Out writer-director Dustin Lance Black
said this week that his upcoming miniseries about the gay rights
movement was “under attack by the alt-right.”
He continued, saying that he believes
that President-elect Donald Trump, which the alt-right supported,
might like When We Rise.
“If Donald Trump actually watches the
show, he might like the show,” he
said during a TCA panel on the show. “I think a lot of people
who voted for Donald Trump will love this show. I don't see this
show as trying to speak to only half of the country – I didn't
write the show for half the country.”
Based on the novel of the same name by
activist Cleve Jones and written by Black (Milk), When We
Rise is an eight-hour miniseries that “chronicles the personal
and political struggles, set-backs and triumphs of a diverse family
of LGBT men and women who helped pioneer one of the last legs of the
U.S. Civil Rights movement from its turbulent infancy in the 20th
century to the once unfathomable successes of today.”
When We Rise stars Guy Pearce as
Cleve Jones, Mary-Louise Parker as women's rights activist Roma Guy,
Rachel Griffiths as Roma's wife, Whoopi Goldberg as the first openly
gay employee of the San Francisco Health Department, Rosie O'Donnell
as Daughters of Bilitis co-founder Del Martin, Denis O'Hare as an
openly gay party organizer and David Hyde Pierce as Dr. Jones, Cleve
Jones' father.
ABC will begin airing When We Rise
on February 27.