‘Ask Not' filmmaker Johnny Symons
Windy City Times
by Richard Knight, Jr.
June 10, 2009
Out filmmaker Johnny Symons ( pronounced “Sigh-mons”
) —who has made several documentaries examining LGBT
issues ( Daddy and Papa, Beyond Conception ) —now
returns with Ask Not. The film, which focuses on the
“Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy ban on gays and
lesbians openly serving their country, follows
several gay ex-military personnel as well as
“Perry,” a queer African American from San Francisco
as he enters the service in order to pay off his
large student loans. Perry's story, which follows
him during his tour of duty in Iraq and on leave in
Paris, represents the dilemma still facing thousands
of other nameless military personnel forced to hide
their sexuality. Ask Not will be shown as an episode
of “Independent Lens” on PBS and will have its local
premiere on WTTW on Tuesday, June 16, at 10 p.m.
Windy City Times: I do not understand: Why does a
gay person want to be in the military to begin with?
I don't quite get it.
Johnny Symons: I think that's a good question.
Definitely, when I started off to film I didn't know
the answer to that. I would say that one of the
things that I learned in making the film was that
there are a lot of reasons why people choose to
enter the military. Sometimes you come from a family
where that is really valued and sometimes it's a
community thing. For a lot of people it's an
economic choice.
WCT: I get the money thing.
JS: That is definitely a motivating factor. I
think for some people it's a sense of wanting to do
something for your country, wanting to do something
of service, wanting to be in service, wanting to go
challenge yourself. It's not so much wanting to put
yourself in harms way as maybe saying to yourself,
“I want to prove to myself that I can do this tough
thing.”
WCT: It's still mind-boggling that someone would
sign up if they were gay. “I'm going to purposely
make myself go into the closet and change my
behavior.” Your subject Perry does just that—later
when we catch up with him in Iraq, he has actually
altered the way he talks and his mannerisms. That's
mind-blowing to me.
Read more story below....
JS: Certainly it's not a choice that a lot of
people make and that's in a way why my stumbling
across him at a party was all the more remarkable in
a sense because he was very, very out. I think a lot
of people who are gay and in the military join
before they really know what their sexual
orientation is. That's certainly a scenario I heard
about more. I certainly can't offer percentages but
just anecdotally I talked to a lot of people who
said, “I wasn't sure whether I was gay or straight.
I hadn't come to terms with my sexual orientation
when I joined up. Then I signed this contract and I
got in there and I was with all these other people
and suddenly I realized that I was gay and then had
to figure out how to deal with it at that point.”
That is what I heard quite often.
WCT: You mention an enlistment figure of 65,000
gay and lesbian personnel currently in the military.
Where does that come from?
JS: It's derived from UCLA's Williams Institute,
which is sort of a demographic think tank that does
a lot of studying about LGBT issues. I'm not quite
sure how they arrived at that figure. Obviously,
it's a hard thing to know precisely because. It is
an estimate but it's fairly reliably and
consistently among different groups as a figure
that's a good estimate.
WCT: It was interesting to see the two gay
ex-military couples who did the tour protesting
against Don't Ask, Don't Tell and ending up
attending a military school where they had been
confronted with homophobia during the tour.
JS: That is something that happens to a lot of
people as well. There is something very appealing
about the structure and the system that military
life represents. Those guys really like the military
and they also felt like that was a real opportunity
for them at that particular institute because they
could play the role of teaching people what it meant
to be gay. They wanted to set an example.
WCT: Is it true that President Obama can sign
something that will stop people from being
discharged for being gay while the policy is being
looked at?
JS: It's an interesting question. Basically, when
“Don't Ask, Don't Tell” was signed into law during
the Clinton administration it became a law—it's not
a policy—and laws have to be lifted by Congress or
by the Supreme Court. So, the president actually
lost his ability to sign a document and just get rid
of it—like Clinton had before he took office. Like
Truman had over the integration of African Americans
into the military. So, it hasn't been regarded as
something that Obama could really do until a few
weeks ago when the Palm Center came out with a study
that looked at this whole thing and concluded that
Obama can't get rid of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” by
signing a piece of paper but he could sign something
that says, “We are going to stop enforcing it” which
sort of amounts to the same thing. By doing that, it
would give Congress an opportunity to actually take
it under consideration and act on it in their own
time.
WCT: So he's said he's going to do this—do you
know why he doesn't do it? Those are his
intentions—he answered that young woman's letter...
JS: “I intend to uphold my promise.” Yes; he has
said that. He hasn't said, “I'm going to sign a
piece of paper that will put this whole thing on
hold.” He has said, “If Congress passes a law and it
comes to my desk I'll sign it.” But that's different
than saying, “I will preemptively sign this
Executive Order that will stop enforcing it.” I know
it sounds like two sides of the same coin but it's a
lot of politics here and he's moving very cautiously
and he doesn't want to spend too much political
capital on this, I think, particularly if he acts on
it in a way that doesn't seem to be sanctioned by a
number of other people in Washington. Then he could
get really slammed for it. I think his hearts' in
the right place but he's probably looking at Clinton
and saying, “I don't want to make the same mistakes
that he did.”
WCT: Interesting to hear in the film that that's
one of Clinton's biggest regrets of his presidency.
It was heartening to see you cite at the end of the
film that the figures have dramatically decreased in
those who were originally against gays and lesbians
serving in the military then and their change of
heart now.
JS: It's worth looking at those figures carefully
because the original figure—16% of soldiers in 1993
thought gays should serve openly—is a little
different than the figure gotten from the second
question—How comfortable are you with gays and
lesbians?—and over 70% of service members now say
that they feel personally comfortable with gays and
lesbians. It's a huge jump but that doesn't mean
that all of those 73% will say consistently, “Yes,
I'd be happy to serve with openly gay people” but
asked whether they're comfortable or not, they say,
“Sure.” I think a lot of that is reflective of this
enormous change that has gone in the last 15 years
around just how out gay people are in
general—especially in that age population group.
WCT: Do you have a sense of a timeline when we
could possibly see the end of “Don't Ask, Don't
Tell?”
JS: It's really hard to predict; I don't. I've
heard huge ranges in the estimates for how long it
would take for this policy to get repealed. Some
people say that it's going to happen this year and
all it's going to take is for Obama at least to sign
a piece of paper that stops enforcement of it. Other
people say, “Well, you know, he'll probably do it in
before the mid-term elections because that's when
Presidents traditionally take big actions.” Other
people say he'll wait until his second term because
he doesn't want to jeopardize anyone's political
future. Some people think we'll have to have another
of those big studies and Obama has really waffled on
this since he took office. He initially said, “I
support repeal” and he ran on that issue in his
campaign and when he's been pressed on it since
taking office either he or Defense Secretary Gates
has said, “Well, maybe we should have another big
study.” So, who knows?
WCT: That's what we need for all gay issues [
Laughs ] —another of those stupid studies. Maybe,
with gay marriage so prominent, it's too many gay
issues at once.
JS: It could be but listen. I'm not a lobbyist,
I'm a filmmaker and I don't really have my finger on
that pulse as well as many other people would.
WCT: You've covered other LGBT issues in other
films. What's your next subject going to be?
JS: I'm figuring that out right now. I have
several irons in the fire but making these films is
a big undertaking so I'm doing a lot of exploring
before I plunge in for my next one. But rest
assured, it will be something gay. [ Laughs ]
WCT: So is your favorite song, “Johnny, Are You
Queer?”
JS: I haven't been asked that in awhile and the
answer is yes. [ Laughs ]
