When graduate film students Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato met at NYU in the late 1980s, they probably had no idea of the impact their collective vision would one day have on modern pop culture and the film industry.
But for the London-born Bailey and his life partner, New Jersey native Randy Barbato, the ensuing years would see the evolution of a creative collaboration that remains largely unprecedented in many ways. The duo parlayed their savings and talent to launch World of Wonder Productions [WOW] in 1991, and their perseverance has resulted in documentaries, independent films and expos�s that otherwise would likely never have seen the light of day.
Bailey and Barbato are probably best known for their sensitive portrayal of controversial cult figure Tammy Faye Baker Messmer in the award-winning documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Their no-holds-barred dramatization of the tortured, drug-soaked life of notorious New York party promoter Michael Alig Party Monster created controversy, but never failed to generate conversation.
This month, to help mark Pride festivities throughout the nation, Cinemax will debut When I Knew, a poignant kaleidoscope of those moments when people identified as gay or lesbian for the first time. These very personal recollections are woven into a powerful statement of collective LGBT identity.
David Guarino: I found When I Knew both sensitive and inspiring. It certainly is different from other films I've seen from WOW Productions.
Fenton Bailey: Actually, it is very different, but our roots have always been based in audience participation-based work. Our first show was called Manhattan Cable, and we licensed wacky clips from New York public access stations. We've always been huge fans of people just telling their stories and doing it themselves. When I Knew is the latest iteration of that. We did a show after the LA riots in which we gave camcorders and cameras to people living in LA and they made their own video journals; that was a BBC feature film. This kind of democratic process runs deep in our veins, and it is very core as to what we like to do. We're huge YouTube fans.
Randy Barbato: We saw this as an opportunity to really think about the idea of When I Knew, and the difference between "when I knew" and "when I came out." We really needed to get people thinking about that moment when one realizes he/she is gay/lesbian. We built a website, When I Knew.com, on which people can upload their "when I knew" stories that can live on the web. So the film is just the first step in inviting gays and lesbians to think about that moment and what it meant to them.
How difficult was it to get participants in the When I Knew project?
Bailey: Well, actually this is a story that people want to tell. No two stories are exactly the same. And that's a really valuable takeaway for kids today. Because they can see that even if they feel different, there is no one way to be gay. I think that as a collective gay community, we tend to over-homogenize ourselves.
Barbato: In the straight-acting world of today's gay, it's so important to get back to hearing the multiplicity of voices that reflects what being gay was always meant to be, a rainbow culture. We visited different cities, we took out an ad, we called the local gay center, we made a couple phone calls, and we invited people to show up at a hotel banquet room at a certain time, and there were lines of hundreds of people to tell their stories.
I think sometimes, especially in this country, we underestimate the prejudice that still exists out there.
Bailey & Barbato, in unison: Absolutely!
Bailey: Prejudice from the straight community, prejudice from the gay community towards certain kinds of gays — a sissy voice is a voice that makes everybody uncomfortable. Then there's this idea of being "too gay," which often runs up against the predominance of a sort of "straight-acting" sensibility, which becomes tedious.
After seeing your film The Eyes of Tammy Faye, I really looked at Tammy Faye Baker Messmer in a different light. Initially I had very little sympathy for her plight.
Barbato: Tammy Faye's story is a big step toward teaching us, personally, not to judge others. This is true particularly if you're gay or lesbian, it's the most important lesson of all. When I Knew takes us back to that very moment when one is fearful of being judged. When one understands what judging others does. So it's funny you should bring her up, because not judging others is probably the biggest lesson we learn from her. Her defiance in painting those eyelashes on and daring people to judge her, it's sort of been a clarion call for us and certainly was a large part of the inspiration for When I Knew .
When I Knew premieres Wednesday, June 25, on Cinemax Reel Life.