‘Tongues Untied’ Speaks to Moment : * Film: In UCI lecture, Marlon T. Riggs screens his controversial documentary on bias against black gays. He says he understands the ‘complexity of black rage.’

IRVINE —  “Anger unvented, becomes pain unspoken, becomes rage released, becomes violence. . . . Anger unvented, becomes pain unspoken, becomes rage released, becomes violence. . .”

The words sound like a rally cry written last week when riots ripped apart Los Angeles in the aftermath of the Rodney G. King verdicts. In fact, they were written three years ago for Marlon T. Riggs’ controversial 1989 video, “Tongues Untied,” in which they’re recited as a commentary on the treatment of minorities in the United States and as a dark omen.

The words are “written in our lives as black people,” an equation for aggression that “can be sparked at any moment,” Riggs said here Tuesday. L.A.’s fiery blood-letting was “systematically described” by white officials as “aberrant” and dismissed as “irrational,” he said. “But for me, the anger, rage and violence made absolute, total sense.”

Riggs, whose videos about blacks have won numerous awards internationally, spoke to a receptive crowd at UC Irvine as a Chancellor’s Distinguished Lecturer.

He also screened “Tongues Untied,” which explores discrimination against black homosexuals--from within and outside of the black community--and discrimination against blacks in general, with what appears to be news footage of police in riot gear using clubs to brutalize young black men.

The film, which includes scenes of light kissing and caressing between black men, graphic language and some nudity, has drawn criticism from foes of the National Endowment for the Arts, which indirectly helped fund the film.

Riggs, an instructor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, addressed several topics, including censorship, popular and political response to his films, what he called “white hegemony” and racism in American society, and interracial love relationships, including his own.

While Riggs said he was outraged by the not-guilty verdicts in the case of four L.A. police officers charged with assaulting King, he does not condone the ensuing violence. But he said he understands the “complexity of black rage,” unlike many “white officials (not) wanting to understand it,” who saw the riots only as the work of “looters and thugs.”

The uprising was the inevitable result of blacks “being battered down over the years, and being told you don’t matter,” said Riggs, 34, a diminutive man with a gentle demeanor and direct gaze.

Political leaders acknowledge isolated “pockets of poverty” and disenfranchised communities, but deny “central inequalities” between blacks and whites, chronic unemployment and other urban ills. Instead, they prefer to believe that “society is fundamentally OK,” which is preposterous, he said.

The recent violence may have served as a wake-up call to society, but Riggs said he isn’t too optimistic that it will lead to fundamental changes.

“So much of our leadership remains mired in the belief that this (uprising) is at the margins of American culture, not at the center of American preoccupation,” he said.

Riggs, who is working on a feature-length documentary about black identity called “Black Is, Black Ain’t . . .,” said his films are not made “to force some politically correct view.” His main goal is to push for debate about identity, particularly of those “devalued and locked out” of mainstream society. He also sees film and videos as a way to “reshape a new vision of society” that brings about unity by acknowledging and accepting peoples’ differences.

In fact, Riggs said he never intended “Tongues Untied” to be shown on television, figuring it would have to be heavily edited for broadcast.

He was more shocked that the film, aired nationally over several Public Broadcasting Service stations last year as part of the “P.O.V.” series of independently produced films and videos, became pivotal in the current debate over the NEA and federal funding of public TV.

Sens. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and Robert Dole (R-Kan.) recently cited his film among others as an example of the left-wing bias of public TV, he said, helping to hold up a $1.1-billion funding bill for 1994-1996 for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (The bill, passed by the House of Representatives, still awaits Senate action.)

Riggs decried these and other conservatives’ criticisms as an attempt to “re-silence” those the film gives voice to. Last year, without having seen it, the Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Assn. condemned the film as offensive and suggested it was an abuse of taxpayers’ dollars. It turned out that 98 PBS stations chose not to show it.

His intent with “Tongues Untied” and other projects is not to convert the mainstream, but to empower disenfranchised communities, such as black gays, “which have internalized stigma about themselves,” Riggs said.

“When (ostracized communities) speak to influence the majority, in the process, we almost inherently erase ourselves . . . we dress up, we masquerade, we weave our hair differently (to deliver a message that is) palatable to the mainstream.”

Riggs believes his message is getting through. After seeing “Tongues Untied,” some black homosexuals no longer “stand back in self-deferential silence,” he said.

They are able to say stand up and say, “ ‘I am a black gay man, I have AIDS, and I am not ashamed,’ ” he said. “I think that’s wonderful. To me, that’s progress.”

* Two of Marlon Riggs’ films, “Anthem” (1991), and “Affirmations” (1990), will be screened May 15 at 9 p.m., along with “Looking for Langston,” directed by Isaac Julien,” at UCI’s Physical Science Lecture Hall. (714) 856-4260.

Profile: MARLON T. RIGGS

Documentary filmmaker

February, 1958: Born in Fort Worth, Texas.

1978: Graduates Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University with an undergraduate degree in American history.

1981: Graduates from UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism with a masters degree.

1987: Releases first major work, “Ethnic Notions” (producer, director, writer), a documentary about black stereotypes in American popular culture. It is shown on national television.

1989: Wins an Emmy Award for “Ethnic Notions.” Releases “Tongues Untied” (producer, director, writer), about gay black men, after receiving a $5,000 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Video receives several awards.

1990: Releases “Affirmations” (producer, director, writer), a longer documentary about black gay men.

1991: Public Broadcasting Service selects “Tongues Untied” for its “P.O.V.” series but 98 of the 212 PBS stations that carry the series elect not to show the video, which includes some light kissing and caressing and graphic language and is criticized publicly by such conservatives as the Rev. Pat Robertson and syndicated columnist James J. Kilpatrick as “grossly offensive.”

Riggs releases “Color Adjustment” (producer, director, writer), a sequel to “Ethnic Notions,” which explores black stereotypes and race relations in the television age through images from prime time programs.

1992: Patrick J. Buchanan, a Republican candidate for president, uses an excerpt from “Tongues Untied” in a TV campaign ad to allege that President Bush “enlisted our tax dollars in pornographic and blasphemous art.”