TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2025 REVIEW! This very important production, I Was Born This Way, has a compelling feeling from the first frame through to the credits’ end. Its seemingly simple message of universal equality of all human beings is desperately needed in our planet’s present-day turmoil, including Gaza, Ukraine, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo—to name just a few. Sadly, maddeningly, pathetically the demise of what used to be the world’s most powerful nation built almost entirely of immigrants and refugees from other lands where “justice for all” used to be a given and not for the self-selected few, the United States is urgently in need of a moral reboot if its former status as a beacon of hope can ever be restored.
Born in 1944 to teenage, unmarried parents, Carl Bean had a challenging early life, finally moving in with his godparents and escaping the predatory advances of an opportunistic uncle. Refuge was also founded by joining the Providence Baptist Church. Growing up, the young boy was drawn to music as a respite from the world around him, along with the joys of creating stories with his dollhouse.
Gradually recognizing his homosexuality at a time when psych wards and quack “healings” could affect the cure (and send many to early graves), Bean began turning tricks as a way of expressing his desires and bringing in some much-needed cash. Losing his mom, then observing the legal system firsthand, the “I just want to sing” teen made his way from Baltimore to the Big Apple, snagging a job as a stock boy at Macy’s, but much more importantly, he discovered the Christian Tabernacle, where he could sing his heart out.
And thus a life was saved and a future star (musical and religious) was born.
“Having had the courage to speak his truth, Bean felt the urge/need to help others do the same…”
After a stint in Newark, Bean escaped the East Coast, where “everybody wants to have sex”, landing next in Los Angeles, employment again at Macy’s. But now, in the City of Angels, musical expression took flight, culminating in a record, “I Was Born This Way” (1977), an infectious combination of message and gospel:
I’m walking through life
In nature’s disguise, yeah
You laugh at me
And you criticize, yeah
‘Cause I’m happy
Carefree and gay
Yes, I’m gay
Having had the courage to speak his truth, Bean felt the urge/need to help others do the same, culminating in the founding of the Unity Fellowship Church (1990).
Peppered throughout telling Bean’s life journey (culminating in becoming Archbishop of his church in 1999) are a number of interviews and appearances from Dionne Warwick, Maxine Waters, Questlove, Lady Gaga, and Billy Porter. Notably, Lady Gaga explaining her motivation to create her own take on “I Was Born This Way” and truly moving excerpts (on both sides of the footlights) from live performances are a definite highlight. But the showstopper, sans doute, is Porter’s redo/update of “Liberation” (the B side of Bean’s long-lost 45), where the chorus is aptly done up by the Unity Fellowship Church choir. Adding extra pizzaz are the interventions from Bean, thanks to the rotoscope animation team headed up by Scott Hassell. Merci mille fois.
I Was Born This Way ought to be required viewing by all of those around the planet who assume that by anointing themselves, they are entitled to “rule” those they deem inferior. No better place to start than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue than 1 Vozdvizhenka Street, Moscow, Kremlin.
I Was Born This Way screened at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival.
"…No one is a mistake..."
