Arts & Entertainment
John Waters is bringing back the drive-in — with masks — at Md. Film Festival
Will cicadas spoil the show or add to the fun?
Writer and filmmaker John Waters says he grew up going to drive-in movies.
“We went every single night. With the same movie playing.“
He had a certain routine.
“I used to…drive in alone with two cases of beer covered in a blanket and with four people in the trunk.”
Now Waters is working to introduce a new generation to drive-in movie theaters, which are making a comeback because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When the pandemic happened, it did bring drive-ins back,” he said in a recent interview. “Most young people have never been to a drive-in. I think it’s a good answer [to the pandemic], and it’s a good atmosphere for certain types of movies.”
Waters is getting ready to host a double feature drive-in movie night on May 21, as part of the Maryland Film Festival that runs from May 19 to May 27. The theme is “Russian Shock Night at the Drive-In,” because he selected two Russian films to present: Why Don’t You Just Die! and The Road Movie.
This will be the third time during the pandemic that Waters has hosted a drive-in night for a film festival, after double features last year for the Provincetown International Film Festival, at the Wellfleet Drive-In Theatre on Cape Cod, and the New York Film Festival, at The Bronx Zoo.
This time the venue is Druid Hill Park, home of the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. The film festival is creating a pop-up drive-in theater on the sloping lawn of the Mansion House, the zoo’s headquarters, in conjunction with Baltimore’s Department of Recreation and Parks. It will have a 52-foot-wide inflatable screen and space for 93 vehicles. The price of admission is $25 per car, and tickets sold out in a day.
The film festival is the first organization to get a permit for an in-person outdoor gathering on public property in more than a year from the city of Baltimore, where Mayor Brandon Scott has been cautious about allowing public events. The mayor wouldn’t allow the annual July 4th fireworks show at the city’s Inner Harbor or the annual Artscape festival in July.
“I’m proud to the first one,” said Waters, who came up with the idea for a drive-in during the festival. “I’m thankful that they’re letting us do it.”
Based on his experience at the other festivals, Waters said, he’s confident it will be successful. “I love the idea of the drive-in. I think it will be good, and it is safe. Everybody’s in their car. Even if you haven’t been vaccinated. Well, I hope you don’t come if you haven’t been vaccinated. But still, everybody’s in their car. It’s at a social distance.”
Waters, who lives in Baltimore, traditionally introduces a movie of his choice on Friday night of the annual film festival, and it’s a highlight of the event. Last year it didn’t happen because the festival was cancelled due to the pandemic.
This year the festival is back as mostly a virtual event, because the theater where it’s held is still subject to COVID-related seating restrictions. Organizers asked Waters to bring back his signature movie night. He didn’t want it to be online.
“I said, I hate virtual. I’m so sick of virtual,” he recalled. “They knew I had done a drive-in at the New York Film Festival, where we showed Salo and the Gasper Noe movie, Climax…It works well in the drive In.”
Film festival organizers, led by executive director Sandra Gibson, collaborated with city officials to identify the site and figure out the details. “You don’t have to be vaccinated, but you will have to wear masks…if you’re outside your car,” Gibson said.
The parks department didn’t place a limit on the size of vehicles or the number of people in a vehicle, although larger ones will be located towards the back of the lot, she said.
“If you have a hatchback, we’ll let you open your hatchback and sit in the hatchback,” she said. “We’ll let you sit in the back of a flatbed truck as long as you have a mask on. If you have an SUV that holds eight people, we’re fine with that as long as everybody can see. But they have said you have to stay in your car.”
Waters describes Why Don’t You Just Die! as “a grindhouse, seat-ripping blood-drenched family revenge comedy that begs to be seen in a drive-in with a crazy audience cheering from their cars,” and The Road Movie as “a dash cam documentary from hell that puts you live in the car accidents and near misses all for your rage viewing pleasure.”
He said the two movies are in line with the ones he usually picks for screenings in the film festival’s Parkway Theatre, “but these two I think are even better for a drive-in setting.”
The Road Movie, featuring footage compiled from Russian dashboard cameras, has a car-oriented theme that fits with the drive-in set-up and will be the second film of the night. “You’ll drive home safely after this one, I guarantee you,” Waters said.
He chose a Russian theme, he said, “just because I loved these movies and I knew that Russia was especially kind of unmentionable these days. I’m not a fan of Russia either, but maybe everybody could come dressed as Nikita Khrushchev and his wife, or Putin.”
