The Fifth Estate: The Legacy of Brendan Burke

[thrillingdetectivetales]

So, y'all may or may not be aware of the fact that professional sports in general suffer some fairly homophobic cultural mores. The NHL in particular hasn't seen any out LGBTQ+ players, current or retired, though they're making efforts to change the culture to allow that to happen. A lot of those efforts are thanks to a young man named Brendan Burke, who died in a car accident before he could see any of his efforts come to fruition. CBC's The Fifth Estate put out a really great, if slightly painful, documentary about Brendan and queer players in the NHL that's very good, if you've got 45 minutes to spare. Tumblr user camwarden was kind enough to upload a non geoblocked version to YouTube, and you can watch it here:

Watch on YouTube

It's a really great, painful look at the treatment of homosexuality in pro sports in general and the NHL in specific, and makes some really good points about a lot of aspects of that issue, including addressing (if briefly) the differences between pressures that male and female pro athletes face to stay in the closet.

Comments

[muccamukk]

That was very well done. I'm glad to have seen it.

Would you change anything about gongshow if you'd seen it earlier?

[thrillingdetectivetales]

Right? I thought it was very neatly handled, especially given that it was under an hour long. They covered a lot of over-arching LGBTQ+ stuff but also a lot of Brendan's life and personality, which was pretty impressive IMO.

And yes, I absolutely would. I actually feel kind of...not great about Gongshow now that I've seen it, for reasons I'm not entirely sure I could properly explain outside of my own head. But it's written and it's out there and it is the way it is so I'm not going to like, renege or anything, though I imagine this will very much alter my approach going forward.

I was glad that I managed to hit on some of the same points that they did in the documentary though—basically, that it's going to take a supportive institution and behind the scenes/management team to make it possible for an NHL player to come out and not just the player themselves. I'll probably watch it again at some point, to really internalize, but overall it's a really great resource for this whole body of work outside of just being interesting from a fan perspective.

Glad you liked it!

[kore]

Oh, this looks really good, even tho I'm so not into hockey (or sports in general).

[thrillingdetectivetales]

It's very good! And sad, so be ready to maybe tear up a bit if you're the type. (I am, and cried outright at some parts.) Definitely worth the watch, though, and not too long either.