Festival de Cannes: Pride (2014)

Queer Palm Award

The Cannes Film Festival is, for lack of a better word, a little pretentious. Since 2010 the festival has awarded an award for LGBT+ cinema, along with Berlin’s Teddy Award and Venice’s Queer Lion, the Queer Palm makes up one of the major international LGBT+ awards. Though, two of them using the word “queer” feels a little regressive.

In 2014 there was stiff competition for the award, the runners were Mommy, Saint Laurent, Girlhood, Love at First Fight, Whiplash, A Girl at my Door, Party Girl, Zenia, Faire: L’amour, Darker Than Midnight, Respite and When Animals Dream. Aside from wondering how Whiplash is a LGBT+ film, the most impressive thing is that the prize went to Pride, an 80s set comedy-drama from Matthew Warchus that followed the true story of two oppressed groups coming together.

Perhaps because France famously isn’t quiet about political affiliation, maybe it’s because it came out a year after former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had died. But the small British film managed to not only win this incredible honour, but was also nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.

“Pride follows a London based group of Lesbian and Gay activists.”

Pride follows a London based group of Lesbian and Gay activists who, under the leadership of Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer), formed Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners. The group attempt to raise money for those on strike in a small Welsh village of Onllwyn.

The comedy of Pride comes from the chalk-and-cheese pairing of a working class Welsh village filled with miners suffering the pain and strife of standing up for their rights against the Thatcher government. When the activists who have no qualms with being out and proud come into the village we get the meeting of two different cultures.

What works about this is that it shows that Thatcher was something of a catch-all for the Conservative regime. Whatever the affiliation of the viewer, there’s no denying that entire villages of people dying from starvation because Thatcher refused to bargain with them is something we can see today in society. The classic “if you don’t like it you can always quit”. In fact, given the current state of the world, the UK in particular, we forget that the conservatives applauded when there was a refusal to raise the pay of NHS workers.

The film, while couching it’s themes in broad comedy of errors – Dominic West’s Jonathan Bale dances exuberantly infront of the miners and their wives, which the wives are impressed by – does touch on serious issues. The fact that the 80s, while not so long ago, had a very different set of ideals to today. This was definitely an era of “man’s man”, that the husband was supposed to earn the money and provide for a family.

“The fact that this is 1984 and we are still in for seven years of Thatcher’s brand of conservatism is no mistake.”

It was also a time when being a member of the LGBT+ community was frowned upon, most obviously seen in the closeted Joe Cooper (George MacKay) who is scared to accept who he is, or in Ashton’s fear over the looming threat of AIDs. Moreover, there is a clear look at women’s roles in the world – famously Sian James (Jessica Gunning) comes into her own thanks to this crisis, and its no surprise that there’s only one woman in LGSM.

The film opens rather pointedly, with Ashton realising that the police are not harassing the LGBT community because they are focussed on the miners and their actions. The fact that this is 1984 and we are still in for seven years of Thatcher’s brand of conservatism is no mistake. Five years
she had been PM and it was getting to a point where the country was fed up.

The film isn’t an “issue” movie, but it does talk about issues. The fact that Cooper sits as a family member mocking a Public Information Film about AIDS as being “Anally Injected Death Syndrome” is not a million miles away from the belief that AIDS came from a gay man having intercourse with a monkey.

“It’s a film that makes you feel good while also addressing serious issues.”

Once again we see this in the belief today that Covid-19 was caused by a man eating a bat, as if he was turned into a feral plague vampire. And the belief that anything remotely Asian will give you Corona is reflected in the belief that anything gay will give you AIDS. The film is also about the liberation of women, not just in the form of James, but also Imelda Staunton’s Hefina Headon who we see is a no nonsense woman who fights for what is fair.

It’s interesting that most oppression was coming at a time when a woman was in charge. It should have been a time of great change and yet we see that things were getting slowly worse. The AIDS crisis was dismissed, the miners were suppressed, and women were still held to traditional homemaker values.

What happens at the end is no surprise, that just as LGSM came to help the miners, the miners return the favour is a moment that we can rejoice. The film makes use of the song “Two Tribes” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, but changes the meaning. Instead of it being about two tribes fighting one another, you can see this as two tribes teaming up to go to war with something bigger.

Pride deserved that win in Cannes, and deserves rewatching, for the simple reason, it is what you could consider a textbook definition of a “feel good film”. It’s a film that makes you feel good while also addressing serious issues. There’s often a belief that films that illicit an emotional response are less than a “serious” drama, but this proves that to be false. A sterile examination of the politics of the time like – say – The Iron Lady is not nearly as good, or enjoyable, as a film that shows people can set aside differences.

“Pride winning the Queer Palm is a victory for small scale storytelling.”

The film uses the past to talk about the present, we can use the lessons of the film to help even now. Pride isn’t just a piece of big hair nostalgia, it’s a lesson in community, that the establishment in whatever form it takes will try to suppress people, will try to keep people down, and it doesn’t matter when or where. So now, as the over stretched key workers of the world are depending on people to give money and sacrifice to support them when the rich leaders won’t, are we all that far away?

With hindsight people can see that what Thatcher did to those men in the pits was wrong. Though it’s ironic people hate her considering for almost twelve years she was Prime Minister – the entire run of the 1980s. With hindsight, essentially allowing a disease to ravage an entire sub-set of people without even looking into it is seen to be wrong, though homophobia blinded many people. So, in thirty five years will we see another film like this? Will Thatcher’s stern tones be replaced by Johnson’s inane rambles? Will the downtrodden miners be the overworked NHS? Will the in-your-face LGBT people fearful of the AIDS virus be the people forced to go into their place of work because “it’s just the flu”?

Pride therefore, is an ironic title. While they stood , shoulder to shoulder, the time should be a period of shame on reflection. Pride winning the Queer Palm is a victory for small scale storytelling, not focussed on the sufferage of LGBT people, which can all too often dominate awards, but also to learning more about the present and the future than the past.