Film Review: 'The Lavender 脅す'
By Owen Gleiberman
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) - When 恐れる and paranoia get their hooks into a society, they can 侵略する people's minds in 明らかにする／漏らすing metaphorical ways. Donald Trump, in his rise to the 大統領／総裁などの地位, stoked 恐れる and 敵意 toward 移民，移住（する）s, and also churned up 人種差別主義 against African-Americans.
As monumental -- and hideous -- as both those 憎悪s are, you can argue that there were times when the former 問題／発行する became a conduit for the latter: anti-移民，移住（する） fervor as a code for anti-黒人／ボイコット 人種差別主義. There's no better example of this than the "birther" 問題／発行する. That was a pure 人種差別主義者 fantasy, yet in spreading the canard that Barack Obama was a イスラム教徒 born in Kenya, Trump 示唆するd, in 影響, that Obama was an "移民，移住（する）." The two 汚職s overlapped and dovetailed and, at moments, became one.
An 平等に horrific psychological bait-and-switch went on during the repressive 1950s. In the 開始 minutes of "The Lavender 脅す," Josh Howard's 必須の and 吸収するing 文書の about the political repression of homosexuality in America, we see Dwight D. Eisenhower, すぐに after he took office in 1953, 発表するing that our 国家の 安全 需要・要求するs "the evaluation of derogatory （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） 尊敬（する）・点ing 現在の 従業員s."
Is he talking about homosexuality or 共産主義? Eisenhower had just 調印するd the 1953 連邦の 委任統治（領） banning 犯罪のs, アル中患者s, or "変質者s" from serving in the 政府. But "The Lavender 脅す" is about how the 恐れる of 共産主義 and the 恐れる of homosexuality became entwined and conflated, fusing into a new beast of 圧迫. It's about how the Red 脅す morphed into the Lavender 脅す.
The "logic" went like this. When the Soviets 遂行する／発効させるd their first 原子の-爆弾 実験（する）, in 1949, the 疑惑 was that they couldn't have gotten the 爆弾 so quickly on their own; there had to be 秘かに調査するs in high places. And in a world where 共産主義者s were 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd of having 侵略するd the 最高の，を越す levels of 政府, h omosexual men and women were seen as uniquely 攻撃を受けやすい to 存在 ゆすり，恐喝d into betraying 国家の secrets. In reality, there was never one 文書d 事例／患者 of that 現象. But the two mythologies -- anti-共産主義者 paranoia and anti-gay panic -- fused in the American imagination and became strange bedfellows.
Of course, the links between them were even more 新たな展開d than that, since J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the 連邦検察局, was a closeted homosexual, and so was Roy Cohn, Joseph McCarthy's 長，指導者 counsel during the Army-McCarthy 審理，公聴会s -- and so, a number of historians have 推測するd, was McCarthy himself.
That's a lot of personal self-憎悪 and public charade 運動ing U.S. 政策. (You could argue that much of it was a diversionary 手段: the 消すing of civil liberties as J. Edgar Hoover's (a)手の込んだ／(v)詳述する way to 証明する that he wasn't gay.) "The Lavender 脅す" 文書s the lives of lesbians and gay men who were 軍隊d to leave their 政府 positions, いつかs in 不名誉, and (even if not) often with no place else to go. It's also about how the 連邦検察局 教えるd police 駅／配置するs across the country to 開始する a 厳重取締 on 地元の gay life, all with the excuse of patriotism.
In a 自由主義の society built around the ideal of "進歩," we tend to think that human 権利s were more 鎮圧するd the その上の 支援する in time you go. But one of the 発覚s of "The Lavender 脅す," drawn from David K. Johnson's 2006 調書をとる／予約する of the same 肩書を与える, is its portrait of gay life during the '30s and World War II.
The movie never （人命などを）奪う，主張するs it was a cakewalk, but the 圧迫 was いっそう少なく virulent than what it became; many lesbians and gay men arrived in Washington to work in the 政府 and 遭遇（する）d no problem in 主要な active social lives. The gay historian John D'Emilio （人命などを）奪う，主張するs that WWII, in 確かな ways, was the most "革命の" event of the 20th century for lesbians and gay men, and the movie 明かすs an 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の gallery of historical photographs of same-sex couples, kissing and hugging, looking as "out" as they can be. This is part of the hidden history of American gay life, and how it worked in the 軍の, 特に, 攻撃する，衝突するs one with the 軍隊 of 発覚.
