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Straight to the top
[Times photo: Skip O’Rourke]
Margaret Murray’s sexual orientation didn’t faze film festival board members. |
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 3, 2002
When board members of the Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival hired Margaret Murray as executive director, her sexual orientation was not a factor.
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TAMPA -- Margaret Murray knew people might gossip when she started a new job two years ago. Co-workers and customers were aware of her sexual orientation, different from their own. Perhaps some of them believed she didn't belong there because of her most intimate life choice.
Margaret Murray is heterosexual.
That isn't a big deal at most workplaces, but it's notable when Murray's $27,000-per-year job is organizing the Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. This is Murray's second turn as executive director of the Tampa Bay area's largest film festival after her 2001 debut broke attendance records and received generally glowing reviews from patrons.
Murray, 37, had a tough act to follow. Former festival director Dorothy Abbott was, in Murray's words, "this larger-than-life figure" who transformed a community event into one of the most prestigious gay and lesbian cinema showcases in the United States. Abbott resigned to care for her ill father.
"When she moved away we tried to find someone with Dorothy's artistic sensibility and also the ability to run an organization," said Jim Harper, a festival board of directors member who interviewed Murray. "We had several people apply, but Margaret was just exactly what we needed."
Harper said Murray's heterosexuality wasn't a major factor for board members.
"We were aware of it," he said. "We talked about it among ourselves and decided it really wasn't an issue for us. We all worked in careers where we had taken the position that gays shouldn't be excluded. How could we do that now?"
Artistic adviser Keith Roberts, a co-founder of the festival in 1989, added: "We don't want to descend into the same kind of discriminatory practices we condemn in other arenas. It came down to, 'Gee, we don't see how we can turn away from somebody who's the right choice.'
"The big question was: Are we likely to get a negative reaction from our audience and our community because she's not gay? To my knowledge, we've had no negative feedback at all."
Murray didn't know if interviewers were aware of her sexual identity, so she essentially "outed" herself during the interview.
"I was the first one to mention it," she said. "I'm very conscious of it because I've done a lot of activist work in the community and I'm very conscious that a lot of times white people, to put it bluntly, are put in places of leadership where maybe they shouldn't be. I've always not wanted to be a part of that.
"So this was like me doing that as a straight woman. How was I going to overcome this?"
Murray impressed the selection committee with a resume including her organization of WMNF-FM 88.5 community radio events and the Movies That Move film series presenting alternative films on both sides of Tampa Bay. She had experience in film production and recording music and as a volunteer at the Independent Film Market in New York where she worked in an underground video store. Living in New York and Amsterdam during the 1990s gave her cultural tastes a cosmopolitan edge.
"All these years of knowledge built up in a rather unorthodox way," she said. "I always had this kind of arts organization thing happening."
Murray was also a local product, a graduate of Pinellas Park High School and St. Petersburg Junior College, and now a graduate student of political geography at the University of South Florida.
However, what impressed Harper most was her response to his question about how a straight person can effectively speak in support of gay and lesbian issues.
"She said: 'I don't see myself as speaking for people. I'm a facilitator, a coordinator so that people can speak for themselves,' " Harper said. "After that, we figured if anyone raised the issue we'd just have Margaret answer it for herself."
Murray's first exposure to the festival occurred a decade ago watching the screen version of a book she admired titled Warrior Marks, examining African customs of female mutilation.
"This film festival changed my life when I saw that film," she said. "It was a topic that, growing up in St. Pete or anywhere, you would never know about this stuff. The fact that there was a film festival in my own back yard that was allowing me access to all this information was just amazing to me. That really sparked my interest in films."
Although Murray makes final decisions about the festival lineup, she relies on volunteer committees to preview films she discovers at similar San Francisco and Miami festivals and to research the Internet and trade publications. Harper trusts her judgment.
"I don't think she has to be steered," he said. "Margaret knows a good story when she sees one. She knows the kind of issues that resonate with lesbians and gay men."
Murray prefers to accent the international aspect of the festival's name, seeking out films such as the Italian AIDS drama Days (Giorni) and Karmen Gei, a version of the classic tragedy Carmen produced and then censored in Senegal.
"I'm looking for those international films that have some social relevance to them," she said. "I want to be able to touch someone with the festival the way I was touched 10 years ago."
Murray's exposure to gay and lesbian culture is still changing her life.
"It's been a really amazing process for me," Murray said. "I've always considered myself pretty open as far as bisexuality or whatever. But I knew I didn't want to bring that up (at the interview) because there's even more of a stigma about that. So I just identified as straight. I've noticed that I tend to tone down my heterosexuality sometimes.
"I guess the best way to describe it is that it's been very interesting for the past two years to have 90 percent of the people you come across automatically assume you're a lesbian. And I don't do anything to change their minds."
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