Outrage, a new documentary exposé which outs closeted gay politicians who have a record of voting for anti-gay legislation, is now playing in select cities across the country. This is critically-acclaimed filmmaker Dick Kirby’s newest documentary, and was an official selection of the Tribeca International Film Festival.
The film outs local, state and federal politicians who have actively supported anti-LGBT legislative measures, and is based on extensive research and first-hand accounts from a score of interviewees.
“I am 100 percent confident that everything in the film is 100 percent accurate,” Kirby told CNN in a recent interview.
All questions of accuracy aside, some have criticized the film for publicly breaking down the closet door, a move considered unethical from a journalistic standpoint.
But producers and advocates of the film believe that this is not an issue of exposing officials for being gay, but rather for voting contrary to their personal beliefs and behavior.
“When CNN reports on the corruption of public officials, when they say something that’s not true, when they vote a certain way but they are really involved in something else…that is called reporting. And that’s what this is,” Sirius XM Radio host Michelangelo Signorile told CNN.
This is not the first time Kirby has charted controversial territory. He is an award-winning documentarian who was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for his 2006 feature, This Film is Not Yet Rated, in which he explored the systematic errors and corruption of the American movie ratings board. In addition, he directed Oscar-nominated feature Twist of Faith.
About Outrage, Kirby told CNN, “What my film does is report on hypocrisy. It reports on closeted gay politicians who vote anti-gay and as a result of their vote harm millions of Americans who are just like them.I think it’s a job of any documentary filmmaker and any journalist to report on hypocrisy.”
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