Pride

In 1984, Thatcher government decided to shut down 20 coal mines with the loss of over 20000 jobs. Strike led by the National Union of Mine began following the revelation. Pride is a movie about the story between two special groups of people, homosexuals and miners during the longest miner strike happened in UK. Homosexuals at that time faced pressure and bias from the society and government, though in 1984 government shifted their focus on miners due to the strike. Mark is a gay who came out an idea to create an organization named LGSM to help miners. At first the team only contained no more than 10 people. They called the national union which ignored them, so they decided to bypass the union by helping a mining town in Wales picked randomly. The first contact was embarrassing. People in town are prejudiced against homosexuals, and some refused their donation. However, as LGSM gradually brought some change to the town, the bias against them started to fade away. They made a huge change to the life of people in town, though they faced many problems.

I am a little bit amazed by Mark who led the team to do many things seemingly small but hard to achieve by a normal man. I saw how people gave an inspiring speech in front of people who were once alert and defensive without preparation. I realize the importance of cheering any people in any situation at any time by giving an amazing speech.

The process to ask for donation was also a hardship because of their special identity as homosexual. People called them perverts and even threatened them. There are two scenes in the movie so awesome that I hope I can do it one day. The first one happened in the town when people and members of the organization were eating and celebrating. Suddenly, Mark who looked thoughtful stood up and burst out his feeling and promise for the miners. 

Another scene happened in the gay bar where a miner gave a speech to express his gratitude to homosexuals in the bar. People were vigilant against the miner due to the social prejudice against homosexuals. However, the miner gave a normal speech that was humorous and sincere, which mitigate the tension between them. These impromptu speeches were affecting, therefore I want to learn to give a normal but great speech.

Despite of people’s disgust against them, they raised a lot of many money by standing in front of their gay book store yelling “Gay and Lesbian support the miners”, holding a concert to raise money, and sticking their special post everywhere to let everybody know about them.

I dreamed of becoming wealthy and famous in the future, because everybody wanted to do it. I worked so hard on Math, because everybody spent a lot of time on it. I chose my future university according to the ranking of US News, because everybody believes in it. I am proud of what I did, but nothing belongs to me. My sense of superiority simply derives from being part of the majority.

That’s why I have always been embarrassed of doing or being something different from people around me. But in the movie Pride, even those who face most bias from the world are brave enough to stand up for themselves and change the world. The meaning of pride is to be proud of being yourself, because both your “flaws” and “virtues” are unique. I am still trying to understand the meaning of being proud…