Celluloid Activist The Life and Times of Vito Russo
Celluloid Activist is the biography of gay-rights giant Vito Russo, the man who wrote The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies, commonly regarded as the foundational text of gay and lesbian film studies and one of the first to be widely read. But Russo was much more than a pioneering journa...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Book Chapter |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Madison
The University of Wisconsin Press
2011
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | DOAB: download the publication DOAB: description of the publication |
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| Summary: | Celluloid Activist is the biography of gay-rights giant Vito Russo, the man who wrote The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies, commonly regarded as the foundational text of gay and lesbian film studies and one of the first to be widely read. But Russo was much more than a pioneering journalist and author. A founding member of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and cofounder of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), Russo lived at the center of the most important gay cultural turning points in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. His life as a cultural Zelig intersects a crucial period of social change, and in some ways his story becomes the story of a developing gay revolution in America. A frequent participant at "zaps" and an organizer of Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) cabarets and dances-which gave the New York gay and lesbian community its first social alternative to Mafia-owned bars-Russo made his most enduring contribution to the GAA with his marshaling of "Movie Nights," the forerunners to his worldwide Celluloid Closet lecture tours that gave gay audiences their first community forum for the dissection of gay imagery in mainstream film. |
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| ISBN: | FOZR8590 9780299282394 9780299282301 |
| Access: | Open Access |