Roland Emmerich restarts the debate over his "Stonewall" film
Roland Emmerich calling the Stonewall riots "a white event" just before New York's pride weekend might have been unwise. But that's exactly what he did in a new interview rehashing the controversies over his last film, "Stonewall."
Emmerich's film -- a telling of the 1969 Stonewall riots, which ignited the gay rights movement -- was widely criticized for centering on a fictional white male character (played by Jeremy Irvine) instead of actual members of the diverse LGBT community who were there.
While most of the discussion of the film died off following its release in September -- "Stonewall" brought in just $188,000 at the box office -- the director is apparently not done discussing it while he promotes his latest film, "Independence Day: Resurgence." Emmerich's biggest gripe, it seems, is with critics accusing him of erasing people of color from the center of the story.
"My movie was exactly what they said it wasn't. It was politically correct," he told the Guardian. "It had black, transgender people in there. We just got killed by one voice on the internet who saw a trailer and said, this is white-washing Stonewall."
"Stonewall was a white event, let's be honest. But nobody wanted to hear that any more," he said, though even the newspaper interviewing him points out that "reports and photographs from Stonewall in fact indicate that the riots were started by gay, straight, trans, white, black and Latino protesters."