Gay Chorus Deep South: the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus bring it to the bible belt
30 Jan 2020

by Drew Rowsome - photos courtesy of the publisher.

I ain't afraid of your Jesus
I'm afraid of what you do in the name of your God

The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus are afraid, but that isn't going to stop them from doing the Lord's work. After the US 2016 election, the chorus, like all sane inhabitants of the world, despaired. Particularly that there are still laws in the southern US that remove LGBTQ human rights in the name of religious freedom. As one character says, "I grew up with it. It was ok to be openly racist, openly homophobic, but I thought we were past that. And now we're seeing it on a national scale."

The chorus takes its activism as seriously as it takes its music, so the Lavender Pen Tour was created. The 300 chorus members perform 25 times over seven days throughout the deep south bible belt in venues ranging from auditoriums to concert halls but with the emphasis on churches. An audacious idea and, as the charming chorus conductor Tim Seelig explains, they didn't believe they could change the laws but they knew they could change the opinions of the people they interacted with, one at a time. And to teach them the difference between hospitality, tolerance and acceptance.

The chorus teamed up with the exuberant Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir to gain entry to the more extreme of the churches who would welcome a gospel choir but not gays - even though choir director Terrance Kelly estimates that a third of the gospel choir is gay and proclaims that their motto is, "It's not about Jesus, its because we love gospel music." A la Priscilla, the queens and the choir sally forth in buses into the wasteland. 

Director David Charles Rodrigues focuses on three chorus members in particular, each of whom has an intense story. Seelig was a former choral director for a Baptist mega-church before coming out and being cast out. Ashle Blow is transitioning. And Jimmy White has cancer and is estranged from his southern family. Seelig is articulate and bitter but has great scenes with a conservative talk show radio host and a pastor in denial of his homophobia. And the film climaxes with the climax of his story. Blow is the most charming and their search for a place of gender fluidity in an unwelcoming world and a gay men's choir raises intriguing issues. White has the best comic and heartbreaking moment as his father reacts to the chorus's performance of the Patsy Cline classic "She's Got You," complete with a tour de force drag performance by Phillip Whitely.

All three stories, as well as the musical performances, had me in ugly cry mode on more than one occasion. Bring kleenex. Because the final outcome is as hopeful as it is cathartic it is a good ugly cry. There are however two problems I have with Gay Chorus Deep South. All of the men in the chorus have extraordinary Norma Desmond worthy faces and undoubtedly extraordinary stories, this should have been a Netflix or HBO series instead of an MTV one-off (though the glossy MTV style of crisp flattering cinematography is visually stunning). 

Secondly, the chorus members and the filmmakers are far more charitable, in the interests of being evenhanded, than I could ever be to the self-described "dirt-eating cousin-fuckers" that pass for Christians. And yes, I realize that much of the film is concerned with creating tolerance in both directions - a chorus member quotes one of the songs saying, "There is a storm. And we have to learn to dance with the storm" - but those damn laws are still on the books and there is an insidious attempt afoot to make those laws US-wide. 

There are many indelible moments - a young lesbian attending her first gay event but can't show her face on camera, the chorus camping it up in drag on the bus, a protester who reveals more than she intended, two adorable elderly lesbians who upstage everyone, and a Facebook friend who brings a gift - that weave seamlessly into the triptych of tales. And of course, the music is glorious. The Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir are extraordinary, but when 300 gay men, of all ages, shapes, sizes and ethnicities, unite in declaring "I Ain't Afraid" in rich resonant layers of harmony, Gay Chorus Deep South becomes transcendent. And I believe.