Pride: Cinematography for Lesbian and Gay Rights

The 2014 film ‘Pride’ is based upon the Lesbians and Gays support the miner’s movement which was active between 1984 and 1985. The story follows the members of this group and their experience as they raised money to support miners in the Dulais Valley in Wales whilst they were on strike against pit closures during Thatcher’s second term as Prime Minister. The film looks at solidarity between the lesbian and gay community in London and the Welsh mining community and realises the shared struggles that these groups had during this period of history. This theme is reflected when looking at the music used in this film as it makes use of popular songs from the 1980s that were particularly significant in lesbian and gay culture, whilst also using traditional songs of importance to working-class communities.

Lesbian and gay identity since the Stonewall riots in 1969 has been defined by a political fight for rights and equality. In the early stages of this fight for rights an identity for gay men and lesbians was created due to a shared experience of oppression as a result of queer sexuality. This gay struggle has allowed for “the creation of a cultural community based on a sexuality”, however; there are arguments within the queer community over whether this has created a valid community, especially when arguing for political rights, as Nicola Field argued when she wrote “few queer devotees can agree on a common political agenda for sexual liberation around class”. This argues that despite a shared experience, gay identity is unclear as being a member of the lesbian and gay movement does not give an individual a community or a heritage in the same way that ethnicity or class does.

In the 1980s, working-class identity was characterised by the rise of the New Right and Thatcherism in the UK which promoted a post Fordist theory. This theory suggested a shift to a more “decentralized form of labour process” which, in turn, had a huge effect on working class identity. Thatcher particularly attacked the organised working-class, aiming to crush trade unions which turned into a year-long strike within the mining community. The struggle between the mining community and the Conservative government defined working-class identity in the 1980s and allowed for the acts of solidarity which take place in the film ‘Pride’.

In this essay I am going to discuss six songs which are used in this film, with reference to their context and lyrics. Three of these songs are taken from the protest song tradition both in the US and the UK and are significant to working-class communities, hence their use in the film. These songs are ‘There is Power in the Union’ by Billy Bragg, ‘Solidarity Forever’ as recorded by Pete Seeger, and ‘Bread and Roses’, a traditional folk song here recorded by Bronwen Lewis. The other three songs I will discuss are all taken from 80s pop culture, including ‘Why? ’ by Bronski Beat, ‘Shame, shame, shame’ by Shirley and Company and ‘Love and Pride’ by King. With reference to these songs it can be argues that lesbian and gay struggles are incredibly similar to those of the mining community in the UK in the 1980s, despite the fact that working-class communities in this time tended to be more hostile towards lesbians and gay men. The ideas discussed in queer theory destabilises identity and allows people of both communities to transcend their potential political and social boundaries and stand in solidarity together, as supported in this film.

Billy Bragg has been an influential political musician in the UK for a number of decades with his particular political interest sparked by the election of Thatcher and the Conservative Party in 1979. By the time Thatcher’s second term as prime minister had begun, her, and her government, had become an enemy of both the working-class and lesbians and gay men and the struggle against the Conservative Party was growing in both communities. For lesbians and gay men this came to a head in 1988 when section 28 of the local government act passed affecting England, Scotland and Wales. This section stated that local governments could not “promote homosexuality”, whilst also using the term “pretended family relationship” when referring to homosexuality in a school sex education context. This legal change is evidence of how the New Right Conservative government reacted to homosexuality and can be used to identify the struggle between the lesbian and gay community and the government. The labour movement had a similar struggle through these years as Thatcherism attacked the unions and argued against class conflict which she would later describe as a “Communist concept”. Within the identity of both groups, Thatcher and this Conservative Government were held as a common enemy, the same can be said of Billy Bragg who wrote ‘There is power in a Union’, thus, identifying why it was used in this film. The common struggle is also discussed in the lyrics of the song where Bragg sings “Brutality and unjust laws cannot defeat us”, both communities faced the same violence and injustice which is outlined in this film.

As well as being an enemy of Thatcher, Bragg is also a key representative of the working class. He believed that art was a place where the disenfranchised could meet those who were not part of any obvious struggle and find common ground. Evidence of this came in the form of the activist organisation the Red Wedge which Bragg founded and was “designed to bring popular culture and mainstream party politics together”. Bragg’s working-class background was reflected in his music through a number of means; he retains his East End accent when singing which Timothy D. Taylor argues helps to “position himself within the working-class whom he is addressing”. By writing this song about trade unions, Bragg is aligning himself with a working-class identity. Unions were, as Raymond Williams argued in 1958, one of the “central cultural achievements of the working class”. They had given workers “strength, solidarity and a sense of power” Bragg not only stands up for the unions in this song but discusses how powerful they have been when fighting for civil liberties. When he sings “the union forever defending our rights” he acknowledges that the trade unions are the key reason for civil liberties, particularly for workers, in the UK.

It may be suggested that the use of “There is Power in a Union” in the film ‘Pride’ is due to the liberal attitudes of Billy Bragg himself which supported lesbian and gay rights as well as workers’ rights. We can see evidence of this in Bragg’s 1991 song ‘Sexuality’ from his 1991 album ‘Don’t Try This at Home’. This song is an anti-homophobia and generally sex positive track featuring the line “And just because you’re gay I won’t turn you away”. This lyric clearly suggests a pro-LGBT message which was not held by the entire population at the time, indicating that Bragg recognised the struggle of the LGBT movement as they were often oppressed by the same people who caused issues for the working-class that he so clearly represented.

‘There is Power in a Union’ creates a rallying message that can be applied to both the lesbian and gay and the working-class communities that were active during the 1980s in the UK. The melody of this song is taken from a civil war song by composer George Frederick Root named the Battle cry of Freedom. Bragg has changed the words of this song changing the meaning from the union, also known as the Northern states in the US civil war, to a labour union, as Timothy D. Taylor discusses, this “changes the meaning from personal freedom to economic freedom”. Both of these types of freedom are important to the communities that I am discussing here. The working-class communities were fighting for economic freedom when the mining communities went on strike against pit closures. Unemployment in the UK was rapidly growing and the fear of mass pit closures was severe as this increase in unemployment would lead to widespread poverty and the social problems that came in conjunction with this. While mining communities in particular feared economic repression as a result of unemployment, lesbian and gay communities were fearing civil liberties being infringed upon by a newly elected right wing government. There was evidence that Thatcher and her conservative government did not share the same beliefs about homosexuality as the Labour government that had preceded them, for example, at a speech made at the 1978 Conservative party conference, Thatcher said “children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have the inalienable right to be gay”. This attitude both in the UK and the USA prompted a shift in gay and lesbian identity to defending personal rights and freedoms as Annamarie Jagose argued stating that lesbians and gay men “concentrated in securing equality for a homosexual population”.

The rallying message of both personal and economic freedom that is declared in ‘There is Power in the Union’ is then supported by Bragg’s ability to create a sense of community. Within the lyrics, Bragg uses exclusively first-person plural except on one occasion in the line “How I long for the morning when they realise/ Brutality and unjust laws cannot defeat us”. At this moment it is clear that