The film Put don’t want the world to see: Firebird, a gay love story about fighter pilots | World cema | The Guardian

Contents:

• RSIAN PRINT VLADIMIR PUT IS 'LATENTLY GAY,' ALLEG CONTROVERSIAL NEW BGRAPHY
• ‘I’M AAID FOR MY FUTURE’: PROPOSED LAWS THREATEN GAY LIFE RSIA
• RSIA TO GAYS: SHUT UP AND DISAPPEAR
• WHY RSIA TURNED AGAST THE GAYS
• 'THERE WILL BE DAD AND MUM': PUT L OUT RSIA LEGALIZG GAY MARRIAGE
• THE FILM PUT DON’T WANT THE WORLD TO SEE: FIREBIRD, A GAY LOVE STORY ABOUT FIGHTER PILOTS
• PUT’S PRI? SIX FAMO GAY SONS OF RSIA
• RSIA'S PUT SIGNS 'GAY PROPAGANDA' BAN TO LAW
• INSI THE IRON CLOSET: WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE GAY PUT'S RSIA
• THE GAY WORLD WAR? INSI PUT’S WARPED REALY

RSIAN PRINT VLADIMIR PUT IS 'LATENTLY GAY,' ALLEG CONTROVERSIAL NEW BGRAPHY

The European Court of Human Rights led 2017 that the 2013 law is discrimatory, promot homophobia and vlat the European Conventn on Human Rights. The urt found that the law “served no legimate public tert, ” rejectg suggtns that public bate on LGBT issu uld fluence children to bee homosexual, or that threatened public morals.

Speakg before Put signed the bill to the law on Monday, Tanya Loksha, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch said: “The 2013 ‘gay propaganda’ law was an unabashed example of polil homophobia, and the new draft legislatn amplifi that broar and harsher ways. In the book, Belkovsky, a long-time Put opponent, is also said to speculate that "sex and a sex life are alien" to the polician, who the 42-year-old thor says may be "latently gay. In July, Harvey Fierste wrote an op-ed for The New York Tim that Put had "clared war on homosexuals" after he signed several anti-gay bills to law, cludg one that banned "homosexual propaganda.

‘I’M AAID FOR MY FUTURE’: PROPOSED LAWS THREATEN GAY LIFE RSIA

Dpe wispread ternatnal cricism, Put has fend the anti-gay measur and has sisted that neher he nor his ernment is homophobic. It was a faiar rendn of Put’s bgo rd of geopolil rentments—and then he transned to the issue of gay and transgenr rights.

He portrayed the war as a stggle between those seekg to reject Wtern valu and gay pri paras held as, his words, “loyalty tt[s]” to Wtern ernments.

RSIA TO GAYS: SHUT UP AND DISAPPEAR

Kreml officials seized on the ia of banng “gay propaganda, ” takg an obscure law that had been gag steam regnal legislatur sce 2006 and passg at the feral level 2013. The vaguely word law prohibs any discsns of homosexualy plac or formats that may be accsible to mors, cludg the media and onle.

WHY RSIA TURNED AGAST THE GAYS

It was, as later scribed by Human Rights Watch, a “classic example of polil homophobia” for “polil ga. Acrdg to Rsian media monorg anizatn Medialogiya, reports about homosexualy skyrocketed om jt 11 2011 to more than 160 2013.

'THERE WILL BE DAD AND MUM': PUT L OUT RSIA LEGALIZG GAY MARRIAGE

The media verage that followed the passage of the gay propaganda law 2013 set the tone for the rise hate crim that was to follow. In 2016, Dmry Tsilik, a proment art and culture cric who was gay, was stabbed more than 30 tim by a man he met on an onle datg se. “Over the past two to three years, this hatred has grown all directns, cludg, unfortunately, towards gay people.

In 2021, Hungary’s nservative ernment passed a gay propaganda law very siar to Rsia’s while Romania is weighg s own.

Rsia’s weaponizatn of gay rights transformed the issue to a new geopolil flt le, Kondakov said. In December 2022, Rsia expand s existg “gay propaganda” law to exert ntrol over public discsns and narrativ surroundg non-heterosexual relatnships and inti.

THE FILM PUT DON’T WANT THE WORLD TO SEE: FIREBIRD, A GAY LOVE STORY ABOUT FIGHTER PILOTS

But the fear generated by the legislatn is already leadg to censorship: onle cemas have leted LGBT-themed films and TV seri and eded out gay scen. In one episo of the highly-acclaimed HBO seri The Whe Lot, a Rsian streamg service changed the word "gay" to "man", eded a towel onto one male character's bare backsi and leted a gay sex scene, jt days after the law was ptn, The book Shattered, about the romance between two men, has been heavily redacted RsiaBooks, too, are beg censored. The text has been redacted by the publisher, wh whole sectns replaced wh black of the -thors of the law, an openly homophobic natnalist lled Valy Milonov, agre to speak to me via violk.

On the domtic ont, the ments were aimed at jtifyg Ukrae’s vasn as necsary not only to rcue Rsian speakers om discrimatn—the official reason behd the “special operatn”—but to protect Rsian children om turng gay. On the social media app Telegram, a Rsian woman recently posted the views of an acquatance whose son was sent to fight Ukrae: It is “sry, of urse, ” she quoted, but “better he di over there, than that NATO nquers and mak him gay.

