Handlung

A group of homosexual people try to live with dignity and self-respect while events build to the opening battle in the major gay rights movement.

Who could have guessed that a bunch of men in dresses would breath life into the movement to win equal rights for gay men and lesbians? Certainly not the police who raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular "drag" bar in Greenwich Village. After a long history of police raids, extortion, and brutality, a gaggle of drag queens at the Stonewall decide they have had enough and begin to riot when the police try to load them into a paddy wagon. Told by "La Miranda" (Hector), a regular customer at the Stonewall Inn, the film is a recounting of events that led up to that fateful day in 1969. "Matty Dean" is the handsome angry young man that La Miranda meets at the Stonewall one day and with whom she/he quickly falls in love. "Bostonia" is the self-styled Queen Mother of the drag queens and guides each initiate gently "into the life." Her lover, Vinnie, is the closeted proprietor of the Stonewall. His tragic response to the suffocation he feels bearing down on him from a homophobic world -- perhaps as much as anything else -- sparks the riots. This is the Stonewall Riots "As Told By La Miranda".—Mark Fleetwood <mfleetwo@mail.coin.missouri.edu>

At a moment in time marked by a singular moment in civil rights and gay history, a wide eyed innocent country boy named Matty Dean (Frederick Weller) arrives in Greenwich Village, New York City, seeking experience and hoping to find his gay liberation. He finds what he seeks at the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the late 1960s. He meets a boy in drag named La Miranda (Guillermo Diaz) who captivates him and offers him a couch to sleep on or his first night in the city. After being carted off to jail just for being in the bar at the time of a police raid, he meets Ethan (Brendan Corbalis), an activist who believes in non-violent protest. However, the high minded idea of peaceful protest is shattered when police raid the Stonewall Inn again, except this time, the patrons fight back.—trivwhiz

Matty Dean arrives in 1969 New York hoping to learn more about what it means to be gay and to gain more experience with gay people. But will his life be irretrievably changed by the people he meets, and the events taking place at that time?—trivwhiz