Tongues Untied

Marlon Riggs, with the help of other gay Black males, especially poet Kent Hemphill, remembers Black males loving Black males like a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill saying his poetry, Riggs telling the storyline of his becoming an adult, moments of males in social sexual intercourse and dance, as well as other comic riffs, including a vacation to the "Institute of Snap!thology," where males take training in how you can snap their fingers: the sling snap, the purpose snap, the diva snap. The film shuts with obituaries for sufferers of Helps and archival footage from the civil privileges movement placed alongside footage of Black males marching inside a gay pride parade.