But once the repressive paranoia of the '50s kicked in, homosexuality was newly demonized. In 1948, the first Kinsey 報告（する）／憶測, "性の 行為 in the Human Male," had been a bombshell: It （人命などを）奪う，主張するd that one-third of American men had had homosexual experiences resulting in orgasm. This 告示 of reality touched off a cultural hysteria (we see clips of a public-service film called "Boys Beware") that probably helped Eisenhower to become the first 共和国の／共和党の 大統領，／社長 in 20 years; it's surely no coincidence that 調印 (n)役員／(a)執行力のある Order 10450 -- the 禁止（する） on homosexual 連邦の 従業員s -- was one of his first 行為／法令／行動するs in office. Under that 法令, shedding the 政府 of gay 労働者s wasn't difficult (most of them 辞職するd 静かに under 脅し of （危険などに）さらす), and 2,200 men and women lost their careers.
The 過程, as recounted in the movie, was despicable. They were interrogated without 合法的な 代表, with no 接近 to their とじ込み／提出するs or their accusers. And -- no surprise -- they were asked to 指名する the 指名するs of other homosexuals in 政府. In a 悲劇の irony, the 親族 (用心深い) 開いていること／寛大 of the '30s and 早期に '40s （機の）カム 支援する to haunt them, 供給するing 証拠 of gay lifestyles even as it 軍隊d people 支援する into the closet. We hear from a woman 指名するd Joan Cassidy, who had to give up her dream of 存在 指名するd the first 女性（の） 海軍大将 in the 海軍, because the 危険 of （危険などに）さらす was too 広大な／多数の／重要な.
Many were even いっそう少なく lucky. 解任するing that period in a taped interview, one of the 捜査官／調査官s says, "They'd 結局最後にはーなる on a bread line somewhere. And I didn't give a hoot." The movie 充てるs a haunting section to the story of Andrew Ference, who loved his life as a 研究 補佐官 in the Foreign Service; he was 駅／配置するd in Paris. After 存在 drummed out of his 職業 in 1954, he committed 自殺, at 34, by natural-gas 毒（薬）ing. The 政府 th en lied to his family about why he killed himself (they said he was 苦しむing from a serious illness).
"The Lavender 脅す" tells a dark story, and does it solidly and movingly, but a 文書の like this one can always use a hero -- and, in fact, the film has a superb one: Franklin E. Kameny, the grandfather of the gay-権利s movement who become the first person to 調査する the 圧迫 of homosexuality in America and 開始する a 合法的な war against it. It began with letters banged out on his typewriter, then moved on to fights in the 法廷，裁判所s, 含むing the 最高裁判所 (all of which he lost), and 最終的に 発展させるd into picket lines, for which Kameny 要求するd his fellow 抗議する人s to don 控訴s and 関係 and (for the women) dresses and pumps. He knew he had to 勝利，勝つ the war of signifiers.
Kameny has been profiled in other 文書のs, like "Before Stonewall," but this one brings us closer to how his status as a freedom 闘士，戦闘機 現れるd from his irascible personality. He grew up gazing at the 星／主役にするs, wanting to be an 天文学者, but the Kameny we see in interview clips (he died in 2011) is an 都市の bulldog, like Barney Frank. It 簡単に wasn't in his nature to 現在の himself to the world as anyone but who he was. He became the first 率直に gay person to 証言する before 議会 (in 1963), and he was 責任がある reframing the 圧迫 of gay Americans as a 根底となる 問題／発行する of civil 権利s. The 初めの gay-pride organization, the Mattachine Society (設立するd in 1950), wasn't 行動主義者 enough for him, so Kameny formed his own 一時期／支部 of it in Washington and, in 1965, led a 抗議する outside the White House that lit a 誘発する where there hadn't been one. It was, in its civilized way, as 勇敢な an 活動／戦闘 as the Stonewall 暴動s. And it brought the Lavender 脅す to an end by fighting 恐れる with 解雇する／砲火／射撃.
