Arts & Entertainment

Strange bedfellows?

‘80s-set Brit film finds gays joining forces with miners

Published

12 years ago

October 10, 2014

Brian T. Carney

Dominic West as Jonathan in ‘Pride.’ (Photo by Nicola Dave; courtesy CBS Films)

“Pride” is a thoroughly engaging movie that manages to be political without being preachy and deeply moving without being overly sentimental.

Briskly directed by Mathew Warchus from a script by Stephen Beresford, the movie features fine performances, sharp dialogue and a lively pace. It opens today at several theaters in the D.C. region.

Based on historical events, the movie opens during the London Pride March in 1984. As a trick leaves his apartment, young gay rights activist Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer) catches television coverage of the strike by the National Union of Mineworkers. He quickly senses that there is common cause between the gay rights movement and the miners. Both are demonized by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and conservative politicians, hated by the tabloid press and beaten by police.

Mark quickly rallies his friends into raising money for the miners. They call themselves LGSM: “Lesbians and Gay Men Support the Miners.” They are surprisingly effective fundraisers, but run into a problem. None of the striking unions want to take their money. The resourceful Mark decides to take the money directly to a struggling mining community. Disco, comedy and calamity ensue.

Warchus and Beresford tell this inspirational story with remarkable efficiency and effectiveness, which is both a strength and a weakness. An acclaimed stage director, Warchus handles the large ensemble cast with remarkable grace. The performances are uniformly strong, but while the characters may be based on real people, the script often draws on generic story lines instead of specific details, especially for the minor characters. For example, there’s the spiky lesbian Steph (a vibrant Faye Marsay), the newbie Joe whose parents discover his cache of photos (the effervescent George MacKay) and the elderly Gwen (a charming Menna Trussler) who wonders if all lesbians are vegetarians and keeps shouting “Where are my lesbians?”

Schnetzer and Paddy Considine as Dai turn in interesting performances as two very different organizers. The younger gay rights organizer masks his inner demons with bravado where the older labor leader radiates a quiet confidence. Imelda Staunton (best known as Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter movies) leaps zestfully into the role of Hefina, the leader of the strike committee; she cuts a rug and cuts down narrow-minded villagers with the same fiery passion. Bill Nighy gives a powerfully understated performance as Cliff, the tongue-tied local historian who waxes poetic when he talks about local history or national politics.

With unwavering support from composer Christoper Nightingale and cinematographer Tat Radcliffe, Warchus also creates a beautiful movie. The boisterous urban scenery of gay London and the bleak streets of Onllwyn are captured with the same delicacy and eye for detail as the rolling landscapes of Wales. The rich score draws on a variety of pop and folk sources, most notably Pete Seger’s “Solidarity Forever” and the labor anthem “Bread and Roses,” beautifully sung by Bronwen Lewis (a finalist on “The Voice”).

“Pride” is a well-told tale about a historic alliance between LGBT activists and labor leaders that also serves as a striking parable for our times.

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Books

New book reveals what we can learn from animal sex

‘Poking the Squid’ on homosexuality, gender swapping, and more

Published

11 hours ago

July 13, 2026

Terri Schlichenmeyer

(Book cover image courtesy W.W. Norton)

‘Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex’
By Perrin Roosevelt Ireland
c.2026, W.W. Norton
$29.99 241 pages

Birds do it.

According to Cole Porter, bees do, too, but it’s not exactly what he imagined. Wild and tame, avians, insects, and mammals all have sex – although not always as you’ve been told or for reasons you might think. Even educated fleas do it and, as in the new book, “Poking the Squid” by Perrin Roosevelt Ireland, humans can learn from them all.

If you read through scientific papers on animal reproduction, you might notice something unusual: for scientists, the word “sex” means a lot of different things.

Says Ireland, “It’s used to describe behaviors, biology, life histories, and more.”

That might be because animals are not simply binary.

Take, for instance, hyenas. It’s easy for the casual observer to mistake a male hyena for a female and vice versa because of stereotypes of anatomy. Mating, for hyenas, requires subordination for the male and a nifty trick on the part of the female’s body to get things done.

Our feathered friends are no birdbrains, either: black-browed albatrosses were once thought to be monogamous but global warming seems to have changed their nesting habits sometimes. Male flamingos have sex with one another, as a territorial thing; other birds and animals form same-sex pairs for other reasons.

The Chinese mantis eats her mate after fertilization. Female snakes, alpacas, guinea pigs, and monkeys are anatomically able to enjoy sex. Genitalia between species varies quite a bit; in fact, the vaginas of ducks “are highly complex.” Lionesses will mate up to 100 times when in heat. Female damselflies will change into a “third sex” to avoid overly aggressive mating males. Bearded dragons can change their sex, if needed, as can yellow clown goby fish. And seahorse pregnancy and birth sparked a book banning in Tennessee.

So, asks Ireland, if animals, including us, vary so much in biology and life, “… why are we using the word sex like it means something, anything, consistent?!”

Pick up “Poking the Squid,” page through it a few seconds, and you’ll see that the information here is largely told through cartoon-like drawings mixed with captions. It seems to be something on the lighter side, but don’t let that artwork fool you.

Author Perrin Roosevelt Ireland offers readers solid information that cozies up to the scholarly, with hard science, philosophy, feminism, and quotations from researchers to support it, thus furthering the narrative and hitting the points squarely. If you see the art and expect something lighthearted, comic, and small-talk-worthy, you could be disappointed.

On the other hand, if you want solid, wryly serious facts, you’re in for a treat.

There’s lots of learning to be gleaned here, and some slight nudge-wink whimsy to emphasize the absurdity of wrong-headed thinking. This can make readers feel like they’re in-the-know on the jokes, and the playfulness balances the seriousness of the information well.

So, serious, scholarly, or slightly silly, none of these are negative but you’re going to know what you want from a book like this. For the right reader, someone in the mood, “Poking the Squid” is wild.

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