Private Dick

Filmmaker Kirby Dick's latest, Outrage, focuses on closeted gay politicians with anti-gay voting records. He talked with City Paper a week after the movie premiered at the Tribeca Film Fest.

Kirby Dick

City Paper: We hear you spent the night in Philly. Did you have a good time?

Kirby Dick: Yeah, I did. We screened the film and people seemed to really like it. Philadelphia is a real, classic American city.

CP: You were just at Tribeca. How was it?

KD: It was good, people really liked it. I was glad to show it there because I always thought it was more of an East Coast film, at least for premièring because so many of the subjects and so much subject matter takes place in Washington, D.C.

CP: How did this idea come about? What was the catalyst for you wanting do this film?

KD: I was in Washington, promoting the last film I made, which is called This Film is Not Yet Rated, which is about censorship in the American film ratings system. I was aware I only really knew of that because I was in the film business. I thought, here I am in D.C., there must be many great subjects for a documentary that people inside the Beltway may know about but other people may not. I started asking around and very quickly came upon these stories that many politicians were closeted and pursued it, and learned quickly that a lot of them were not only closeted but voted anti-gay. It was that point that I thought this is obviously an under-reported story because I do follow politics fairly closely. Part of this was I wasn't aware of the magnitude of it and I thought it would make a great subject for a documentary.

CP: Our staff writer used to work at the same paper chain as [interview subject and reporter] Bob Norman. They had an e-mail relationship and they talked about how everybody knew [Florida Gov.] Charlie Crist was gay but, say, the Miami Herald would have these front-page puff pieces about Crist's girlfriends. Why do you think the mainstream media stays away and plays into these cover-ups?

KD: That's very interesting. I think there are a number of reasons. Sometimes it's described as an "ick factor," but the mainstream media doesn't want to write about anything that has to do with gay sexuality because it's considered — well, most of its readership is straight. I think it's kind of a turnoff to them. Of course, they should just report the news regardless of that, obviously.

What comes out of that is what [openly gay Massachusetts Congressman.] Barney Frank said, is that the media will write about all kinds of personal details about him but they won't say that he's gay. And the underlying message there is that perhaps there's something wrong with being gay. That's the first factor. Sometimes I think it's more of a well-meaning sort of mistaken decision, which is, "I want to bend over backward not to out anyone so I won't report on this because it might hurt someone." Well, your job is to report the news, to report what they come across. Many times these politicians do end up hurting people, whether it relates to their personal lives, finances or relationships. Certainly professionally. If the news never reported anything that would hurt somebody, there would be very little news [laughs].

And this is something that the gay press has been critiquing for a long time. The gay press is saying, "Look, we want complete parity in reporting, and that even goes down to reporting our scandals. But there's a scandal around gay sexuality, we want that reported in the same way that you would report something about straight sexuality." Because, again, that sends the message that gay sexuality is normalized and helps to sort of dissipate the homophobia that still exists still in this country.

Then what is kind of interesting that I'm finding right now is that mainstream media is struggling on reporting on the name of the subjects that I focus on in my film. I hadn't really thought it through, but I find it fascinating and really puzzling. It's not like these subjects haven't been reported on. Everyone in the mainstream press has this feeling of waiting for someone else in the mainstream press to report on it and then they can report on it. Why is the gay press not considered part of the press as a whole? Why does it have to go the threshold of the "mainstream"? Why can't the very detailed reporting of the gay press not be substantive enough for them to report on? Likewise in this film, I'm a straight filmmaker, but obviously it's about gay sexuality. There's something really odd ... I haven't put my finger on it but they're really dancing around this issue. The Los Angeles Times just jumped right in and reported on it. They're somewhat concerned about sourcing, but it's not hard for them to report that I reported on this and not come down with a definitive statement and say, "This is a fact." That would be fine. They're not even going to report on the fact that somebody, a major documentary, has done a thorough investigation of this and report on the results of the investigations. I'm puzzled.

CP: Has the subject matter hurt the press you're able to get?

