Ah, the good old 1980s, when bigotry only dominated political stance a little… well, a lot, but not as much as it does now. “Politics makes strange bedfellows” might have been the understatement of 1984 (when this movie took place). The political alliance described within melded London’s semi-closeted gay community with the –one would suspect- not terribly open coal miners of a small Welsh town. The past four years notwithstanding, the biographical Pride represented one of the very few times in history that reality was indeed stranger than fiction – and it also made a really sweet story.
This is more of an ensemble piece than a focal point on any main character. In Pride, there is a group of London-based homosexuals and there is a group of mining-town locals. So asking the plot of the film is a little like asking who is the main character in Animal House. Tell you what, let’s start with the guy who made this happen, Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer). Mark looked around and realized the police weren’t harassing local homosexuals with nearly the aggression or vehemence they’d come to expect. Something was up.
That something turned out to be the nation-wide coal miners’ strike. And thanks to the “f*** ‘em” leadership of Margaret Thatcher, no one dared show sympathy to people who work for a living. Now –of course- at this time, very few people in Wales admitted to being coal miners; it was still very underground and hush-hush; most of the members would spend their days hidden away not in closets but in dark tunnels.
So, and get this because it actually happened for real, the un-closeted homosexuals 
of London formed the LGSM (“Lesbians and Gays in Support of the Miners.” In the film, the group we follow sponsors the small Welsh town of Onllwyn (pronounced “dgeywkvfkewqryfukq”). Well, gosh, how do you think the small Welsh mining town of Onllwyn felt knowing their biggest (and sometimes only) source of income came from a bunch of big city Nancy Boys (and Girls)? Both the predictable and the unpredictable happen; I think that’s why this film is better than most biographies.
Pride is a truly uplifting film. I’m rarely sold on biographies; I often believe the people who make them think there’s more there than there really is. But- if anything- Pride undersold the subject by having it focus on the micro instead of the macro. LGSM raised £22,500 for the citizens of Onllwyn. This is the way life ought to work; if the government sucks, people pick up the slack without questioning values. It seems the exact opposite of Trump era policies: the government sucked and then made sure to interfere every time something vaguely uplifting or diversity appreciation might happen. At least Thatcher didn’t give rat’s ass; there’s a big difference between, “I don’t care about illegal immigrants” and “I think their children should be separated from the parents and locked in cages.” I didn’t use to think the latter was even a thing. Remember when Reagan was really shitty at human rights? Ahhh, good times.
♪One man come with protective gloves
One man attacked a rock
One man sooty and obstinate
Picketed ‘round the block
In the name of coal
What exactly is the goal?
In the name of coal
Don’t leave behind your soul♫
Rated R, 119 Minutes
Director: Matthew Warchus
Writer: Stephen Beresford
Genre: You wouldn’t believe it if it didn’t actually happen
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Homosexual coal miners
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Bigots, Margaret Thatcher
♪ Parody Inspired by “Pride (in the name of love)”
