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| Josh Howard Producer, Director & Writer |
By Josh Howard | LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA -- The Lavender Scare is the first feature-length documentary film to tell the story of the U.S. government's ruthless campaign in the 1950s and '60s to hunt down and fire every Federal employee it suspected was gay.
While the McCarthy Era is remembered as the time of the Red Scare, the headline-grabbing hunt for Communists in the United States, it was the Lavender Scare, a vicious and vehement purge of homosexuals, which lasted longer and ruined many more lives.
Before it was over, more than 10,000 Federal employees lost their jobs.
Based on the award-winning book by historian David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare shines a light on a chapter of American history that has never received the attention it deserves.
It examines the tactics used by the government to identify homosexuals, and takes audiences inside interrogation rooms where gay men and women were subjected to grueling questioning. These stories are told through the first-hand accounts of the people who experienced them.
The Lavender Scare shows how the government's actions ignited an anti-gay frenzy that spread throughout the country, in an era in which The New York Times used the words "homosexual" and "pervert" interchangeably, and public service films warned that homosexuality was a dangerous, contagious disease.
While the story is at times infuriating and heartbreaking, its underlying message is uplifting and inspiring. Instead of destroying American homosexuals, the actions of the government had the opposite effect: they stirred a sense of outrage and activism that helped ignite the gay rights movement.
TRAILER:Josh Howard is a producer and broadcast executive with more than 25 years of experience in news and documentary production.He has been honored with 24 Emmy Awards, mostly for his work on the CBS News broadcast 60 Minutes. Josh began his career at 60 Minutes reporting stories with correspondent Mike Wallace. He was then named senior producer of the broadcast, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the program's 100-member staff in New York, Washington, and abroad. He then became executive editor, second-in-command to Don Hewitt, the legendary creator and executive producer of 60 Minutes. Following that, he served as executive producer of the weeknight edition of 60 Minutes.Josh then joined NBC Universal as Vice President of Long Form Programming for CNBC. In that position, he created a unit that produced a series of highly rated and lavishly praised documentaries focusing on American business.His 90-minute film Big Brother, Big Business, which explored the ways in which corporate America works hand-in-hand with the government to collect information about the personal habits of private citizens, won the Emmy Award for Best Documentary on a Business Topic in 2006 -- one of three Emmy Awards he earned for CNBC (the first Emmys won by CNBC in its 20-year history).Don Hewitt once said of Josh Howard: "In all my years in television, I have never met anyone who had a sharper eye for a good story, or a better sense of how to engage and hold an audience."
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2 comments:
This looks like an important film lovingly and respectfully made.
We need to be reminded that these things happened; that historically, same sex people have been persecuted and legislated against time and time again based on irrational fear, ignorance, and all too often on the whim of someone's asinine belief in a god.
We must never allow this persecution to happen again where the freedom and right to love whom we will, has been achieved.
This film shows us not only past atrocities, but by implication, it also indicates the horror and barbaric nature of those who still do not recognise those intrinsic human rights and freedoms.
Now that California has required teaching about the contributions made by LGBTQ people to America, and the world, it should take the next step and teach about the totally unjustified abuses thrown at LGBTQs in the past, and sadly, still.
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