#lgsm

[queerasfact]

Forty years ago today, Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners hosted Pits and Perverts, a benefit concert raising money for striking mining communities in south Wales. The event was a key moment in solidarity between queer and working-class communities, with Welsh mining unions marching in London's Pride the following year.

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[Image source]

[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)

[pllsetskyonice]

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

[lolli-says-stuff]

Does the lgbt community have beef with pride (movie) or do they not know about it? I get that it’s not a romance movie but it’s so good and it makes me feel so seen. And I never see anyone talk about it. I don’t get it. It’s like people just… don’t know it exists or something. I Don’t even see people hating on it.

[axinite25]

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

[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 🤭

[denimbex1986]

'...Pride (2014)

Perhaps ironically, the first title (and only non-documentary) on our list is not an American tale, but a true story from the UK, a fictionalized chronicle of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) – a group of LGBTQ activists who allied with striking coal miners in Thatcher-era Britain. Directed by Matthew Warchus and written by Stephen Beresford, it balances humor and gravitas as it follows a young, still-closeted student (George MacKay) and his involvement with a group of queer activists who decide to raise money to support Welsh miners impacted by the British Mining Strike of 1984. Despite initial hostility from the miners, a coalition is forged that lends strength to both causes, ultimately leading to the incorporation of gay and lesbian rights into the official Labour Party platform. An infectiously thrilling portrayal of the transformative power of solidarity, it’s a film that exemplifies the importance of intersectionality and the need for diverse marginalized communities to unite and take collective action against oppression. The message? We are stronger together than we are apart. Also starring Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, and Andrew Scott, it’s as entertaining as it is inspiring, a “feel-good” movie that also fires us up to stand firm against the forces of bigotry and repression...'

[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

[pansyxposting]

Pride 2014 poster

[visionsofgideontheninth]

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

[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 🤍🤍

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