SpIFF 2007: Prejudice is always a target

“The Fall of ’55,” which opened the final day of the 2007 Spokane International Film Festival , involves the kind of story that – similar to several incidents that have taken place in Spokane – people get tired of hearing.

In this case, the story concerns a series of arrests of gay men in Boise, Idaho, that started in the fall of 1955.

As one letter writer asked Boise’s daily newspaper, the Idaho Statesman , when it ran a story a few years ago detailing the sad outcome of one man directly involved with one of the arrested men, why do we have to again be subjected to such “smut”?

Well, because we have short memories. And because we don’t like to look at parts of society that, being on the fringe of the overall culture as gays and lesbians were in 1955 – especially in an All-American city in the Inland Northwest – are often discriminated against.

Do we remember, for example, that one of the biggest self-appointed foes of Communism in government during that same period was Sen. Joe McCarthy ? And that gay men were often targeted as being likely to give Communist a foothold in government? And, finally, do we remember the irony that Roy Cohn , McCarthy’s most able assistant, was himself gay?

Oh, yeah, hypocrisy and deceit are other reasons why we revisit such issues. “The Fall of ’55,” which tries to be painfully fair – maybe too fair – to everyone involved in the controversy, does a good job of showing us what Boise looked like that half century ago.

Using interviews with people, both archival and new, plus footage of the city taken from newsreels, private collections and official archives, director Seth Randal has revived a time in America when fear again controlled the reaction to a series of crimes, both real and merely perceived, turning the reaction into a wave of hysteria.

I wish he had spent more time explaining the difference between the actual crimes that were committed – i.e., sex with underage boys – and those acts that were nothing more than an overreaction to what was seen as “perverted” behavior between consenting adults.

That said, any argument against blind prejudice is worth seeing. And any story about such prejudice is worth telling. Again and again.