Bubbling with radical feminism and a generous dose of cheek, Sally! captures the charisma and passion of the late lesbian activist Sally Miller Gearhart through political struggles and personal heartache. It’s a wild ride.
Director Deborah Craig, along with co-directors Jörg Fockele and Ondine Rarey, deliver a lively and warm documentary through which Gearhart refuses to be forgotten. The film places her feminist outlook within the context of her fierce intellect and zeal for change. Both accessible and entertaining, Sally! reveals an undercurrent of laughter and community beneath the constant drive for action and political will.
Gearhart, who was interviewed for the film shortly before her passing in 2021, was an academic who helped pioneer the field of women’s studies and began fighting for queer rights in the 1970s. She was a vocal opponent of Prop 6, the Briggs Initiative—a 1978 California ballot measure that would have banned gays and lesbians from working at public schools—and famously debated State Senator Briggs on live television alongside Harvey Milk.
However, when that debate was depicted in Gus Van Sant’s 2008 biopic Milk, Gearhart was omitted. Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for the film, defends Gearhart’s absence in the scene as a matter of expediency, since she only met Milk a few months before his assassination and he couldn’t find a way to include her in the streamlined narrative. Sally! ensures that this erasure—intentional or otherwise—is redressed, while Gearhart herself is unimpressed but unphased by the issue, saying, “It happens to women all the time.”
As the film illustrates, Gearhart wasn’t just a vital lesbian voice in the Gay Liberation movement. Her influence spanned multiple arenas over several decades. She wrote science fiction novels imagining lesbian utopias, became the first tenured out lesbian at San Francisco State University, and even worked to physically build an ecofeminist commune with her own hands.
Her friends, colleagues, and ex-lovers offer unified praise of her and her achievements, but also a wry appraisal of Gearhart the woman. Cynthia Secor, a fellow activist, calls her a narcissist, and no one disagrees. But as the film paints a picture of lesbian life in the mid-20th century, it is clear that it took determination and a healthy dose of self-assurance to not only survive those repressive times, but also to stand up and fight.
Chronicling a key chapter in our queer liberation story, Sally! is filled with well-selected archival footage, including home movies, with excellent work by archivists Jenni Olson and Shanti Avirgan, and editing by Rarey. The result is an engaging portrait of a vibrant woman who pushed boundaries—not always to the best effect—and lived life to the full. This is a fun, enlightening, and fitting tribute to a trailblazing queer elder.
By Chad Armstrong.
Sally! receives its Australian premiere at Queer Screen’s 32nd Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney on Saturday February 15th, including a Q&A with producers and co-directors Jörg Fockele and Ondine Rarey. This session is a $12AUD Community Screening supported by Allianz. Go to queerscreen.org.au for more information and to purchase tickets.
