journalists about this film?

KD: No, I haven't. That's interesting. I have not yet. I have not gotten into an argument, no fights, no coffee mugs being thrown across the room.

FT: Isn't that the audience that needs to see this film?

KD: What's interesting about this film is because the mainstream press does not report on this subject, if you're not someone who follows politics closely, this whole issue and this whole revelation comes as a complete surprise to people. So I think just the fact that people are seeing this film, that journalists are seeing this film, many of whom are completely unaware about this, I hope will change the discussion around this issue. I actually hope that the film will help lead to the demise of the closet in American politics because the closet for so long has contorted American politics.

Also, what happens is politicians, people going into a political career early in their careers make the decision, in their late teens or early 20s to stay in the closet or come out when they go into politics. Up until recently, because the mainstream press didn't cover it, they made the calculation, "I can get away with staying in the closet." Now I'm hopeful after this film it's going to be much harder to do that and they're going to realize, it's not only wrong for them politically, because it'll backfire on them, but it's wrong for them personally. It's a hell of a way to live a life, and they'll run as an out gay or lesbian politician, Republican or Democrat. In one way, the best thing that's going to happen for this country in terms of this issue is that we have a major out gay Republican candidate for the presidency.

FT: Would it be okay if they chose to keep it private, as long as they didn't go the extra mile to vote against gay rights?

KD: Well, this is a very interesting discussion and our film takes the position that we don't look into politicians who are in the closet but are not voting anti-gay. But there is an argument for discussing them because to begin with, there's a strong argument that one's sexual orientation is not a private matter, just like one's marital status, one's religion, these are all things that constituency has a right to know about, particularly if someone is voting on issues that have to do with gay rights.

Even, as my co-producer Tanner Barklow says, there's an argument to be made that homophobes have a right to know if their congressman or congresswoman is gay, because perhaps they're voting pro-gay because they are gay. Of course, they should, but if someone is a dyed in the wool homophobe...I think full disclosure, transparency is always best for politics. So I suppose if I had my way, I think it would be better for everybody to be out and I think full transparency is best, but that's not what I did in the film because that raises a whole other set of issues and I wanted to keep the focus on this hypocrisy because it is a film about hypocrisy.

FT: Even though it's not in the film, did you get to ask Governor McGreevey why he had to resign?

KD: Well, he had to resign. There were a number of scandals including the fact that he put his boyfriend on the payroll. He's a brilliant politician and rather than just resigning, he realized this was also an opportunity to come out. Actually, that was a very important moment I think for this issue, the highest ranking politician to come out to date. So I think it was both a wise political move, a savvy political move but also a very important move in terms of the struggle for gay rights.

FT: But wouldn't it be more so if he stayed in office?

KD: He couldn't have. He couldn't have governed. He just couldn't have. There were just too many scandals.

FT: Did you find out why CNN cut the Bill Maher interview where he outted Ken Mehlman?

KD: I think it's obvious. They wouldn't go on the record on that. What I'm encountering with my film is that I had a major national reviewer write a piece on this which his editor signed off on, and the news organization that he works for refused to run it because it spoke about the people in my film who I talk about. This is still going on around the release of this film as we speak. It's not the reporters themselves or the reviewers themselves. They want to write about this. It's the people who run these organizations.

I've had a reporter come to me and say, "I'm sorry, I can't do this because our company has a policy on outing." I turned to him and I said, "So you're telling me that your company's policy on outing trumps your company's policy on reporting." Of course he had nothing to say to that. Even though I critique it in my film, what you're seeing is that a lot of these major news organizations don't want to write about something that has to do with gay sexuality.

They're concerned about their viewers. Some are fundamentalists. Obviously most are straight and maybe it's uncomfortable to them. Who knows? Also, these news outlets are owned by major corporations who have a lot of business running through congress. I think they just feel it's in the best interest of their bottom line not to ruffle the feathers of any congressman that might be a focus in my film. You're seeing the censorship. It's funny, I make a film about censorship and then the very film about censorship is being censored as well.

FT: Was Amendment 2 in Florida as big a deal as Prop 8 in California? Was there no room to include Prop 8 in the film?

KD: Once Prop 8 passed, we did a fair amount of work trying to see if we could find someone in the Mormon church who was closeted, and we couldn't. Not to say that they aren't, but who is closeted, who is high up in the Mormon church and who had a hand in the campaign to pass Prop 8, but we couldn't. The reason we didn't go into Prop 8 was my focus was on the closet. So if there was a closeted politician, a closeted official that had a hand in getting Prop 8 pass, then that would be a legitimate subject in my film. Otherwise, I wanted to keep the focus on the closet. That's why Amendment 2 and Charlie Crist, and his decision to support Amendment 2, of course that becomes an incredible instance of hypocrisy, that's why that was covered in my film.

FT: Did you see Ted Haggard's HBO show?

KD: I saw part of it.

FT: He still refuses to "label" himself one way or the other.

KD: You know, there are a lot of people who are brought up, who feel revulsion to the fact that they're gay. I heard stories of somebody who would have sex with somebody and then immediately after turn to the person he had sex with and said, "You're going to go to hell because you just had gay sex." It's a crazy world.

FT: Gay or straight, when politicians try to regulate private values, can't anyone say something direct like, "You handle your marriage. No one else's impacts yours. Everyone gets a chance."

KD: I totally agree with you. Even if the press said it, I think they'd probably ignore it because again, morality and the morality of others is always a real hot button issue to run on for many politicians. It's unfortunate. As we see with many of these politicians who claim to have the most purist of values, it's often they who are "transgressing" the most.

FT: It seems like they always debate the issue, but no one just tells politicians that the issue isn't theirs to decide anyway.

KD: Well, people can tell them but if you're a skilled politician, you can whip up hysteria around that regardless of the critique that's coming your way.

FT: Will having Obama in office help?

KD: I think it will help. I think you don't have a party or even a politician who's cynically going after a percentage of American citizens in order to gain power or maintain power. The time is now for him to act. Let's hope that he acts very quickly on things like Don't Ask Don't Tell and other issues because it's always easy to let these issues slide. Again, it's where we started. He should just come out and say, "100% civil rights for 100% of the population."