Video Director Riggs to Speak

Video maker Marlon Riggs will screen and discuss his work on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at Crystal Cove Auditorium in the UC Irvine Student Center. His public lecture and one-day residency in the studio art department at UCI are part of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Lecture Series.

Riggs is producer, director and writer of “Tongues Untied,” a controversial video documentary exploring the lives of gay black men. It premiered at the 1989 American Film Institute’s National Video Festival in Los Angeles and has received prizes at the New York Documentary Festival, the San Francisco International Film and Video Festival, and the Berlin International Film Festival (best documentary).

“Tongues Untied,” which will be screened Tuesday at UCI, has been broadcast on the BBC in Great Britain and Barcelona Television in Spain. Citing coarse sexual language and an opening sequence that shows a nude man dancing, numerous PBS stations across the United States refused to run the video last year. The American Family Assn., led by the Rev. Donald Wildmon, filed obscenity complaints against 13 stations that did broadcast the video. And presidential hopeful Patrick J. Buchanan used it in his campaign to criticize the types of programs funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which had indirectly subsidized “Tongues Untied.”

Riggs’ first major work was “Ethnic Notions,” which dealt with issues of racist stereotyping in American popular culture. “Ethnic Notions” was awarded an Emmy in 1985 and top honors at the San Francisco International Film Festival and the National Video Festival.

In 1991 he made “Color Adjustment” as a sequel to “Ethnic Notions.” That work explores 40 years of race relations in America through images drawn from prime-time television.

Riggs graduated with honors from Harvard University in 1978 and received his master’s degree from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he teaches.

Information: (714) 856-6616.