DCist Interview: Outrage director Kirby Dick
While the practices of the film ratings board are certainly important — their decisions can equal de facto censorship if they issue a rating that will cause most exhibitors to drop a film — the stakes are certainly higher when talking about elected officials who have committed themselves to making certain Americans into second-class citizens based solely on their sexual orientation. And when those leaders are hiding the fact that they themselves share that orientation, it’s a special brand of hypocrisy that deserves to be exposed. So Dick drops the more confrontational Michael Moore-ish feel of his last film in favor of a straighter (no pun intended) approach this time around. It makes for an effective, and deeply affecting, look at the costs and the damages of the closet in American politics. Kirby Dick spoke with DCist about his film — which opens today at E Street — the day after a well-received preview screening last week. (And don't miss our post on NewsChannel 8's Doug McKelway losing his shit over this movie).
How did the idea to do this film come to you?
I was in Washington, D.C., it was August of 2006, and I was promoting my last film, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, about the censorship of the American film ratings process, and I realized I only knew that story because I was in the film business. And I thought, here I am in Washington, there must be quite a few stories that people only know if they're in politics, inside the Beltway; I started asking around, and very quickly started hearing about, to my surprise — and I think to the surprise of most Americans — that there were many closeted gay politicians. But what struck me as particularly significant was that a number of them were hypocrites: they were voting anti-gay, as well. And that's when I thought to myself, this could be a very fascinating documentary. In particular, the other component of this, which I also was told about, was the psychology of these people, of someone who would, in exchange for a political career, would choose to live a double life for decades, and the the tragedy of that. I mean, I think these characters are, in certain instances, almost Shakespearean. So it made for very rich subject matter, both personally and politically.
Once you decided on that, how easy was it to get into development, and to get people to talk on such a taboo subject?
It was not easy. Washington already is a very buttoned-down town, people are very careful with what they say. And on this particular subject it was a real challenge. I mean, there were certain people who came forward early on, and that was very helpful. But it took a lot of time and a lot of work on the part of my producer, Amy Ziering, to cultivate relationships, and initially just convince them that it was not a tabloid film, but then to discuss the advantages of having this film made. In the end, everyone who participated, I think, is aware of the importance of this film being made, because most of the people I talk to in the film know the costs of the closet. On a personal level, they've either been in the closet, or have known many people who are in the closet, they see the difficulty of that. On a political level, they've known people who, to protect their closet, have chosen to vote anti-gay where they otherwise wouldn't. And I think they felt that if a film was made about this subject, the closet — which sort of exists because light is not shed on it — would diminish in American politics.
In the research stage, I imagine there must have been a lot of leads that you had that ended up coming to dead ends. Did you find that you spent a lot of time working on subjects or people that didn't end up making it into the film?
I spent a certain amount of time doing that, yes. I mean, we would get a certain amount of information, but we were, in some of these cases, really unable to corroborate it. There have certainly been rumors floating around about many people, and I didn't want this film to be a film about rumors. I'm sure there are other closeted politicians that I wasn't able to report on, but what I was really interested in was in making sure that the people I was reporting on, the information was there for me to report on, so that it wouldn't become a discussion of rumors. Just go into the blogosphere, you'll get all that information.
What were the standards you ended up setting for yourself to determine if you could comfortably claim or suggest that a politician was gay, and met your standard for inclusion in the film?
I think in nearly every case it was multiple sources corroborating that. That would be the standard that we were looking for.
During the Q&A at the preview screening, someone had asked why former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman had been included but not given much time. You indicated that it was mostly because he wasn't an elected official. It seemed like you were almost on the verge of giving another reason, but you left it at that; was there anything more to the reason for the brief treatment of Mehlman?
Part of the reason it was brief — and this is what I was going to say — is that it was part of a larger argument about the fact that in the 2004 campaign, there were a good number of gays who were closely associated with the Republican Party. And that was more of the thesis that I was really trying to go for at that point. I think we had a number of people saying that right around the Mehlman section. It was more looking at the campaign rather than the specific person, although Mehlman, being the head of the RNC, was certainly one of the most high-profile people in the Republican Party at that time.
Since you were trying to stick to elected officials, did it kill you just a little bit that you weren't able to include someone like Ted Haggard, who, apart from the fact that he wasn't an elected official, fit the profile really well?
Well that's interesting. Initially, I wanted to keep Ted Haggard out, only for reasons of focus. Not because he wasn't an appropriate person to discuss in my film. But about midway through I decided that perhaps it would be good to include him, and I interviewed Mike Jones, and he gave a really wonderful interview. But in the end we didn't include him because of all the press that came out around the release of Pelosi's documentary, and then all the other people that came forward. The story had kind of gone by me. And this was right at the end of the shooting and editing process, and I just didn't have the material to bring the story up to the present. But the one thing I would like to say is that the one reason I would have kept him in, is that Mike Jones was very bitter at the gay community. Because here's a person who did make the choice to come forward and tell the world about this hypocrisy. And certainly, from his perspective — I think from many peoples' perspective — that had an impact on the '06 election. And yet, he felt that he was shunned by major gay rights organizations, and even by [his local] gay community. And that I found interesting. It's because he's an escort, he was somehow tainted. And yet it's people like him who are in a position to let the world know about this hypocrisy. That bitterness, I thought, was interesting, and it raised some interesting issues. I mean it's not so much a comment on the gay community at all, but just where this information sometimes comes from. And oftentimes the messenger is vilified in some way, even though the message that this person gets out is extremely important. I've never actually talked about that. I actually found him a very engaging person, kind of a lonely person, but a very courageous person. According to his story, and I believe it, he made this decision all on his own. He lives an isolated life, he didn't really have any friends to go to, and it took him months to come to the decision that this was the right ethical thing to do. And to take the risk that he took &mdash and he suffered a lot of anger and blow back as a result of it — and most of that he weathered through alone. So I wanted to paint almost a character study of this person who was completely a loner making this decision and going through the whole experience alone. But again, it was because the story just ran right by me that I decided not to.
