An arresting mix of documentary and performance, Marlon Riggs classic essay film is an intense, unforgettable depiction of black, gay experience in the US.
Marlon Riggs blends archive footage into his unique, experimental film, to, in his own words, “shatter the nation’s brutalising silence on matters of sexual and racial difference”. The films shows homophobia (including a notorious routine from Eddie Murphy’s stand-up), racism in the gay community (sexualisation of the black male body by white men) and the devastation of the AIDS crisis.
Conservative politician Pat Buchanan held the film up as an example of how its funding “glorified homosexuality” and used it to criticise President George W. Bush for ‘allowing’ taxpayers’ money to fund ‘pornographic art’. Riggs died five years after the film’s release, but his legacy lives on, and the imagery of Tongues Untied can be seen in the works of filmmakers such as Isaac Julien and Barry Jenkins.