Given the climate in Russia, “it’s just kind of amazing that these two movies ever got made there,” he said. “They’re pretty radical movies. Especially Why Don’t You Just Die!”
Waters said the location brings back fond memories, in part because the zoo is there and he lived nearby: “I’ve always liked Druid Hill…I used to live across the street at Temple Gardens Apartments for many years.”
He jokes that he’s a little suspicious that the city permitted his event but not the Fourth of July fireworks, citing COVID-19 as the reason.
“Maybe they hope we all get it,” he said. “That’s a new one. We had the censor board. Maybe this is a different way to censor.”
He said he hopes the 17-year cicadas, insects that are just coming out of the ground in Maryland after a 17-year hiatus, make an appearance when his movies are showing.
“I wouldn’t even be mad,” he said, if they “were smashing into the windshields while we were watching. But then we should have shown The Swarm.”
Given the park setting, “you can bet there might be some,” he went on, imagining the possibilities of an insect invasion on his movie night. “It would only add to the disaster theme and the insaneness of the event, to be attacked by nature at Druid Hill Park and watching crazy Russian movies.”
According to the website DriveInMovie.com, there are about 325 drive-in movie theaters currently operating around the United States, down from a peak of more than 4,000 in the 1950s.
Besides the ones in operation, “there are many more that are permanently closed but still remain standing and could potentially be reopened at some point in the future,” says the website, which lists the drive-ins in every state and those that have closed in the past 20 years. “In fact, there have been several drive-in theaters that have been reopened the past couple of years after sitting dark for 20 or even 30 years.”
The first “true” drive-in, the website states, was the “Automobile Movie Theatre” in Camden, New Jersey. It was opened on June 6, 1933 by Richard Hollingshead, a movie buff who initially experimented with showing movies in the driveway of his home.
Hollingshead got a U. S. patent for his drive-in, which the drive-in website describes as essentially a movie screen tied to some trees, a radio placed behind the screen for sound, a film projector on the hood of a car, and a strategy for spacing out cars. His slogan was “The whole family is welcome, regardless of how noisy the children are.”
But Hollingshead’s patent was later declared invalid, and that allowed others to follow his formula without paying him royalties. “Maybe one of the reasons Drive-In Movies are so much more popular in the United States than in other countries is because the drive-in movie is truly an American invention,” the website states.
Today, both vintage drive-ins and pop-up drive-ins are being put to a variety of uses, from sites for fundraisers to filming locations to settings for socially-distanced music performances. When traditional movie theaters were shuttered because of the pandemic, drive-ins became an alternative because the audience remains outdoors.
In some cases, the land is used for swap meets and flea markets when movies aren’t being shown. Joe Biden held drive-in rallies when he was running for President, and voters applauded by honking horns and flashing headlights.
Waters, who just turned 75 and has filmed all of his movies in and around Baltimore, is a drive-in aficionado.
“I’ve spent my whole life in the drive-in,” he said. “I’ve written about them. I grew up in the Timonium Drive-In…The Bengies Drive-In, we filmed Cecil B. Demented in for a week. I spent a week on the roof of that concessions stand.”
In Polyester, “I had an art drive-in,” he said. “The joke was that they showed art movies, and in the concessions stand they had caviar and champagne. That was filmed at the Edmondson Drive-in” in Baltimore.
For him and others in his generation Waters said, the drive-in was “the first apartment’ where “kids could actually get away from their parents.”
It also taught him about saving money by sneaking people in — something he doesn’t want to see on his night.
“I’ll be catching you if you try to sneak in in the trunk, let me warn you,” he said. “I know all the tricks sneaking in the drive-in.”
For this week’s event, the plan is that Waters will be there and will be visible on screen, introducing the movies. Though he’s been vaccinated, there won’t be a Meet-and-Greet session with fans, for safety reasons. “He knows that we’ve got restrictions and he may have his own,” Gibson said. “He’s really conscious that it’s still a pandemic.”
The city has come up with a list of rules and regulations for those with tickets. Besides the requirement that people wear masks when outside the vehicle, no food or drink may be consumed outside of vehicles. Car windows must be up when eating. Tailgating isn’t allowed. Everyone must pre-register and sign a parks department waiver before arriving.
Waters said he read all the rules and couldn’t find any restrictions against having sex in a vehicle during a movie.
“I guess that means you can have sex,” he said. “When I was young, that’s what everybody did.”
