Reel Affirmations: The Nation's LGBT Film Festival 2008

Undeniably one of the most important and influential gay music acts in the last twenty years, Pansy Division has long been viewed as pioneers of the "queercore" movement.

Inspired by the brash antics of ACT UP and Queer Nation, Joe Ginoli approached Chris Freeman with a ready-made concept and a list of songs he'd already been performing. Eschewing early 90s examples of gay rock music (think Melissa Etheridge and Rob Halford, who were both closeted at the time), the duo became a staple of the San Francisco underground music scene with a set list of raucous and raunchy tunes like "James Bondage," "Rachbottomoff," "Fem in a Black Leather Jacket" and "Bill & Ted's Homosexual Adventure."

An instant hit on the national indie rock scene, Pansy Division carved out a niche for themselves that went well beyond strictly gay audiences; Lookout labelmates Green Day, soon to take the world by storm, took Pansy Division on tour with them, leading to nightly confrontations with Green Day's increasingly frat boy following.

Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band follows the band through their first celebratory days to the increasingly difficult period of revolving bandmates, label rejection, and prejudice within a still-homophobic music industry.

Throughout though, remains the impish glimmer of Ginol and Freeman's "happy and celebratory" approach to being queer musicians. An mind-set, mind you, that today is an accepted aspect of bands such as Grizzly Bear, Hidden Camera, The Gossip, and the Scissor Sisters.

Featuring interviews and appearances by Lookout Records founder Larry Livermore, Jessie "Luscious" Townley (The Criminals, Alternative Tentacles), Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys, Alternative Tentacles), Rob Halford (Judas Priest) and Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day), the film is as humorous, rockin' and queer as the band!

Following the screening, join The New Gay for a Queer Rocks dance party at the Quarry.