In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Compton's Cafeteria Riot, the first known instance of collective queer resistance to police intimidation in the U.S., the award-winning documentary Screaming Queens will screen at the Roxie Theater on Thurs., Aug. 18, at 7 p.m. The film, directed by Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman, tells the story of the little-known uprising at Compton's Cafeteria, located at 101 Taylor St. (at Turk) from 1954-72. Compton's was one of the few places where transgender people could congregate publicly in the city �" they were unwelcome in gay bars. The riot in August 1966, three years before the famous Stonewall riots in New York City, took place after drag queens rebelled against police arrests and mistreatment.
The Compton riot was "the transgender community's debut on the stage of American political history," said Stryker in an interview with the B.A.R. The directors, both academic historians who live in the Bay Area part-time, will participate in a panel discussion following the film. Tickets are $12 and available online through the Roxie's website. When the film was first released 10 years ago, the Compton's Riot "wasn't a story that was remembered by very many people," said Stryker. "It's gratifying to me that the story has entered the historical consciousness and memory" of many people. "Even Pres. Obama mentioned Compton's" last year, in remarks he made about LGBT history.
Stryker, a transgender woman who received an Emmy Award for directing Screaming Queens, is currently associate professor of Gender and Women's Studies, director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, and founder of the Transgender Studies Initiative at the University of Arizona. The author of a number of books on LGBT history and culture, Stryker's first book, Gay by the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area (Chronicle Books, 1996), is an illustrated account of the evolution of LGBT culture in the Bay Area.
The idea for the film came about when Prof. Victor Silverman, an academic colleague whom Stryker met when both were in Ph.D. programs at UC Berkeley, suggested the two work on a film together. The project "was way more work than I thought," said Stryker. "It took longer than my dissertation."
Early funding for research for the film came in part from Stryker's postdoctoral fellowship, as well as from Silverman's budget. Once they had a trailer for the film "so we could show people what we had," they were able to get foundation funding and, "most importantly," hire executive producer Jack Walsh, who knew his way around the film world. Through Walsh's contacts in public television, the team received "enormous help" from ITVS, enabling them to finish production on a budget of less than $250,000.
After a premiere at the Castro Theatre during the Frameline film festival, Screaming Queens was screened at hundreds of film festivals and college campuses around the world, said co-director Silverman. The film is considered "essential viewing in colleges and universities for queer history and transgender studies programs."
Silverman, a bisexual man, said, "As a historian and an academic, I see film as a way to help large numbers of people understand history. We wanted to help the transgender community have a better sense of their community making history and changing the world." The film, said Silverman, is as relevant today as it ever was. "It's about alliances and how social change comes about in society." Making the film was "tremendously rewarding," he said. The recent massacre at the gay club Pulse in Orlando is a reminder of the importance "of having bars, nightclubs, or restaurants where the queer community can gather and be themselves."
The Roxie will also screen the film Filthy Gorgeous, the Trannyshack Story on Sat., Aug. 20, at 9:15 p.m., to help raise money for one of the city's most beloved queer bars, the Stud, where a new landlord has tripled the business' rent. Filmed over three years, Sean Mullens' and Deena Davenport-Conway's documentary is a behind-the-scenes look at the legendary drag nightclub Trannyshack, a weekly feature at the Stud for 12 years, from 1996-2008. Advance tickets are $12 and available through the Roxie's website.