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Southern Voice/February 14, 1991
COUNTERCULTURE
Michelle Parker son:
Returning to the community an inspiring vision of its experiences
by John Zeh
For black lesbian Michelle Parkerson,
film, video, and poetry are powerful
weapons of social change in an ongoing
battle to win peoples' hearts and minds
around the world.
"I have a passion for redefining the
capacity to communicate through media,"
she said at a World AIDS Day forum in
Washington D.C., "a passion for creativity
utilizing technology as a tool for activism
and rewriting herstory.
"At best, the power of film- and video
making meshes both cause and creativi
ty-”
Parkerson—one of about 30 black
women who work independently in
American cinema—has become one of
the most respected feminist film makers
intheU.S.
At a recent forum held at D.C.'s Astrea
Gallery, she added "Race" to the title of
the "Sex, Art, and Politics" panel, provid
ing a prelude to February's Black History/
Herstory Month by specifying that "race
has an undeniable impact on it all."
She titled her timely presentation
"Birth of a Notion," after D.W. Griffith's
1915 epic film. The talk documented how
gay and lesbian imagery and experience
can best be broadened and "an ethnocen
tric, diverse nation of lovers constructed
24 frames at a time" (sound film's projec
tion speed).
"Image-making," offered the DC resi
dent, "is power.”
Film and video, Parkerson explained,
are "sophisticated tools of political per
suasion and history-writing. "We use
(them) to validate our herstory and experi
ences where before there was only distor
tion, no documentation of our lives, work,
and worth."
She's won plaudits from journalists,
critics, and peers. Poet and author Jewelle
Gomez says Parkerson's "films, poetry
and fiction are suffused with the light of
mysticism, commitment, and reality.
They seem to both investigate and cele
brate as if (she) would see the world from
all other angles and still insist you know
the world's most inner core.”
"If a lesbian sen
sibility is ever to be
defined," Gomez
added, "it will most
assuredly bear
Michelle’s name.
Parkerson, who
studied theater at
Temple University,
works to send pow
erful statements
about the experi
ences of Black les
bians and gay peo
ple. "There are so
many stories and
ain't nobody started
to tell them yet," she
told Gomez. Film
and video are acces
sible media that need
to be demystified so the masses can see
those tales. "Media reach is amazing.
People call from Mali, from Hackensack.”
"That's where the power of it is for me
as a political person."
Parkerson's films include:
•"But Then, She's Betty Carter," a cine
matic portrait of the legendary, non-con-
ventional jazz singer who eschewed easy
success by staying true to a unique
singing style which took 30 years to be
recognized as sheer genius by growing
audiences.
•"Storme: The Lady of the Jewel Box,"
about a revue at Miami's Jewel Box Club
in 1939, which expands the parameters of
gay and lesbian history in many ways, a
history offering enormous pride, accord
ing to GCN's Patricia A. Gozemba.
•"Gotta Make This Journey," a one-hour
video profile of the a cappella singers and
activists of Sweet Honey in the Rock,
who have echoed social activism and
voiced the depth of struggles by people of
color worldwide for
over 16 years.
Angela Davis, Holly
Near, and Alice
Walker offer cameo
tributes, underscor
ing the deep political
commitment each of
the six women
exude.
Parkerson said
her devout Catholic
mother, an avid
movie fan and the
ater-goer with a pas
sion for acting and
film-making, fueled
her fervor for elec
tronic and celluloid
media.
She also credits
"the urgency of black nationalism" and
the gay, lesbian, and women's liberation
movements of the early 70s for influenc
ing her move from the stage to film mak
ing.
"Black nationalism and feminism kin
dled my political awareness and ultimate
ly catalyzed my search for a synthesis
between politics, my daily life, and
work," she said.
In 1989, Parkerson received the most
enthusiastic ovation at the District of
Columbia's eighth Arts Awards, for
"Excellence in an Artistic Discipline."
She thanked the DC Arts and Humanities
Commission for making "one small strike
against the Jesse Helms amendment by
giving me this," noting that his "right
wing onus was a rallying point in (our)
community because of his virulent attack
on homoerotic expression."
"I'm a black lesbian...thankful for
(your) bold, straight-ahead acknowledge
ment of more radical expressions, as well
as mainstream art, in the face of
controversy over arts funding."
Parkerson's films allow audiences to
recognize her subjects' uniqueness, singu
lar courage, distinction, and charisma.
And they demonstrate her own huge share
of these formidable traits and media-mak
ing talent. She defines her film-making
mission as "returning to the community an
inspiring vision of its experiences."
Parkerson's book "Waiting Rooms" is
"a haunting, witty, and politically insight
ful collection of poetry and fiction which
in many ways expands upon the themes,
sub-texts, and people in her films," wrote
Gozemba in Boston's GCN.
Currently Parkerson is at work on a
film about Audre Lorde, set for an August
release.
"Poetry," Lorde said in a recent issue
of Progressive, "is the conflict in the lives
we lead" and is an art that "intensifies our
selves, alters and underlines our feelings.
It is most subversive because it is in the
business of encouraging change."
No doubt that's one reason Lorde so
enjoyed having Parkerson along to docu
ment her recent tours.
John Zeh
Parkerson: Image making is power.
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