Tonight's guests are Ben Steele on The Daily Show and Lynn Sherr on The Colbert Report.
Ben Steele is a director whose latest documentary airing on HBO is Hunted: The War on Gays in Russia
In modern-day Russia, where it is estimated that just 1% of the LGBT population lives completely openly, a recent anti-gay amendment to a “propaganda” law has triggered a rising number of assaults on gay men and women by vigilantes who, more often than not, go unpunished for their crimes.
Directed by Ben Steele, the startling expose HUNTED: THE WAR AGAINST GAYS IN RUSSIA looks at this climate of hostility. Matt Bomer (Emmy® nominee for HBO’s “The Normal Heart”) narrates.
Homosexuality was legalized in Russia 21 years ago, but gay people in the country have yet to win mainstream acceptance. In fact, attitudes in Russia appear to be moving backwards. With jobs and relationships at risk if their sexual orientation is exposed, most gay Russians remain closeted. As one gay man who lost sight in one eye during a recent unprovoked attack says ruefully, “Hunting season is open…and we are the hunted.”
HUNTED: THE WAR AGAINST GAYS IN RUSSIA features disturbing insider footage of homophobic Russians who, in the name of morality or religion, beat and torment gay people, posting graphic videos of their encounters online with few or no legal repercussions. These vigilantes see homosexuality as related to pedophilia, stating publicly that their justification for violence is protecting Russia’s children.
Gays as Human Prey: The Terrifying Truths of 'Hunted: The War on Gays in Russia'
A man knocks on a door and is instantly pounced on by a half-dozen men in their twenties. The ringleader, a woman with fiery red hair and severe bangs, smiles and shouts, "Hold him down!" The terrified victim grunts and pleads as he is punched into submission by Sergei, the most muscular of the group. "I'll piss on you," Sergei says. "Give us an interview or we'll give you the police. They'll rape you with a sharp stick." Nearby, two more men hover over a laptop, searching for the next mark.
The scene is real, the participants members of a St. Petersburg-based vigilante group calling itself Operation Pedophilia. The shocking imagery — rife with the kinds of dehumanization tactics and casual brutality that instantly evoke Nazi treatment of the Jews — serves as the centerpiece of a new documentary, the Matthew Bomer-narrated Hunted: The War Against Gays in Russia, debuting Oct. 6 on HBO.
Director Ben Steele tells The Hollywood Reporter that it took little convincing to get Operation Pedophilia and similar bands of anti-gay crusaders to agree to let him tag along on their "safaris," as they call the ambushes, which are videotaped and later uploaded online for maximum public humiliation. "They feel that they are representing the views of the majority of Russians and they feel they have the support from Russian authorities," says Steele. "They’re proud of what they’re doing and feel they’re doing the right thing."
"Hunting season is open," says one of those victims, a soft-spoken man in his twenties who had recently lost an eye after shooters stormed a gay community meeting. (The police have yet to make any arrests.) The man in the eye patch goes on to bemoan the current climate, in which church and state collude to paint a distorted portrait of all LGBT individuals as predatory pedophiles. The film says a majority of Russian citizens agree.
This sounds like an excellent documentary and a very important one.
Lynn Sherr is a journalist and author. Her latest book is Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space
Sally Ride made history as the first American woman in space. A member of the first astronaut class to include women, she broke through a quarter-century of white male fighter jocks when NASA chose her for the seventh shuttle mission, cracking the celestial ceiling and inspiring several generations of women.
After a second flight, Ride served on the panels investigating the Challenger explosion and the Columbia disintegration that killed all aboard. In both instances she faulted NASA’s rush to meet mission deadlines and its organizational failures. She cofounded a company promoting science and education for children, especially girls.
Sherr also writes about Ride’s scrupulously guarded personal life—she kept her sexual orientation private—with exclusive access to Ride’s partner, her former husband, her family, and countless friends and colleagues. Sherr draws from Ride’s diaries, files, and letters. This is a rich biography of a fascinating woman whose life intersected with revolutionary social and scientific changes in America. Sherr’s revealing portrait is warm and admiring but unsparing. It makes this extraordinarily talented and bold woman, an inspiration to millions, come alive.
Book review: “Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space,” by Lynn Sherr
“If you woke up Sally Ride in the middle of the night and asked her what one word best described her,” Sherr writes, “she would say, according to everyone who knew her best, ‘Physicist.’ ” Her aim was to be a college professor, but in 1977, several months before her graduation from Stanford with a PhD, she read a headline in the student newspaper — “NASA to Recruit Women” — and soon sent off her application, as did some 8,000 others.
Within a year she was one of 35 new astronauts (including six women and four minority men), the first class to include non-pilots who would serve as mission specialists aboard the innovative shuttles then being assembled for launch into space. Soon the shy woman was adopting all the bravura of the “right stuff,” even buying aviator shades and a leather jacket. Ironically, she was chosen to be the first woman on a shuttle just weeks before the Equal Rights Amendment went down in defeat.
The book never loses momentum, even in Ride’s post-NASA years, when she shifted to academia and the corporate world. It was while teaching and writing children’s books about space that she decided to set up a company, Sally Ride Science, to make science cool for girls as well as boys. Its festivals and competitions have touched the lives of some 2 million youngsters, possibly her greatest achievement. She was still heading up the firm when she died of pancreatic cancer in 2012 at age 61.
It sounds like a good book.
Next Week's Guests
THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART
Mo 10/6: Atul Gawande
Tu 10/7: Bill O'Reilly
We 10/8: Leon Panetta
Th 10/9: Jeremy Renner
THE COLBERT REPORT
Mo 10/6: James McPherson
Tu 10/7: Leon Wieseltier
We 10/8: Carol Burnett
Th 10/9: Robert Plant