KD: I'm getting a lot of press, and I'm even getting interviewed by the mainstream media — there's the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, CBS News, CNN, NPR. But they're all kind of struggling with this. I'm sure they'll report on the film and they'll write about it, but will they report on what I report on? That's the question. I just don't quite understand it. They report on documentaries all the time and what's in documentaries all the time. Oftentimes those documentaries are much more poorly sourced than my documentaries. That doesn't stop them. There's concern about being sued but in particular for people in office, I don't understand it. I mean, the decision of Sullivan v. New York Times, it basically said someone had to willfully misrepresent the facts to be vulnerable to a lawsuit. I don't know, I haven't had time to really work it out. It's really puzzling.

CP: When you were reporting this story, what kind of opposition did you meet from staffers or from the offices of the politicians you were investigating?

KD: Well, we stayed away from people who were for the most part currently staffers. We presumed that they knew that the person they were working for was gay. Staffers tend to be extremely loyal and would refuse to talk about their employer at all. We would try to contact ex-staffers and people like that, but in politics, people tend to be very close-mouthed.

CP: Did anyone kind of figure out what you were doing and try to put a stop to it?

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

KD: No, no. I think I had good training with This Film is Not Yet Rated because we were able to work under the radar and I think for the most part the same is true for this film. In one or two instances there might have been some suspicion but I had no indication that anyone was aware that this film was being made. Even up until the last few weeks. And then there was no attempt by any staffers to interfere in anyway. None of the people that I spoke with tried to interfere with what I was doing.

CP: And what about the politicians? Has there been any reaction from them?

KD: Well, [former New York City] Mayor Ed Koch was interesting. He commented on Page Six of the New York Post. It was interesting because he was trying to defend his record of gay rights but, as I remember at least, he wasn't discussing the point that I raised, which was whether he had adequately responded to the AIDS crisis. So he certainly did not deny in that article whether he was gay. He just said he wouldn't comment on it.

CP: Right around the time of Larry Craig, there seemed to be this onslaught of stories you would hear about, especially in Republican politicians, like that [former Florida Congressman] Mark Foley was caught. Why did you focus on some politicians but leave out a guy like Foley?

KD: Mark Foley, although early on his career, there were some anti-gay votes particularly for the Defense of Marriage Act. But after that his voting record was pretty good. Our focus wasn't really on closeted politicians but the issue of hypocrisy. We tried to get an interview with Mark Foley but he really wasn't speaking to anyone. The other aspect of our film was the psychology of the closet and the personal difficulty of living in the closet. He would have been able to speak to that and that's why we interviewed former [New Jersey] Gov. Jim McGreevey, who was very eloquent on that. As far as focusing on Mark Foley without getting an interview from him, he didn't rise to the level of hypocrisy as much as other people in the film.

ME: You touch on the idea that outing someone when they're not ready to be outed is somewhat unfair. Have you heard any reaction from the gay community against the film because of that?

KD: Well, I think that's true if someone isn't a public official. There's no reason to cause personal pain and trauma because you feel someone should be out and open. Absolutely, I'm in complete agreement with that. I think once they're a public official, and once there's an issue of hypocrisy, and this isn't just about outing someone who is gay or outing a politician who is gay, it's about reporting on hypocrisy. And at that point, they can no longer hide behind that sort of concern and consideration that I think should be given to everyone else. What I thought was very interesting in the screening was that, for the most part, I make the case that this kind of reporting is the right thing to do. And I've had very little criticism but what has, has come has come from straight people. Not gay people.

CP: Why do you think that is?

KD: It's like the reporters. They aren't familiar with the personal and political cost of the closet and they feel this idea that you should never out someone should apply in all cases. They haven't really thought it through. The vast majority of people who are straight who see my film are very persuaded by the film. That's one of the things I wanted to do, I wanted to get past this debate outing, which I think is important, but skews the more important issue of the film of how the closet contorts the American political process.

CP: There's a similar debate in Hollywood about the glass closet. What do you think about that? Do you think it's similar? Or is a completely different issue?

KD: I think it's both similar and different. I think there's an argument to be made about that an A-list celebrity in some ways wields more power and influence over the culture than even someone like Larry Craig. I think that argument can be made that if that closeted actor came out, it would be more beneficial to gay rights and for equality. The film doesn't take a particular position because it was too much to get into this film. So we decided to draw a black line around the issue that they had to be a public official and they had to be voting hypocritically. I think there's another film to be made there, and a fascinating one.

(molly.eichel@citypaper.net)