The township library welcomed about 55 people on June 10 for its fourth annual Pride event, where offerings included area resources and a screening of the 2021 film “No Straight Lines.”
The film follows the lives of several queer comics – including Alison Bechdel, Jennifer Camper, Howard Cruse, Rupert Kinnard and Mary Wings – from the 1970s to today, including how their work inspired younger generations of queer artists.
Mayor David Fleisher welcomed the audience to the screening and to Cherry Hill.
“I’m thinking that given the national climate over the last couple years, there’s a lot of people with opinions of who is and is not welcome in certain spaces,” he said. “So I want to say loud and clear, welcome to Cherry Hill. We are thrilled that you’re here and we’re thrilled that we’re able to celebrate who we are as a community.”
Reva Farenback-Brateman, organizer of the Pride event along with the Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Southern New Jersey (JFCS), wanted to screen the film she saw on PBS to reach a younger audience.
“I just thought it was just a fun and educational film … It’s just a feel-good film,” she explained. “And a lot of people don’t know the history of these queer artists who were creating comics many years ago, and then this is really predating graphic novels.”
Representatives on hand for the Pride event besides the township included Garden State Equality, the Center for Family Service, Out In Jersey magazine, Virtua Pride Primary Care and Jefferson Pride Care.
Mitch Augarten, a member of the group Aging with Pride, read a statement by “No Straight Lines” director Vivian Kleiman, who thanked the JFCS and the library for the screening. She also recounted how her Jewish heritage has influenced her work.
“Most especially tikkun olam, my effort to make a slightly better place,” Augarten read from the statement. “My hope when making this film is that it will continue the effort to make our queer lives visible. If I’ve helped one LGBTQ hero feel OK about themselves, it was worth the begging and borrowing and exhaustion to make an independent film.”
Aging with Pride was founded eight years ago by Farenback-Brateman to represent older members of the LGBTQ community. It started with seven members and has since grown to about 55.
Augarten acknowledged that “No Straight Lines” is a reminder of what queer rights were like 40 years ago, and that one of the filmmaker’s goals was to show the impact of sharing stories.
“I think that’s part of what the director was hoping to do is to sort of inspire,” he explained. “To show what can happen by telling their story, telling their voice. I think that there’s a sense of what you do or what you feel, how you’re living, is not important to other people.
“Just by expressing it, you never know. Other people could relate to it.”
Ruth Rouff, a writer and member of Aging with Pride, said the film spoke to how artists can support one another.
“It shows how an artistic community can help the individual artist to achieve,” she added, “to fulfil their goals, their artistic goals. To provide support to them.”
Donald Levitsky, Augarten’s husband, said he’d never heard about the comics portrayed in the film when he was growing up in the ’60s and ’70s.
“They were way before their time and it was … dangerous,” he noted. “And they didn’t seem to care, men or women. Cause that wasn’t lightweight stuff they were showing. So I give them kudos because they probably helped move it along. The gay information stuff along. And I found it interesting. And funny.”
Farenback-Brateman said that the Pride event helps demonstrate that the LGBTQ community exists in the township, something especially important today.
“While ostensibly things are better now, it’s very scary,” she observed. “People could lose their rights. People who are in same-gender marriages, that could be stopped. Especially the older people; they went through a lot. They were discriminated in jobs. They were discriminated in housing. Their families didn’t necessarily understand. And they’ve survived and are thriving now.
“It’s important to celebrate.”
Guests at the township library’s annual Pride event on June 10 watched the film “No Straight Lines,” which follows the lives of several queer comics from the 1970s to today and how they inspire younger generations of queer artists.
