#lgsm

[pansyxposting]

Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners

[designforliving1933]

Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) is a political activist group of gay women and men that formed in a spirt of solidarity with the striking miners in 1984. Mark Ashton, one of the founders, saw the struggle of the miners as the same faced by gay people fighting for their rights against a government that would not listen. The LGSM organised fundraising events like the one depicted in this poster, a concert featuring Bronski Beat at Camden’s Electric Ballroom. The LGSM supported the Neath Dulais and Swansea Valley Miners mining communities, and raised around £20,000 during the strike. The poster was designed by LGSM member Kevin Franklin. (source)

[ineedatumblrforthisshit]

In 1994 Pet Shop Boys performed Go West with backing singing by 3 miner's choirs, some of who had marched with Lesbians & Gays Support The Miners in the early 80s.

This is an incredible & important part of our history and it's almost been lost, this is the only recording of it online - go watch the excellent movie Pride! if you haven't already

[axinite25]

I went to the UK's first LGBTQ+ Bookshop, in London today ✨

[pllsetskyonice]

Pride (2014) really is THAT film for me, it makes me cry every time without fail

[queercontent]

Another zine I want to work on is for Billy Elliot's 25th anniversary next year. I wouldn't say this was my gay awakening, but it's certainly remained a great love given my teen obsession with Jamie Bell and how often it appeared on free-to-air television. It sits alongside But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) and Beautiful Thing (1996) as films that made me feel privileged to have grown up gay when I did.

If you've got something nerdy to say about this film, DM me with it (or add comments to a reblog) the second you finish reading.

The zine would talk about Billy Elliot's 'controversy': the debates about whether it counted as queer, and grooming allegations against Daldry for his sheer proximity to a young actor. It would also include how my crush on Jamie Bell developed over the last twenty-five years. But tbh that's all just filler. What I really want to talk about is how its big, nerdy intertextual references make it media created for us rather than a cishet audience.

First reference is from history, because why choose the 1984 miner's strike as your setting if your film had nothing to say about their contributions to Gay Liberation? Perhaps a little headcanon, but no less important to highlight this largely forgotten change in Labour's policy-making both in the UK and here in Australia.

And because we don't have a world of time, and because it was a helpful reminder when it came out, we lean on the 2014 docudrama PRIDE. This one follows Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), who crossed prejudices to show their solidarity during the 1984 strike — going as far as holding a club fundraiser featuring Bronski Beats as their headliner.

LGSM's contributions were ultimately refused by the Miner's Union, and yet they left a lasting impression on mining communities and labour unions. LGSM were subsequently joined by hundreds of miners during Gay Pride 1985 who had by then voted to include gay and lesbian rights in their party portfolio. It was the first time a major political party in the West had committed to supporting queer rights.

Next we slide hard into Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, which premiered in 1995. This modern re-queerification of the classic ballet by gay composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky has the prince assume part of the princess's role as he pursues a mysterious Stranger (the swan). Here Bourne goes as far as to replace the entire cast of traditionally female swans with sweaty, bare-chested lads.

The 2012 capture watchable [ here ] stars homosexual hearthrob Dominic North as the forlorn prince.

Now, in Billy Elliot, Mrs Wilkinson recounts the classic tale to Billy as they listen to Swan Lake on the ferry. It's a wonderful scene where Wilkinson begins with reverence and dramatics, but ends with her usual boredom, leaving young Billy both confused and unsatisfied with the plot. To me this echoes the desire among 90s content producers to change how we told queer stories.

In Billy Elliot's closing scene, however, we see a 25yo Billy leap onto the stage as Bourne's Stranger rather than the classic princess (even nerdier than that, we see Bourne's original Stranger, Adam Cooper, playing a 25yo Billy Elliot). You realise in future screenings that the opening scene is also an homage to Bourne's Swan Lake: much as the young prince begins his story in bed, dreaming a swan hottie will save him from becoming a man; Billy begins jumping on his bed, flapping his arms, dreaming of something beyond the life he's expected to grow into.

Quick tangent via The Eagle (2011), starring Channing Tatum as Roman legionnaire Marcus and Jamie Bell as his British slave Esca. Now, do we condone slavery? Absolutely not. But we do enjoy watching Tatum and Bell get super clingy as they traip across the countryside in what has to be the most romantic bro film of all time.

Relevance to Billy Elliot? Vague. But hear me out.

The film's based on Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth (1954), which ends with Marcus settling down as a farmer with Esca and a Briton wife named Cottia who doesn't appear in the film. Subsequent novels follow the father's ring as it's passed down Marcus's bloodline, meaning they shagged down to produce an heir but implying literally nothing else.

But imagine removing Marcus's wife from the equation altogether (all women, actually), adding 'submission' to the male bonding elements of your film, reprimanding disaster bisexual Channing Tatum for suggesting it's a romance, and then expecting a professional homosexual like me to believe this doesn't count as another gay Jamie Bell movie. That's all I'm saying.

Lastly, I want to talk about Elton John co-writing the musical, and Tom Holland as the most famous Billy. I want to talk about Spanish Billies Pau Gimeno and Cristian López acting together in Paraiso (2021-22). I want to talk about Kate Mara (married to Bell) as Patty Bowes in the first season of POSE (2018-21), and her sister Rooney as Therese Belivet in Carol (2015). I want to talk about so many things.

What would YOU want to write about this film?