Experts say Put’s anti-gay rhetoric the middle of the war is tend to distract Rsians angry at the length and st of the war. For years Kreml propagandists have spun outlandish theori that NATO tends to unleash a gay revolutn Rsia and lead Rsian society toward moral turpu and spirual cle.

PUT’S PRI? SIX FAMO GAY SONS OF RSIA

“People are beg doctrated gay marriage so they don’t multiply, ” he said, “and a uple of generatns there won’t be anybody. Rsian media, misters, and propagandists have all been phg an anti-gay agenda, often lkg to natnal secury.

Those who are drawn to the abundance and eedoms the Wt mt pass a “specific tt of loyalty” to be clud the Wtern alliance—anize a gay pri para, Kirill said a sermon. Put’s public homophobia has a foreign-policy dimensn too, hopg to attract support among far-right segments the Uned Stat and Europe, or at the very least exacerbate tensns between liberals and nservativ and between them and their ernments. “Put has managed to take issu that were not margal per se, but were not issu people would vote on, like the LGBTQ rights, and ma them mastream, high on the polil agenda, ” said Roberto Muzzetta, a member of Arcigay, an Italian non-ernmental anizatn workg on gay rights.

They were tryg to ply wh a 2013 Rsian law that bans exposg mors to anythg that uld be nsired “gay propaganda. ”The anizers had good reason to be wary: Life has been challengg for gay Rsians sce the law passed, as the ernment has treated gay life as a Wtern import that is harmful to tradnal Rsian valu and Rsia’s Parliament is set to pass a legislative package that would ban all “gay propaganda, ” signalg an even more difficult perd ahead for a stigmatized segment of laws would prohib reprentatn of L.

RSIA'S PUT SIGNS 'GAY PROPAGANDA' BAN TO LAW

Exprsn wh s ratnale for the war Ukrae, sistg that Rsia is fightg not jt Ukrae but all of NATO, a Wtern alliance that reprents a threat to the Put drove home that argument a speech last week, sayg that the Wt n have “dozens of genrs and gay pri paras, ” but that should not try to spread the “trends” elsewhere. Aleksandr Khste, a puty om the lg Uned Rsia party and the lead thor of the new anti-gay bills, was even more blunt.

Lunchenkov said that 2010, when he was school, he felt that he uld exprs his gay inty eely among his classmat. Olenichev said that though the police do not track hate crim agast queer people, he and his lleagu have noticed an crease clients who have suffered inty-based attacks sce rhetoric behd anti-gay laws may have dangero nsequenc for gay Rsians, said Vladimir Komov, a lawyer wh the group Delo 2013 law was promoted as protectg children, while the new on “seek to prohib gay propaganda as a danger to the state system, ” fg as extremism, he Lunchenkov said the proposed laws uld leave gay people “aaid to go to medil clics to get treatment or ttg” for sexually transmted diseas. “I am more sred of beg drafted to fight the war than for beg arrted bee I am gay, ” said Andrei Melnikov, 19.

Lawmakers llg gays a danger on a par wh war “is more funny than sry, ” he now, gay Rsians and their alli have found exprsn spe rtrictive laws.

INSI THE IRON CLOSET: WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE GAY PUT'S RSIA

A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 7 of the New York edn wh the headle: Life for Gay Rsians Is About to Get Worse. As Rsia ntu to flounr Ukrae, wh attempts to pture the small town of Bakhmut turng to a grisly reenactment of the Battle of Verdun, and Kreml propagandists lurchg back and forth between hysteril swagger and the five stag of grief, the Rsian polil tablishment has cid to tackle what’s really important: a natnal “Don’t Say Gay” law.

A bill that outlaws “LGBT propaganda”—fed so broadly as to ver not only gay or transgenr rights advocy but potentially all public exprsns of “nontradnal” sexualy or genr inty—passed the State Duma on November 24 and was approved by the upper hoe of Rsia’s fake legislature, the Council of Feratns, last Wednday. ) But do rell Soviet-era censorship unr which any mentn of Tchaikovsky’s homosexualy was scbbed om books and films about the great poser’s life, while bgraphil prefac to Soviet edns of Osr Wil cloaked the reason for his imprisonment such phemisms as “transgrsns agast moraly. ” Ocsnally, foreign books wh gay characters, such as Iris Murdoch’s 1973 novel The Black Prce, slipped past the censor’s vigilant eye.

THE GAY WORLD WAR? INSI PUT’S WARPED REALY

But there uld have been no qutn, for stance, of publishg Jam Baldw’s gay-themed masterpiece Gvanni’s Room, even though Baldw was acclaimed the official Soviet media as a fighter agast Amerin racism; the novel had to wa until 2007 for s first Rsian edn.

This is not the first time Put-era Rsian legislatn has gone after “gay propaganda”: A more limed 2013 law add “propaganda of non-tradnal sexual relatns” to a broar law that banned the distributn of “harmful” material to mors.

The Duma voted down an amendment that would have exempted “universally regnized cultural products” such as lerature and art om the ban; theory, this means, for example, that Rsian translatns of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire, whose prcipal narrator Charl Kbote is nspicuoly gay, uld fall unr the ax. Jt last month, the premiere of a play lled The Prcs and the Ogre at a children’s theater Novosibirsk was nceled—or at least layed, sce will apparently open this month after vettg by the Mistry of Culture—bee of an anonymo plat om someone who found too gay.