But the choice to open this film about a queer, Black woman with this song, centers the experience of Black lesbians in an important way. It signals that this isn’t “the feel good film of the year,” in the way that we all want to relate to film characters and feel good when we leave the theater. Rather, it suggests that you are here as part of my experience and I’m not here to make you feel good in the way that we all want to feel good about gays and lesbians in this particular moment. In other words, Ilene Chaiken’s version(s). And, Pariah is not the first film about Black lesbians to do this, as Salamishah Tillet (and others) has pointed out, Pariah rests on the shoulders of the brilliant, often overlooked Black lesbian filmmaking of the last two decades. But what I love about Pariah being released last week, at a time when there are gay characters all over nightly television sitcoms, and we all love gay people, is the opening scene and others that make no apologies for being queer. There’s no “we’re just like you” narrative underlying the film, or “look, I’m just a normal girl trying to figure out who I am, let me be.” No, from my reading, Pariah says, “this is what it looks like, if you’re in, let’s go, otherwise, peace!” And how refreshing is that from a queer woman of color perspective? Especially from a butch perspective.