If We Leave, They Win: How The Inspection Uses Defiance and Pride to Tell a New LGBTQIA+ Story
We’ve experienced cinematic boot camp before, but rarely have we felt it like this. In his first feature, American photographer Elegance Bratton tells his own redemption story: going from a homeless gay teen to a decorated Black marine.
good.film
2 years ago
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What’s The Inspection about?
In 2006, a young, gay Black man, rejected by his homophobic mother and with few options for his future, decides to join the Marines - doing whatever it takes to succeed in a system that aims to break him.
What social causes does The Inspection explore?
What’s the key social insight within The Inspection?
With matching buzz cuts and uniforms, the military is designed to create faceless troops that you almost can’t tell apart. Elegance Bratton mines his own deeply personal story to humanise these minority characters. Through his lead character, Ellis French, he shows that dignity, personal strength and a core conviction can be a person’s strongest weapons to fight prejudice.
TENNN-HUUTTT!!
The polished boots. The weapons checks. The locker room braggadocio. And the screaming drill sergeant with foaming specks of spit flying everywhere. They’re the boot camp tropes we know and love when we ‘sign up for basic training’ at the movies.
With its us vs. them settings, clearly defined goals and an almost guaranteed mild-to-wild range of characters, the ‘military movie’ is an inherently cinematic genre. From Charlie Sheen’s naïve wonder in Platoon and Demi Moore’s buzzcut in G.I. Jane, to the aerial antics of the Top Gun squad and “space Marines” of Ripley & co. in James Cameron’s Aliens, audiences worldwide have been pretty keen to lock & load over the years.
What you might not know? All four of those classics, which ooze machismo and good-ol’ US-of-A pride, are coded with pride of a different kind… being cited on Advocate’s list of 10 Great LGBT Military Movies for their gay- and lesbian-adjacent themes. That ‘adjacent’ label, though, gives away that none of the lead characters in those stories are gay… so it seems director Elegance Bratton was determined to get one on a future list.
One snag: that boot camp setting we described is so familiar, you’re already picturing it. You might even think you already know this story. But unlike Maverick and Ripley (and arguably, John Wick), the defiant gay hero of The Inspection isn’t a work of fiction: he’s a proxy for Bratton himself. This isn’t just any story - it’s Bratton’s own story. As played by Jeremy Pope, that deep level of authenticity makes for a different experience on screen: it’s infused in every beat and glance of his wide, expressive eyes.
Keen to see The Inspection? Head to the cinema for less with Good Tix - eVouchers for cheaper movies you can redeem instantly in cinema or online. Plus, every Good Tix has a donation to charity built-in. Yep, the donation’s on us, and you choose where it goes - like charities that support LGBTQIA+ rights.
How does The Inspection explore the LGBTQIA+ cause?
It’s the mid-90s. Clinton is President, the Spice Girls Wannabe our lovers, and E.R. is the #1 show on TV (Will & Grace was still two years away). Elegance Bratton is 16 - and he’s just been kicked out of his mother’s New Jersey home for being gay. Bratton spent the better part of the next decade homeless and uprooted. “I really grew up believing that I was an ‘abomination’ and trying to hide that as best as I could,” he told the LA Times in a recent interview. Eventually, he reached breaking point, enlisting in the Marines in 2006 in a quest to “prove his worth as a man” to his mother, and to himself.
That time setting is crucial to the story. As a gay man, to go from the streets to a military environment bound by the damaging “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Now repealed, DADT was a policy that allowed LGBTQIA+ military personnel to serve - but only if they kept their sexual orientation a secret. It’s since been described by the White House as “a policy that weakened our military, discriminated against thousands of service members, and violated our nation’s fundamental commitment to equality across the board.” For contrast, the Australian government lifted the ban on LGBTQIA+ people serving in the military in 1992.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell meant that gay people in the military served under constant fear of being outed and discharged. So it’s meaningful that French willingly chooses to enter this hostile environment: it’s his last resort, and he’s determined not to be broken. We feel his tentative fear as he falls into line each morning; each day could be the day he’s “exposed”. Crunching atop the discarded rifle shells at the firing range, he may as well be walking on eggshells.