[anderperries]

[image description: the “they don’t know” meme with drawn figures of a man wearing a party hat and holding a drink at the corner of a party while other people are having fun at the party. the text reads, “they don’t know i’m thinking about the critically acclaimed film, pride (2014) /end id]

[dalyankiz1981]

So fortunate and happy to have seen the amazing “Pride” on the big screen tonight. Cineworld (along with other UK cinema and picturehouse groups) always embrace Pride Month by showing beautiful LGBT+ content throughout June 👏

Absolutely adore this film!! First time viewing for my other half and I’m pretty sure he loved it too 🥰 Gethin just owns my heart of course but I love every single character in it, not to mention the genuine heartfelt emotion and killer one-liners 🤭

[falliblefabrial]

It's about the solidarity it's about the friendship it's about dance it's about young smart wonderful beautiful people dying and fighting as hard as you can until you can't anymore it's about caring for other people enough to stand with them it's about GOING BACK TO YOUR HOME it's about celtic identity it's so perfect

it's also crucially about the best rendition of Bread and Roses on recording

[visionsofgideontheninth]

The real Siân with her husband Martin, 1985, we think. (via LGSM on Twitter)

[pansyxposting]

Pride 2014 poster

[denimbex1986]

'When Andrew Scott and Jessica Gunning met on the set of British comedy drama Pride in 2014, little did they know that a decade later they would both be celebrating Emmy nominations – Andrew for Ripley and Jessica for Baby Reindeer. Nor did they anticipate that they would remain such great friends. “The film really bonded us together,” grins Andrew, as he joins Esquire and Jessica to discuss the film’s 10 year anniversary. “I know both your sisters,” Jessica says, affectionately.

Friendship is at the heart of what Pride is all about. Written and directed by Matthew Warchus, it tells the uplifting and boisterous true story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), an activist group founded in 1984 in London to raise money for the Welsh miners. The film shows how both LGSM and the miners overcome mutual prejudices through a common goal of solidarity, at a time of raging homophobia and class division. Andrew plays the real life Gethin Roberts, a gay man from Wales living in London who forms a part of LGSM. Jessica is Siân James: a housewife, volunteer, and later a trailblazing politician, who encouraged the miners and the activists to join forces. “What’s so wonderful,” Andrew says, as he looks back on Pride’s impact, “is that it’s not about gay people or their sexuality but about their humanity and what [this group] did.”

The film has genuine cult status. No Pride month goes by without a string of London screenings, where the sound in the cinema is a mix of belly laughs and sobs. “To watch the movie is to love the movie,” Andrew explains. And indeed, Pride’s reputation as a family friendly crowd pleaser has a real-life impact: “So many young people still come up to me and say it helped them come out to their parents,” says Jessica. “As soon as you show someone being humanised, it’s easier.”

Like the best ensemble movies, Pride is a broad church. There are moving performances from Brit stalwarts Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton (the famous “sandwich scene” both actors portray is a notorious tearjerker), but Pride also features an assorted biscuit tin of fresh-faced British acting talent: Freddie Fox, George Mackay, Russell Tovey, and… well, Jessica and Andrew, all had defining roles.

Even though it was starry, the film was shot on a low indie budget between London and Wales; there were no actors hiding in their fancy studio trailers, Andrew recalls. Nor, Jessica adds, was there a separation between the youngsters and the established actors. “That’s what I remember: everyone just talking all of the time.”

It’s no wonder that they both remain such great friends – filming Pride sounds like it was brilliant fun. They fall into laughter discussing anecdotes from behind the scenes, especially over a much loved segment where Dominic West flaunts his disco moves. But some of their fondest memories are from attending “fancy parties” while promoting the film. “We celebrated several times,” says Jessica. “We still are!” Andrew replies, with a sheepish grin.

With the success of Ripley and Baby Reindeer, there’s every reason to. Both actors’ performances are nominated at the upcoming Emmy’s: Andrew as Patricia Highsmith’s mysterious character Tom Ripley and Jessica as troubled stalker Martha in Richard Gadd’s black comedy. “There’s a kind of blankness to that character,” Andrew says, on portraying his version of Tom Ripley. “He’s an unreliable hero, and so part of it was to just embrace that chasm and that became sort of enjoyable to play.”

For Jessica, playing Martha in Baby Reindeer was the role of a lifetime. “Richard’s writing of Martha was so nuanced, I just connected with her,” she says, on first reading Gadd’s script. “Not to be too cheesy, but Andrew played a massive part in terms of how I approached the part. I remember we had a chat, and when I got the job, you were like, ‘go for it’… I remember your passion.”

It was the sort of role that she had been fighting for, Jessica explains, and this was her chance. But Andrew already knew the genius of Jessica Gunning. “She's been a sort of stalwart of our stage and screen for so many years, but now everybody knows how amazing and brilliant and beautiful she is,” he says, with a broad smile. Those Emmy nominations are just another part of a journey they’ve shared since meeting on the set of Pride a decade ago. “And the fact that we get to experience that together is just so magical, isn't it?”

[28whitepeonies]

Currently making picket signs and watching the greatest movie ever made.

She’s undergoing a transformation:

[suheedaam]

Arkadaşlar çoğunuzun bildiği gibi bugün LGS var.Herkesin sınavının iyi geçmesini, istediğiniz liseyi kazanmanızı dilerim.Yapmanız gereken tek şey STRES YAPMAMAK.Siz başarırsınız size güveniyorum.Çokça öpücükler 🤍🤍

-Ş-

[purpletrashcans]

i want to go to the lgsm 40th anniversary, but i don't live in london, i don't know anybody in rl who would go with me and i don't trust strangers on the internet what do i do😭😭