A sort of Born in Flames for the Clinton years; a dizzying visual mixtape that follows a gang of (mostly) HIV-positive queer people of color and their loud direct action war against the conservative politicians who continue to do nothing to stop the spread of the disease decimating their communities, straight and gay. That’s an irresistible hook, but what really surprised me is how Winter uses this premise as a jumping off point for examinations of addiction, alcoholism, abortion, identity, religion, the closet, and the realities of queer inner city life in the 90s. The result is something that feels wholly unique — loud, angry, transgressive, messy, queer. And get this — it’s really funny, too. I can’t believe I hadn’t really heard about this until last night. It’s streaming for free on Stephen Winter’s Vimeo channel.
The corner of the queer community that I came up in, especially the Black queer community, was very humor-forward. I hung out with exuberant, clever, brilliant people who translated their pain into something that would make sense, which was humor. Many of the things that people say in the film are things that my friends actually said. I would write them down and remember them and they got into the script somehow. I felt it was part of my calling to raise up those voices, as well as my own, and I do like to have a laugh. [x]Stephen Winter's Chocolate Babies is exuberant and enraged; hilarious and seething. It's a revolutionary document of Black queerness in the 1990s, and a spectacularly audacious statement of one man's talent and will. Inside the first 60 seconds of the film, we have been introduced to a group of "Black f*ggots with a political agenda", who — with their own blood and the threat of violence — terrorize those in power for ignoring the AIDS crisis and neglecting its victims. (Can you imagine anything more terrifying to a homophobic, image-obsessed politician than being brought to his knees by a self-identified "fat, Black f*ggot"?) Within fewer than three minutes, we learn of the distinction between those who have "Magic Johnson disease" — the "innocent victims" — and those who have AIDS. As the speaker definitely tells her unseen audience (and us), "I got AIDS, dammit. And I got it by sucking dick, getting fucked, and sticking needles in my arms, and the government doesn't give a shit." The undisguised, unmitigated fury of this opening is transporting, calling to mind a film no less seminal than Born in Flames.One could, in fact, argue that Chocolate Babies is even more ambitious than Lizzie Borden's ferocious attack on white, straight, male America because, whereas that film is focused almost entirely on its politics (and is thrilling for that very reason), Winter's work engages with the lives of his activists, not only reveling in the painful messiness of their lives and the laughter they use to engage with their hopelessness, but also laying bare the desperation though which they push, every minute of every day, and the reality behind their defiant shouts of "to the death!" In addition, the director finds time and space to grant his subjects — some of them — happy endings, taking advantage of fiction to give them the breaks that the real world would withhold from anyone with their identities; from anyone queer, or trans, or HIV positive. It's messy and it's imperfect, but the reality is that, while the nation averted its eyes, Stephen Winter watched and celebrated, and his work allows us to continue to do so today. That is something for which we owe him a considerable debt of gratitude. ⏩ Watch it on Vimeo.
