Reeling: Ask Not

Veteran filmmaker Johnny Symons has turned out an incisive and compelling documentary on a contentious issue: the U.S. military’s infamous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The film combines candid interviews with soldiers, sit-ins by gay youth at military recruitment centers, and a speaking tour of college campuses by veterans, exposing numerous ways fit and able citizens are battling a government policy insistent on denying them equal rights. The societal cost of denying military service to gay Americans is also exposed, as well as the effects of living in silence on individual soldiers.