Outrage

Docu-provocateur Kirby Dick’s 2006 This Film Is Not Yet Rated profiled the obtuse movie-ratings system and its shadowy board members by hiring private investigators to “out” them, thus exposing the lies and hypocrisy of the MPAA censors. His more recent Outrage follows the efforts of another group attempting to “out” people hiding behind an even more pernicious form of faceless tyranny—closeted gay politicians who have used their office to oppress fellow homosexuals. Passionate interview subjects including Barney Frank, Larry Kramer and former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey testify to the psychologically devastating effects of “the closet” and the media’s strange complicity in keeping anti-gay conservatives safely inside. Dick clearly sides with the outers at the expense of the outees (and often too glibly), but the film also offers a compelling battle between moral imperatives and ethical ambivalence.