David Phillips, who came forward to talk about an encounter he had with Larry Craig years ago, appears in the film; did you find that he met with similar reactions to Jones when he came out with what had happened to him?
Well, no, and that's actually a very interesting point, because he was just a hookup, and there was no exchange of money. I guess that's kind of the threshold that...I don't know, I haven't really thought about why. I think partially the reason that Mike Jones met that was that the media itself immediately rushed in and painted him as a prostitute. Initially there were questions of whether he was telling the truth, what were his motivations...and of course, he didn't get any money for it, and he was telling the truth. All these things, the cloud that was painted over him, perhaps is one of the reasons more legitimate gay organizations kept their distance. Perhaps that was the reason. Of course with David Phillips, he had no financial motivation or anything like that, so, I don't know. That would be my speculation as to the different perceptions.
Michael Rogers is obviously sort of the point person for a lot of the outing of these closeted officials; how much of a role did he play, or guidance did he give, apart from what we see in the finished film?
Well in many ways Mike Rogers is really a very central figure in this whole story. I wasn't here in 2004, I wasn't making the film in 2004, but from talking to people, with the buildup of the anti-gay hysteria that was coming from the Republican Party, culminating in the attempt to enact the Federal Marriage Amendment, there was a great deal of anger, especially in the gay community, from both the Republicans and Democrats, and independents, and I know they were all working behind the scenes furiously to derail the FMA. But again, Washington being this buttoned-down town, people worked behind the scenes, they didn't sort of go out and start bomb throwing, metaphorically speaking. I think Mike Rogers, by putting this blog out, somehow really tapped into the zeitgeist. Because I know even he was surprised at the amount of anger, and the amount of tips coming in as a result of that anger, not only within Washington, but around the country. And it focused around his blog. As a result, he was able to out two members of Congress. And so from 2004 until when we met him, which was in spring of 2007, he had done a great deal of thinking about this issue. It was very helpful as we got into the project to have his understanding of the issue laid out for us.
Most of the people that you interviewed talked very matter-of-factly about the large number of gays in government, and most of these folks were also Washington insiders. Have you found that there's a pretty easily seen divide between the perception of how many closeted people there are in government depending on whether you're inside or outside D.C.? Does it come as a big shock to people outside of D.C.?
Oh, it comes as a complete shock. Every time I told people, they would just do a double take. I think I myself did that when I first started shooting and interviewing people. I think part of it had to do with the fact that we had, up through 2006, both houses of Congress and the administration were Republican, and so that in itself was seemingly anomalous. The other thing that's equally surprising is that there's as many gay Republicans as there are gay Democrats. So yes, it was a huge surprise. This is what's interesting about this film is that if you're in D.C., if you're in politics, many of the issues, many of the people that I talk about in the film, are not a surprise. Once you leave this little sphere of information, all this comes as a complete surprise to people. Complete. And what that says is that this is an issue that the mainstream media absolutely has dropped the ball on, in terms of coverage. And that's why people know nothing about it. I think there's a number of reasons for that. I think that there's a certain uncomfortableness about reporting on anything having to do with gay sex to begin with. Sometimes it's a well meaning decision, they were perhaps going to do these people a favor by not writing about their private lives. But people in the film all wanted this story told, regardless of whether they were Republican or Democrat, and the gay press has been telling the story for 20 years and has been fighting to try to get this thing in the mainstream media. And we're even now experiencing pushback: "Well, maybe I can't report on this," even though you know that if it was some sort of issue that involved straight sex, they would be much more willing to report on it. That's a double standard, and that double standard comes from sort of a vague homophobia. Once anything having to do with being gay or lesbian is as normalized as everything having to do with heterosexuality, then homophobia will, I think, diminish.
In terms of the style of the movie, there's a big difference between this and your last movie. That one was much more confrontational, in the sense that you yourself were really in the thick of things, and on camera a lot. It seems that this is a film that could have easily been approached in a similar fashion, so I was curious how you made the decision to go with a more traditional documentary style this time.
Well, that's a good question. The last film was a comedy. This is not a comedy, even though it's still about sex, in one way, and that's always rife with comedy. But I don't know, I think in some ways I felt like perhaps the stakes were higher here? Ultimately I think the stakes are very high in terms of media hegemony on the other film, but that was more of a back thing that sort of rose out of the film. And I think that was it. It felt like I was taking on more serious issues right from the beginning, and I wanted people to walk away with the feeling that it had been a very intense film, and a revelatory film, but at the same time very considered. A lot of this subject matter, particularly in the blogs, has been treated very comedically oftentimes, and I really wanted a different approach, because I wanted the media to take this seriously, I wanted Washington to take this seriously, and I wanted the public to take it seriously. Because I think it's a very important issue that's been unfortunately overlooked.
You'd mentioned at the preview screening that you were looking for a new documentary subject; as far as further D.C.-related subjects, have you given any thought to a film about D.C. residents' status as the only U.S. citizens who pay federal taxes without representation in Congress?
It's fascinating, and it's something that I'm always upset about every time it's attempted to give D.C. some sort of representation and then it's somehow shut down. But you know, it might be hard to get financing for that. Hopefully it'll happen very soon.
Outrage opens today at E Street.