The same goes for drinking in a vehicle, he said. “That’s something you always did at the drive-in too.”
The list of rules and regulations is part of the traditional drive-in experience, because every drive-in has rules. In a way, Waters said, it also goes along with the theme for the night:
“It will feel like the Russian government is watching.”
Although the drive-in night is sold out, other tickets are still available to the Maryland Film Festival, including Pride Night and eight LGBTQ-oriented films viewable online. Information about the lineup is at mdfilmfest.com.
a&e features
Memorial for groundbreaking bisexual activist set for May 2
Loraine Hutchins remembered as a ‘force of nature’
The Montgomery County Pride Center will host a celebration honoring the life and legacy of Loraine Hutchins, Ph.D., on May 2. People are invited to attend the onsite memorial or a livestream event. The on-site event will begin at 10 a.m. with a meet-and-greet mixer before moving into a memorial service around the theme “Loraine a Force of Nature!” at 11 a.m., a panel talk at 12 p.m., break out sessions for artists, academics, and activists to build on her legacy at 1 p.m. and a closing reception at 2 p.m.
Attendees are encouraged to register for the on-site memorial gathering or the livestreamed memorial. The goal of this event is also to collect stories and memories of Loraine. Attendees and others can share their stories at padlet.com.
An obituary for Hutchins was published in the Bladelast Nov. 24, where people can learn more about her activism in the bisexual community. A private service for friends and family was held in December but this memorial service is open to all.
Alongside her groundbreaking work organizing for U.S. bisexual rights and liberation including co-editing “Bi Any Other Name: BIsexual People Speak Out” (1991), she also integrated faith into her sexual education and advocacy work. Her 2001 doctoral dissertation, “Erotic Rites: A Cultural Analysis of Contemporary U.S. Sacred Sexuality Traditions and Trends,” offered a pointed queer and feminist analysis to sex-neutral and sex-positive spiritual traditions in the United States. Her thesis was also groundbreaking in exploring the intersections between sex workers and those in caregiving professionals, including spiritual ones.
In an oral history interview conducted by Michelle Mueller back in August 2023, Hutchins described herself as a “priestess without a congregation.” While she has occasionally had a sense of community and feels part of a group of loving people, she admitted that “I don’t feel like we have the shape or the purpose that we need.”
“I’ve often experienced being the Cassandra in the room, the Cassandra in the community. Somebody who’s kind of way out there ahead, thinking through the strategic action points that my community hasn’t gotten to yet, and getting a lot of resistance and hostile responses from people who are frightened by dissent and conflict and not ready for the changes we have to make to survive,” she said.
“For somebody who’s bisexual in an out political way and who’s been a spokesperson for the polyamory movement in an out political way, it’s very exposing. And it’s very important to me to be able to try to explain and help other people understand the connection between spirituality and sexuality,” she explained citing how even as a graduate student she was “exploring how to feel erotic and spiritual, and not feel them in conflict with each other in my own spiritual contemplative life and my own sensual body awareness of being alive in the world.”
“Every religion has a sense of sacred sexuality. It’s just they put a lot of boundaries and regulations on it, and if we have a spiritual practice that is totally affirming of women’s priesthood and of gay people, queer people’s ability to minister to everyone and to be ministered to be everyone, what does that do to the gender of God, or our understanding of how we practice our spirituality and our sexuality in community and privately?”
“There’s no easy answer,” she concludes, and she continued to grapple with these questions throughout her life, co-editing another seminal text, “Sexuality, Religion and the Sacred: Bisexual, Pansexual, and Polysexual Perspectives,” published in 2012. Her work blending spiritual and queer liberation remains groundbreaking to this day.
Rev. Eric Eldritch, a local community organizer and ordained Pagan minister with Circle Sanctuary who has worked for decades with the DC Center’s Center Faith to organize the Pride Interfaith Service, is eager to highlight this element of her legacy at the memorial service next month.
History
Julius’ Bar ‘sip-in’ laid groundwork for Stonewall
Tuesday marked 60 years since four gay activists held protest
While Stonewall is widely considered the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement in the U.S., a lesser-known protest inside a Greenwich Village bar three years earlier helped lay critical groundwork for what would follow.
Tuesday marked 60 years since the Julius’ Bar “sip in.”
On April 21, 1966, four gay rights activists — Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell, John Timmons, and later Randy Wicker — walked into Julius’ Bar and staged what would become known as a “sip-in” to challenge state liquor regulations on serving alcoholic beverages to gay men — with a drink.
