Matt Shepard Is A Friend Of Mine

Director and writer Michele Josue was a close friend of the young gay man murdered by two mentally-challenged scumbags seventeen years ago. As a result, she has created a fine, deeply moving documentary, "Matt Shepard Is A Friend Of Mine."

Matthew Shepard was another casualty in the ongoing fight for LGBT dignity and safety in America. Only 5"3" tall, just over 100 pounds at the time of his murder, he became the handsome face of anti-gay intolerance when he was kidnapped, strapped to a rancher's fence, and beaten into a coma from which he never recovered on October 12, 1998, six weeks shy of his 22nd birthday.

His martyrdom was reported all over the world, especially in his hometown of Laramie, Wyoming. It galvanized LGBTQ- and nongay-activists to organize the fight against violent homophobia. Josue, a petit Asian-American, had known Matt at the boarding high school in Switzerland both attended. For her documentary, she recorded dozens of testimonials from other friends, teachers, policemen, and family.

All the interviews point to a loving, intelligent, deeply insecure young man who was cruelly (and stupidly) brought down by ignorance and homo-hatred. She includes newsreels of the paranoid and offensive Westboro Baptist Church, along with those protesters who fought their horrific rage against gay peoples.

It's a strong documentary about this perhaps not extraordinary man/boy who was, apparently, caught up in the meth-crowd at the time of his murder. Josue has made the choice, also, to not include Sheperd's druggie-connections, and that he might have contracted HIV after a disastrous rape in Morocco by six men while on vacation.

But there's no point in blaming the victim. It's not at all clear that the motivation for the robbery-murder by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, also 21 at the time, was totally an anti-gay hate crime (both men were methamphetamine-addicts), but drugs certainly played a crucial role in the kidnap/murder.

This is a special film which belongs in every middle school, high school, and college library as a cautionary tale to those who think themselves above the law and, more importantly, a lesson in common sense. And learning more from the Matthew Shepard Foundation will help in the ongoing fight against homophobia.

"Matt Shepard Is A Friend Of Mine"
DVD
Virgil Films/Logo Documentaries