Who is Donald Webster Cory? New film explores legacy of gay rights pioneer whose later views caused outrage
Odd Man In aims to revisit Cory's complicated legacy and examine how a man once celebrated as a pioneer became a controversial figure within his own community
By Aaron Sugg
A new documentary is set to explore the life of Donald Webster Cory, the gay rights pioneer whose groundbreaking 1951 book helped inspire the early LGBTQ+ rights movement before his views later put him at odds with the community.
Odd Man In is being released ahead of the 75th anniversary of Cory’s book, The Homosexual in America, one of the earliest nonfiction accounts of gay life in the United States.
Published at the height of the McCarthy era, amid widespread censorship and anti-gay sentiment during the Lavender Scare, Cory’s book became a surprise bestseller.
Donald Webster Cory on the fight for gay equality
Writing as a self-proclaimed homosexual, he argued that gay people were neither sick nor sinful, but an oppressed minority who should fight for equal rights.
However, Cory’s views underwent a dramatic change in the mid-1960s. In his book The Homosexual and His Society, he argued that although gay people deserved equal rights, homosexuality was linked to mental illness.
Odd Man In aims to revisit his complicated legacy and examine how a man once celebrated as a pioneer became a controversial figure within the community.
Matt Nadel explores the “trailblazer-turned-traitor” in Odd Man In
Directed and produced by award-winning documentary filmmaker Matt Nadel, he said in a news release: “The film asks what we owe this trailblazer-turned-traitor who laid the groundwork for the modern queer movement and then turned his back on it.”
“With this film, I sought to work against that impulse, not because I wanted to rehabilitate Cory’s image, but because I wanted to understand him in his context.”
The film attempts to answer the questions: “Why was Cory able to imagine a more liberated queer future but unable to live it himself? And if he was once hailed as the father of the queer movement, even if he was later condemned as its senile grandfather, why don’t today’s audiences know about him?”
Jesse Tyler Ferguson acts as executive producer
Modern Family star Jesse Tyler Ferguson serves as an executive producer alongside award-winning documentary producer Caroline Waterlow.
Ferguson said in a news release: “We need bold documentaries like Odd Man In to illuminate our past so we can better navigate our present.”
He praised Nadel’s “complex, compassionate portrait” of Cory for finding “humanity in a flawed yet consequential figure lost to history.”
“I’m so proud to be part of this film, and grateful that platforms like PBS and Independent Lens still exist to connect viewers with important stories like this one.”
Fred Sagarin and Elliot Friedland will feature in Odd Man In
The documentary will feature interviews with Fred Sagarin, Cory’s only son, who never knew about his father’s secret double life as a gay writer and activist.
Elliot Friedland, a protégé of Cory who met the mysterious author as a closeted college student in the 1960s, is also set to appear.
Odd Man In is set to be released later this year.