The first trailer for the hotly-anticipated Stonewall film has been released. Opening with images of women’s liberation and black rights movements, the trailer uses audio of President Obama’s second inaugural address to situate the gay rights movement alongside Seneca Falls (the first women’s rights convention) and Selma (the start of the black voting rights march) in the history of the American civil rights movement.
Stonewall: Where Pride Began follows Danny, a fictional white gay man who moves to New York and experiences a political awakening when faced with police brutality and the police raid at the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in June 1969 that sparked the historic riots and the first Pride march, The Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day in 1970.
Some LGBTQ commentators have criticized the trailer for focusing on white gay men and not appearing to show the trans people, black people and lesbians who were integral to the movement, like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. Hopefully the full film, directed by Independence Day and Godzilla director Roland Emmerich, will not ignore the diversity of the Stonewall protestors when it’s released at the end of September.