Behind the rainbow.

Smith, Charles Michael

Rainbow Pride: A Story of the Rainbow Flag

Directed by Marie-Josee Ferron

Documentary; 60 mins.

SAN FRANCISCO brings to mind many images, such as cable cars, steep hills, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Castro Theater. Add one more image to the mix: the rainbow flag, the symbol of gay pride. Gilbert Baker, a self-described "drag queen from way back who knew how to sew very well," created it there. Baker's flag, and its impact on gay culture, is the subject of Rainbow Pride, an hour-long documentary, which was filmed for the most part in San Francisco and Key West, Florida, and has aired on public television in New York City during Gay Pride Month.

In 1977, when Baker was commissioned to design a flag for display on lampposts during that year's gay pride parade, no one could have predicted that one day its colors would become a worldwide symbol not only of gay pride, but of empowerment for oppressed minorities. The flag did not become known worldwide until after a mile-long replica filled the streets of New York during the "Stonewall 25" celebration in 1994.

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Originally, the flag had eight colors, instead of its current six, each one representing a different theme or aspect of gay life. Two of them (hot pink and turquoise) were later dropped because those colors were not on the palette of flag manufacturers, reports one on-camera interviewee. Baker, who knew the late politician and activist Harvey Milk, gives him credit for inspiring the flag. "Harvey's whole message, his whole life, was all about gay people should be visible and that we should come out of the closet. So the flag really fit with that in terms of it being a visibility tool."

Visibility, however, can be a two-edged sword. For gays and lesbians, it serves as a "universal Red Cross" sign, a marker that says: here is a safe haven when trouble arises. Homophobes also recognize the colors, and for them it has become a red flag, as it were, a signal that a potential target for gay bashing is in their midst.

The film is beautifully photographed and edited, with an excellent soundtrack, all of which helps tell the fascinating story of the flag's origins and history without a word of narration. Relying on archival images, both film footage and still shots, and on-camera interviews, Rainbow Pride touches on significant events in GLBT history, starting with the Stonewall Riots in New York, Anita Bryant's anti-gay campaign in Dade County, Florida, and the assassination of Harvey Milk. In one segment, we see Baker in Key West supervising the stitching together of a flag, panel by panel, in preparation for the upcoming "Sea to Sea" festival, an event in which the longest rainbow flag ever made will stretch from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, furnishing the name of the event.

Although the flag's colors have been used in tacky, commercial ways--to decorate key chains and license plates, for example--its power has endured. Its popularity arises from the need for an oppressed people to have a unifying symbol of their own. In the words of Ann Northrop, a long-time activist: "It's still a brilliant signifier and connector and identifier of us as a special tribe of people."

Charles Michael Smith is a freelance writer living in New York City.