Relatives Menschsein

1997: roland emmerich inserts a character named “mayor ebert” into his next film (an american adaptation of godzilla) as a barely-veiled jab as roger ebert for panning his previous films

1998: godzilla is released to largely negative critical reviews. roland emmerich seemingly admits defeat, sticking to making schlocky disaster movies for the next decade

2015: in an attempt to prove he is a serious director capable of serious movies, roland emmerich releases stonewall, a film about the 1969 riots. the movie is panned not only for its quality, but especially for its lack of racial diversity, centering its narrative around white men almost exclusively. the backlash to this causes the dissemination of a certain myth that had persisted among the gay community for decades already but was not widely known, that the drag queen marsha p johnson had incited the riots by throwing a brick, despite records from himself and others that he was not there until at least midway through the event. nonetheless it’s a powerful and bite-sized narrative that makes for a fun underdog story against “director erases historical details in hamfisted adaptation” despite the fact that it’s about as historically accurate as the movie

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