SummaryMardi Gras, drag balls and politics–where else could these elements come together but in New Orleans? Interweaving archival footage and contemporary interviews, The Sons of Tennessee Williams charts the evolution of the gay Mardi Gras krewe scene over the decades, illuminating the ways in which its emergence was a seminal factor in the cause of g... Read More
Directed By:Tim Wolff
The Sons of Tennessee Williams
Metascore
Mixed or Average
52
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Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
43% Positive
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
29% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
29% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Oct 5, 2011
75
The significance of that group anecdote - from the message of unity to the way Mardi Gras gave some gay New Orleanians a way to explain their lives to their parents - can't be overstated, either for its impact on human rights or its power to move.
Oct 9, 2011
70
Genial documentary combines extravagance of Mardi Gras drag with an underexposed story of early gay-rights achievements.
Oct 7, 2011
63
The Sons of Tennessee Williams, which offers touching interviews with many older gay men, somewhat awkwardly connects this history with the efforts of a gay Mardi Gras crew to keep going in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Oct 6, 2011
60
As the film cuts back and forth between the present day and a historical survey of gay culture, its tone wavers between dutifully somber and irrepressibly funny.
Oct 4, 2011
50
Tim Wolff's documentary is a diverting mix of colorful interviewees and footage from one such krewe's 40th anniversary ball, but it doesn't probe very deep.
Oct 4, 2011
30
A tedious exercise in filling in historical blanks through exhausted tropes.
Oct 6, 2011
25
This time-tested project of tracing gayness back to when its shame was so explicitly enforced feels not only passé, and naïve, but mostly unproductive in a post-Judith Butler world in which drag queens are on TV teaching biological women how to better perform womanhood.
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Production Company:
- Wolffhouse
Release Date:Oct 7, 2011
Duration:1 h 15 m
Tagline:They did it without bricks, they did it without anger. They did it in drag.
