Ethical Issues In Stonewall Movie

In 1969, New York City’s Greenwich Village had finally had enough. The LGBT community within the city were facing violent abuse and neglect from the police. On the morning of June 28th, a group of police men raided the Stonewall Inn. Stonewall Inn was one of few of gay bars, which police frequently raided. At the time, being LGBT would have been a crime that could result in an arrest. A group of people fought back, throwing bricks at the police, congregating, and protesting the police’s treatment of the LGBT community. There has been dispute over who threw the first brick at the police which incited the protest to begin. The media, the government, and the LGBT community had tossed around different stories, using a white gay man to become the face of

Where a white gay man is the protagonist and leader of the protest. While the Gay Liberation Front (a group of gay men) had a large part in the protests, they were not the leaders of this momentous event. Hollywood purposely erased history to make a blockbuster. Mark Segal, who was 18 at the time of this protest, had friends and family who were a part of the people depicted in the movie. Segal vehemently disagrees with the movie, saying that ““Stonewall” is uninterested in any history that doesn’t revolve around its white male, stereotypically attractive protagonist.” (Segal 2015). Basically, the Hollywood production of Stonewall was historically inaccurate for the price of the deep embedded racism within their company, and the erasure of the transwomen of color who had lead LGBT to their liberation were ignored. Marsha P. Johnson had been the one to throw the first brick. In David Carter’s book, Stonewall, he agrees saying that Johnson “really started it” on the in initial night of the first protests. Not only Marsha had been erased, her friend and fellow trans activist, Sylvia Rivera had worked beside