All language subtitles for Reviving.The.Roost.2019.720p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-AKARi

(Reel rattles)

Male Narrator: It took me
a whole year

after reaching the legal
drinking age

to finally have the guts
to go to The Roost.

Wearing a black dress shirt,
grey cargo pants,

a bronze Indian necklace

and light blue glitter
around my eyes,

I nervously walked into
Edmonton's

most popular gay bar.

I wasn't sure what to expect,

but I knew I was searching
for sanctuary.

(Dance music plays)

I hoped to be greeted by
a circle of gays

holding hands
under strobe lights

and swaying to heavenly R&B,

that would open to embrace me.

Together they would say,

"You are home."

Instead, through the smell
of stale beer,

and the sound of a Celine Dion
techno remix,

I heard someone yell,
"Fucking drag queens,

they need to get their
own bar!"

I always credit The Roost
as the place

where I learned that being
oppressed

doesn't prevent you
from oppressing others.

I learned this over and over
again in mutated ways.

Like when my best friend
was told by the lesbian clique

that she wasn't a real dyke,

unless she shaved her head.

And even after she did,
she wasn't embraced.

Or when I learned that exotic
was code for, "not white"

which was code for,
"not like us" which code for,

"here comes 5 years
of hating my brownness."

Or when I ran into one of my
high school bullies

and panicked assuming that
he must've tracked me down;

never imagining
that he might be queer.

And yet, despite the ways that
our communal self hatred

was aimed at each other,
I kept returning.

♪♪♪

Maybe because we were all
forced to be low-key

in our everyday lives,

the unpredictability of The
Roost was kind of addictive.

What was gonna happen?

The only way to find out
was to go.

I went looking for teenage love
to feel desirable.

Or perhaps I was actually
seeking confirmation

of my undesirability.

I would often mentally select
the hottest guy in the room

and spend the rest of the night
obsessing about

whether or not
he would notice me,

approach me, dance with me.

If he did, I was shocked.

If he didn't, I felt validated.

Why did I keep playing
this game?

Why did I keep going back?

Sometimes it was as simple
and as thrilling

as hoping the DJ would play
that George Michael song,

so I can take over
the dance floor

and for 4 minutes and 30
seconds, feel invincible.

♪♪♪

I might not have been the most
attractive boy in the bar,

but I knew I had moves.

♪♪♪

After relocating to Toronto,

I found myself missing
The Roost.

In the big city there was a bar
for every kind of gay man:

twinks, leather daddies,
hipsters...

There were few bars
for queer women;

often pop-up women only spaces.

Somehow, being in a city with
hundreds more queer people

meant that we chose to spend
less time with queers

who didn't look or desire
like us.

The privilege of numbers
had resulted in a new kind

of segregation... between us.

♪♪♪

The wish that had been shouted
at The Roost,

that drag queens needed
to get their own bar,

turned out to be a prophecy
that had come true.

♪♪♪

While The Roost was far
from idyllic,

being forced to share a space
meant just that.

We we're forced to share,

forced to engage
with each other

and that force of different
kinds of queers

dancing collectively,

felt as close to a definition
of queer

as I've yet to encounter.

We were wounded,

we were cruel,

we were innocent,

we were searching,

we were lustful,

we were ecstatic...

we were together.

The Roost closed in 2007,

two years after gay marriage
became legal,

30 years after it had opened

and almost 40 years
after homosexuality

was partially decriminalized
in Canada.

Today, the building houses a
Canada Border Police Office.

(Car rumbles by)