In honor of the 48th annual Chicago Gay Pride Parade, which will take place this Sunday in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, we’re looking back at the parade’s early history.
Close to 100,000 Chicagoans saw “Pink Triangles Rising” in 1986 on Image Union on Channel 11. It was one of the most controversial shows of the year. Thanks to Dan Dinello for writing this introduction and providing the film!
Pink Triangles Rising
By Dan Dinello and Tom Corboy, 1982
In 1982, as news of AIDS first spread widely, the Chicago Gay Pride Parade confronted trouble. “Pink Triangles Rising” documents a day in Lincoln Park when the gay community protested discrimination and celebrated sexual diversity in the face of a pathetic demonstration by anti-gay Nazis. Pro-gay Socialists also showed up to scream at the Nazis. One of the filmmakers even got arrested for throwing an egg at a Nazi. The title of the film pays homage to Kenneth Anger’s gay-themed “Scorpio Rising.”
At the time, Tom Corboy was my student at Columbia College Chicago. We intended to start a production company and “PinkTriangles Rising” was our first film. We didn’t make any more films together. After his student days, he made a 30 minute documentary called “Rock ‘n Roll Disciples” which was about the Elvis Presley cult.
A filmmaker, journalist and author, Dan is the author of Technophobia! Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology, as well as Finding Fela: My Strange Journey to Meet the AfroBeat King – a memoir of a 1983 trip to Lagos, Nigeria, to film African musical legend Fela Kuti. Professor Emeritus at Columbia College Chicago & a DGA member, Dan directed episodes of the Comedy Central Television show Strangers With Candy as well as several award-winning short films — all starring Stephen Colbert (The Late Show), Paul Dinello (The Late Show), and Amy Sedaris (At Home With Amy Sedaris).
Archiving Your Family History: Preservation Workshop
Thursday, June 28 | 6:30–8:00 pm
Arts Incubator
301 E. Garfield Blvd.
FREE
The South Side Home Movie Project’s archivist Candace Ming, Chicago Film Archives’ Brian Belak, and our very own Dan Erdman will lead a workshop on how to care for, preserve, and catalog your family’s archival materials whether they be film, video, documents or photographs. The team will inspect, assess and make recommendations on maintaining your family’s historic records in the best conditions.
I was there, watching on the bridge. The Nazi rally was at the North Avenue bridge. The fence between the counter-protesters and the Nazis finally gave way and the Nazis had to leave before the parade could reach them and before the gay pride rally could start. The only thing that seems misleading about the video is it seems like the parade folks encountered Nazis and drove them away. In reality we were forced to choose between marching and counter-protesting. After the Nazis were chased away I hurried up into Lincoln Park to meet my friends who were marching.
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I was there, watching on the bridge. The Nazi rally was at the North Avenue bridge. The fence between the counter-protesters and the Nazis finally gave way and the Nazis had to leave before the parade could reach them and before the gay pride rally could start. The only thing that seems misleading about the video is it seems like the parade folks encountered Nazis and drove them away. In reality we were forced to choose between marching and counter-protesting. After the Nazis were chased away I hurried up into Lincoln Park to meet my friends who were marching.