Recently, a theater in London got approval. Now whats so special about it? you may ask. Well, the theater will be London’s first LGBTQ+ cinema house. The Arzner, as it is named, takes after Dorothy Arzner, a lesbian filmmaker who was the first woman to have ever directed a “talkie.”.
The cinema will take place of an independent cinema, “Kino Bermondsey,” which went out of business. Now after consideration, it is being turned into an LGBTQ+ cinema by Simon Burke and Piers Greenless. Sounds good, right? Only its quite counterintuitive.
Any establishment like this is brought up as a space for inclusivity for a certain section of society. But it kills the purpose of inclusivity by dissociating the society itself. How can a social movement have traction if it tends to remove itself in favor of separate spaces?
Now the cinema is a mass medium. Its presence is for everyone, and it remains as one of the most inclusive platforms of expression. With people telling their stories without any restrictions. If this medium gets crowded by separate spaces for every other community, then it will lose the impact it can have as a medium that connects all the sections of society.