Hans Pedersen

By Hans Pedersen If you’ve never seen a 90-year-old trans woman smoking a joint, you’re missing out on a chance to revisit a beloved classic of LGBTQ literature and TV history. Characters like weed-smoking trans senior citizen Mrs. Anna Madrigal or blissfully insecure Michael “Mouse” Tolliver were enshrined in LGBTQ literature more than forty years ago — and now they’re receiving a delightful re-boot. Netflix is offering a new generation the chance to discover the legacy of 28 Barbary Lane.

With suicide among Utah’s LGBTQ teenagers climbing at an alarming rate, Believer follows Imagine Dragons lead singer Dan Reynolds as he takes on a new mission to explore how the Mormon Church treats its LGBTQ members. Directed by Don Argott (DeLorean, Batman & Bill, The Art of the Steal), the HBO documentary sketches out the singer’s early years as a faithful Mormon and, following his marriage to actress Aja Volkman, his dawning realization that his church’s doctrine is flawed.

Nobody knows what it’s like to walk in the shoes of a person of a different cultural, racial, ethnic, sexual, gender and religious identity than their own. But the collection of voices in the new film You Racist, Sexist Bigot., produced and directed here in the Valley, aims to give folks a better idea of what it’s like.