FX's Pride nails its attempt to capture 60 years of LGBTQ history in just six episodes

TIME

"Pop culture may be a crucial tool in effecting change, but for oppressed groups and their respective liberation movements, mainstream representation is often a mixed blessing," says Judy Berman. "Well-meaning TV shows and movies can nonetheless make spectacles of Black pain or paint feminists as unhinged. For decades, it was rare to see LGBTQ characters who didn’t conform to broad stereotypes or meet with tragic ends; trans people tended to fare worst of all. Even in the 21st century, as sympathetic depictions from The L Word and Bravo’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to The L Word: Generation Q and Netflix’s Queer Eye have coincided with real political progress, pop culture has struggled to expand its narrow view of queer and trans life. The problem with making art that aims to represent any community of millions is that it means doing justice to that community’s vast diversity. More than anything else I’ve seen on TV, FX’s excellent Pride nails it. The six-episode docuseries, airing in two parts on May 14 and 21, traces the history of LGBTQ civil rights from the 1950s through the 2000s, with an hour devoted to each decade. But instead of entrusting the entire project to the same director, producers from VICE Studios and Killer Films—a venerable independent production company that was pivotal in the New Queer Cinema movement of the ’90s—recruited a different notable queer, trans or nonbinary filmmaker to make each episode. The decision to let those smartly chosen contributors tell stories that resonate with them, in styles that reflect each director’s unique voice, yields a history that is artful, complex and vital without being monolithic."

ALSO:

• Pride's approach using different directors results in episodes that are hit or miss: "Pride takes a decade-by-decade look at LGBTQ+ life and the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights starting in the 1950s and carrying through to the 2000s, with each installment hailing from a different LGBTQ+ filmmaker," says Daniel Fienberg. "It’s hard to exactly pinpoint the dictates passed along to each filmmaker, and the result is that each hour is maybe half personal reflection on a tumultuous moment and half Wikipedia summary just to make sure that somebody who accidentally stumbles upon Pride won’t be entirely flummoxed. It’s a recipe for wildly varying levels of aesthetic inspiration and baked-in unevenness both from episode to episode and within episodes."
• Pride is powerful, loud and honest and feminist: "This series emphasizes that it wasn’t all Stonewall. Sure, this was the riot that got the nation’s attention," says Lyra Hale. "But FX’s Pride makes sure to point out that LGBTQ people were fighting for their rights long before Stonewall and will continue doing so long after Stonewall. This distinction helps to emphasize the point that our fight continues to this day and that there are places and stories in our LGBTQ that we don’t know about and have been overshadowed by others. And finally, this series teaches all of us as LGBTQ people, that we are not alone. Our struggles are felt by those in the community. And there will always be a helping out there to remind you that we aren’t going anywhere. No matter how much they shout, cry, or try to take away our rights. We are here to stay and a part of that is learning our history as a means of empowering ourselves."