Modeled after the sit-ins that challenged racial segregation across the American South, the protest was designed to confront discriminatory practices targeting LGBTQ patrons in public spaces.
At the time, the Mattachine Society — one of the country’s earliest gay rights groups — was actively pushing back against policies enforced by the New York State Liquor Authority. One of those policies could have resulted in the loss of liquor licenses for serving known or suspected gay men and lesbians. The participants had visited multiple establishments, openly identified themselves as homosexual, and requested a drink — with the anticipation of being denied.
Their final stop was Julius’, where reporters and a photographer had gathered to document the moment. When Leitsch declared their identity, the bartender covered their glasses and refused service, reportedly saying, “I think it’s against the law.” The next day, the New York Times ran a story with the headline, “3 Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars,” cementing the moment in the public record.
Though initially framed with disrespect — the term “sip-in” itself was coined as a play on civil rights protests — the action marked a turning point. It brought national attention to the systemic discrimination LGBTQ people faced and helped catalyze changes in how liquor laws were enforced. In the years that followed, the protest contributed to the emergence of licensed, more openly gay-friendly bars, which became central social and organizing spaces for LGBTQ communities.
The Washington Blade originally covered when the bar was officially added to the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
Today, historians and advocates increasingly recognize the “sip-in” as a key pre-Stonewall milestone. According to the New York City LGBTQ Historic Sites Project, the protest not only increased visibility of the early LGBTQ rights movement but also exposed widespread surveillance and entrapment tactics used against the community.
Marking the 60th anniversary of the event, commemorations have taken place in New York and across the country. Reflecting on its enduring legacy, Amanda Davis, executive director of the NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project, spoke about the event.
“Julius’ Bar is a place you can visit and viscerally connect with history,” said Davis. “We’re thrilled to have solidarity locations across the country join us in commemorating the ‘sip-in’’s 60th anniversary and the queer community’s First Amendment right to peaceably assemble.”
For current stewards of the historic bar, the responsibility of preserving that legacy remains front of mind.
“It’s a privilege and a responsibility to be the steward of a place so important to American and LGBTQ history,” said current owner of Julius’ Bar, Helen Buford. “The events of the 1966 Sip-In here at Julius’ resonated across the country and inspired countless others to stand proud for their rights.”
The timing couldn’t have come at a more important moment, Kymn Goldstein, executive director of the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, explained.
“At a time when our community faces renewed challenges, coming together in resilience and solidarity reminds us of the power in our collective resistance,” Goldstein said.
The American Civil Liberties Union, an organization dedicated to defending rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, is currently tracking 519 anti-LGBTQ bills across the U.S. The majority are targeted at restricting transgender rights — particularly related to gender-affirming care, sports participation, and the use of public bathrooms.
Some additional groups and bars that held their own “sip-in” as solidarity events to uplift this historic milestone are from across the country include:
Alice Austen House at Steiny’s Pub, Staten Island, N.Y.
Bellows Falls Pride Committee at PK’s Irish Pub, Bellows Falls, Vt.
Brick Road Coffee, Mesa, Ariz.
Brick Road Coffee, Tempe, Ariz.
Dick Leitsch’s Family at Old Louisville Brewery, Louisville, Ky.
The Faerie Playhouse & LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana at Le Cabaret, New Orleans
Harlem Pride & John Reddick at L’Artista Italian Kitchen & Bar, New York
JOYR!DE KiKi at Loafers Cocktail Bar, New York
Matthew Lawrence & Jason Tranchida / Headmaster at Deadbeats Bar, Providence, R.I.
Mazer Lesbian Archives at Alana’s Coffee, Los Angeles
New Hope Celebrates at The Club Room, New Hope, Pa.
Queer Memory Project at the University of Evansville Multicultural Student Commons / Ridgway University Center, Evansville, Ind.
Sandy Jack’s Bar, Brooklyn, N.Y.
St. Louis LGBT History Project at Just John Club, St. Louis
The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund National Champagne Brunch was held at Salamander Washington DC on Sunday, April 19. Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.) was presented with the Allyship Award.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Memorial for groundbreaking bisexual activist set for May 2
ROSENSTEIN: Chavous for Democratic D.C. Council-at-Large
I don’t see the point in a relationship
Julius’ Bar ‘sip-in’ laid groundwork for Stonewall
