Review: Outrage (2009)

[Mark R. Leeper]

                              OUTRAGE
                (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

     CAPSULE: Kirby Dick who wrote and directed THIS FILM
     IS NOT RATED, an angry examination of the American
     film ratings board, brings us an expos<UTF16-201A> of Congressmen
     who repeatedly vote against gay rights but who are
     secretly gay themselves.  Dick looks at the damage
     they have done to the lesbian and gay community and
     gives the evidence that they themselves are gay.
     While the film is full of some very cogent arguments,
     there are major flaws in his case.  Dick is missing a
     vital link: the fact that someone who is privately gay
     should necessarily determine how that person votes on
     legislation.  And by not making that case the film
     frequently comes off as a piece of malicious vengeance
     against politicians who do not vote the way he would
     like.  Rating: 0 (-4 to +4) or 5/10

Kirby Dick makes angry documentaries.  He made TWIST OF FAITH about
the hypocrisy in the Roman Catholic Church over the sexual abuse
scandal.  He made THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED about the American
MPAA system for rating films and the inaccuracy of their ratings.
The current film OUTRAGE is about Congressmen who, under a "family
values" stance, vote repeatedly against gay civil rights, yet who
are purportedly gay themselves.  This documentary gives the names
of right-wing lawmakers who are gay yet repeatedly oppose pro-gay
legislation.

Dick methodically presents police recordings, interviews, and shows
documentary data that his targets really are gay.  I will not
repeat names of people he is "outing" here, and that limits what I
can say about this film.  But it is not my place to "out" them in
my writing.  People who do speak cogently that I will list include
James McGreevy and Barney Frank, both publicly gay.

The problem with this film is that there is a gap in its logic.
And that gap is very hard to fill, but is central.  Kirby Dick had
not really made a case that closeted gay politicians who vote
against pro-gay (or anti-anti-gay) legislation are guilty of
wrongdoing.  He has shown they are not voting their sexual
preference, but not that they are not voting their conscience.  The
gap is that Dick does not show that anti-gay legislation is
materially wrong.  I may feel that it is wrong--and I generally
do--but if he overtly says that it is wrong it very much changes
the focus of the film.  The burden of proof is on Dick, and OUTRAGE
becomes a film taking a side on legislation.  That may seem like a
small gap, but it is central.

The film makes the assumption that gay politicians have a
responsibility to be in favor of pro-gay legislation, regardless of
their opinion of it.  Saying that gay legislators have a
responsibility to vote some particular way just because they happen
to be gay is really an unintentional attack on gays.  It is saying
they should be voting their sexual preference rather than voting on
the merits of the issue.  And it is telling the American people
that they feel that gay politicians, openly or not, have a
responsibility to be biased.  It is looking at gay politicians who
keep their sexual preference private and criticizing them for not
being biased in the way that the way the filmmakers say they should
be.  And at the same time it is spitefully "outing" gay politicians
who are not joining the cause of gay civil rights.

Perhaps not surprisingly this work has the same weaknesses of Kirby
Dick's THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED.  Both films are giant ad hominem
arguments.  His assumption is that people who vote in ways he does
not like, in congress or in the MPAA, have unproven ulterior
motives.  He does make a case for why he believes that, but he does
not show that these people are voting in bad faith.  OUTRAGE
documents Kirby Dick's own rage at the men he outs.  There is no
attempt to make it balanced.  And his film, while engaging is the
weaker for that fault.  I rate OUTRAGE a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale or
5/10.

Film Credits: <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1049400/>

What others are saying:
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10011262-outrage/>


					Mark R. Leeper
					mleeper at optonline.net
					Copyright 2009 Mark R. Leeper