“For me, this is about the emotional resonance of the lived experience,” Bratton recounts. “As a Black gay man who was out before I went to the Marine Corps, boot camp was my war.”
What’s the key scene in The Inspection?
It probably goes without saying that boot camp isn’t a breezy day at the seaside for Ellis French. He’s beaten in the communal showers, and deliberately nearly drowned during a pool-training drill by his commanding officer. But there’s a stoic resilience in French, one that we sense is in-built.
Mid-way through the film, French comforts Ismail, a Muslim cadet who’s broken down in the bathroom. “I can’t do this anymore”, he confesses to French, sobbing. We don’t need any guesses as to why: earlier that day, Ismail was literally shoved in front of the Marines’ on the rifle range to be used as ‘target practice’, to the hooting of 9/11 insults from their bigoted senior trainer.
For all his struggles, French puts aside any of his own feelings of persecution to support his brother in arms. A man from a different minority, facing a different set of prejudices, and yet supposedly equal in the eyes of their country. We feel the injustice that burns within French as he reminds Ismail why he can’t, he mustn’t bail from the unfair regime: “If we leave, they win.”
Elegance Bratton sums up how the scene plays into French’s deeper realisation. “What French discovers is that everybody’s an outsider… and what makes his queerness so important is that by being his authentic self, he’s provided a model for these other men on how to make peace with the fact that they’re not ‘real men’ either. And he learns that his sexuality is not the defining factor.”
What do the reviews say about The Inspection?
- “…one of the most stirring portraits of queer Black masculinity since Moonlight.” ~ Hollywood Reporter
- The metamorphosis that Pope embodies — the way Ellis both changes and remains ever faithful to himself — is subtle, bittersweet and beautiful.” ~ The New York Times
- “The Inspection Has the trappings of an instant queer classic.” ~ The Wrap
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So… why should I watch The Inspection?
So you’ve never set foot on an army barracks or a muddy obstacle course - but anyone who’s felt the sting of a parent’s rejection will relate to The Inspection. The impossible internal battle that Ellis fights - being true to himself and his sexuality, while being the man his mother wants him to be - feels infinitely tougher than the grunt work he endures under the battle-hardened drill sergeant.
Mild spoiler alert: at his graduation ceremony, it feels like there’s a big moment of catharsis on offer as Ellis’ Mum watches on, beaming with pride. But that’s dashed as they share a celebratory meal afterwards, and she assumes the Marines training has “fixed” Ellis and he’ll be dating girls in no time. It’s a scene that could’ve easily been wrapped in a “Hollywood” bow: a mother’s moral U-turn giving us a trite, feel-good ending. But writer-director Bratton sticks to his guns to give us a more meaningful conclusion.
The scene has an underlying echo of those uneducated parents who expect conversion therapy to work; this is relevant in a country where even today, conversion therapy is only banned in half of the 50 states, despite Americans overwhelmingly supporting a total ban on the psuedo-scientific and abusive practice. It’s heartbreaking to watch Ellis realise that after all he’s been through, nothing has changed. His unexpectedly loving response to his bitter mother might be the most defiant moment of the film. It underlines that in life, the moral stance you take is yours alone. Even after surmounting every test and obstacle, our loved ones can remain fixed in enemy territory.
But we can sum up the real headline reason to see The Inspection in two words: Jeremy Pope. He pulled in raves (and awards a-plenty) for his sensitive, committed and authentic performance (Pope is openly gay). In 2020, online magazine Queerty named Pope among “fifty heroes leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people”. The affecting way that Pope blazes all three of those qualities onto the screen in The Inspection will surely only add to that kudos.
