Arts
Some Things Change...
We're Gonna Get Married!: More Tales from the Rainbow Library
Some
Things Change...
Film documents high school attitudes in four decades
by Julia F. Kimball
| Lockers
and Closets: A Multigenerational Inquiry Into the Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, and Queer High School Experience Joanna Jeffery |
"When
people are given the chance to give voice to their experience it is very
powerful," said graduate sociology student and documentary filmmaker
Joanna Jeffery. "They had plenty to
say." And say it they did in Lockers and Closets, clearly speaking
for many as the film garnered a standing ovation at its close.
The five high school graduates in the film,
whose experience spanned four decades, responded to questions formulated
by Jeffery. Created for her final project, the film gives voice to the
experiences of GLBTQ youth in high school over generations.
On the academic side, Jeffery looked for
trends in the literature that reflected how lgbtq high school youth were
being talked about in each decade, and those trends informed her questions.
Although she went into the project with a framework, her subjects answered
most of her questions while just talking about their high school experiences.
And what resulted was a compelling documentary
film, which balances pain with humor, age and experience with youthful
wisdom, and showcases the human struggle of lgbtq youth in high school
that has spanned generations and is changing over time.
The subjects in the film spoke of being
in the closet. "The object becomes keeping people from getting to
know you," said the 1997 graduate. They spoke of the challenges of
their particular decade: in the 80s, said the '86 graduate, AIDS was just
starting and made coming out dangerous - "if you were gay, you had
AIDS."
They spoke of their hopes, too: "I
just want people to realize that 15-year-old lesbians have the same 15-year-old
girl longings that straight girls do," the 2000 graduate said. They
talked about policies. The '76 graduate said there were no protective
or anti-harassment policies when she was in school, but the '01 graduate
said that in his school, harassment and violence against lgbtq students
were listed as hate crimes, and everyone knew where to go to get things
taken care of.
The film elicited a strong positive response,
with the laughter of recognition peppering the audience. Jeffery said
that in the week following the showing she's received an overwhelming
amount of great feedback.
Ultimately, the message of the film was
that though the schools of the 2000 and 2001 graduates were more open,
accepting, and equipped to handle the needs of lgbtq students, there is
still hate, there is still isolation, and there is still a trail to blaze.
Jeffery hopes that her film will have a part in the trailblazing by educating
social workers, counselors, and educators at the K-12, college, and graduate
levels. She plans to develop training materials to accompany the film.
For information on "From Lockers to Closets:" contact Joanna
Jeffery at jjeffery@uvm.edu
Julia F. Kimball is a recent graduate in communications and just moved
to Vermont.