By Mike Templeton
The Urban Appalachian Community Coalition embraces the fact that Appalachian people comprise the full range of humanity. We are not a singular bunch of folks. Like everyone who calls themselves Appalachian, LGBTQIA people form a unique set of experiences as much as they form the quilt of Appalachian people. We are one and we are many, But the experiences of LGBTQIA have been fraught with dangers and heartbreaks for young people in Appalachia as elsewhere, as they come up against old but lasting bigoted ideas and systems of belief. A new film produced by the Appalachian Media Institute, Through Their Eyes, offers a medium for a few people to talk about their experiences of being gay and lesbian in Appalachia.
Through Their Eyes is produced by Danielle Burke, April Caudill, Charles Cupp, Brittany Rowlette, and the Appalachian Media Institute, and presents the experiences of several young gay and lesbian people in their own voices. They recount coming out, being confronted by their families and friends, and the hatred and violence that has been focused on them. We see in the opening moments a young man recount how his deeply Pentecostal grandmother pulled a pistol, pointed it at his head, and told him she would rather see him dead and in hell than to go on living this life of sin. The life of sin, of course, is that he is a gay man. The religious basis of homophobia and bigotry is something we all know about intellectually, at least, but almost everyone in this film talks about experiencing it first-hand.
As much as these opening sequences are jarring, watching and listening to these young people (and one not so young person) is astounding. These young folks have taken some dangerous steps in the world they come from simply by being themselves. All of the people interviewed in the film describe moments of coming out, or at least making it clear that they were gay. Each met with similar, but also different reactions. One person recounts the moment he said he was gay to a group of people who then began coming out themselves. The crowd, it turned out, was a group of young gay people, none of whom had any idea about the others. This moment in the film speaks to another theme which comes up with some emphasis, that what we imagine to be normal or even common is not what we think it is. LGBTQIA are all around, they come in an endless variety of types of people, and where you think you have it all figured out, you probably do not.
The film is shot with an almost grainy old video, and the home-movie quality adds something intangible to the film. It is easy to forget that this was produced by the Appalachian Media Institute and not something taken from a collection of videos on someone’s phone, and this is a distinct advantage for the film. The “home-movie” quality brings the experience of viewing the film down to the realms of the ordinary, it grounds the ideas and themes in everyday life, as if we are watching our own friends and families talk about their experiences. This seems to be the point. The film makers appear to have made efforts to render the speakers in the film in ways that are most familiar to us as viewers. We are not watching objects of a study. We are watching and listening to the kids in our neighborhood, the young men and women we know or knew in school. When it comes to bringing the experience of people to LGBTQIA the world, this film works at making sure you feel close to the people speaking about their lives.
Yet, the lives of these people in the Appalachian region has not been easy. Everyone in the film talks about having religious people try to break them down, ostracize them (one person uses the term “exile”), and physically assault them. They talk about being subjected to exorcisms to drive out the demon of homosexuality. They describe the ways religion was used to make them “normal” again. Religion is a powerful force in Appalachian and in Appalachian life. Of course, religious conviction is not in itself bad, but in the experiences of the young people in this film, it is used to justify ignorance, fear, and even violence.
As much as the film seems to emphasize that these are the experiences of Appalachian people, I would have liked to see the geographical settings in which these interviews took place to reveal a sense of place. There are a few powerful exceptions. A scene in which a young person is talking about the question of normality is set in front of Fishpond Lake in Letcher County as he states bluntly, “Not half as many people are as normal as they think they are.” There is another moment in which a young woman is seated and speaking with a view of the mountains in the background. Her t-shirt reads: “Boys Suck,” and her wry smile sometimes says more than her words. Overall, though, perhaps the focus people over places was meant to emphasize the distinctly human-ness of the topic and the speakers, and not the physical settings of their lives.
The Appalachian Media Institute is a project of Appalshop. They work to empower young people by helping them voice their ideas and concerns in their own terms through arts, video and film, and other genres of storytelling. The AMI foster professional development in Central Appalachia. They facilitate projects which encourage participants to explore traditions, history, and issues of concern in their lives. The entirety of the AMI is founded on principles of tolerance and the notion of being informed and engaged citizens in Appalachian communities and beyond. Films such as Through Their Eyes are part of the vast list of projects developed by the AMI and its participants which reveal the contemporary experiences of Appalachian people today. These kinds of projects form a link with so much of what we do in the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition as the experiences of the LGBTQIA communities have likewise come to shape the urban Appalachian experience.
You can view Through Their Eyes on the AMI YouTube channel at this link: youtube.com/watch?v=zLj_ROM1JOs&list=PL9yOeCxMXyFD8x9-JME8yo1lNC4BHSdg5&index=1.
More information on the Appalachian Media Institute can be found at this link: www.amiappalshop.org
Michael Templeton is a writer, and independent scholar. He is the author of The Chief of Birds: A Memoir published with Erratum Press and Impossible to Believe, published by Iff Books. He is also the author of Collected Apoems, forthcoming from LJMcD Communications and the awaiting of awaiting: a novella, with Nut Hole Publishing. Check out his profile in UACC’s Cultural Directory. He has published numerous articles and essays on contemporary culture and works of creative non-fiction as well as experimental works and poetry. He lives in West Milton, Ohio with his wife who is an artist.