Jewel’s Catch One

The 2016 documentary of a black gay dance bar in Los Angeles by the same name, “Jewel’s Catch One” is a hagiographic portrait of Jewel Thais-Williams, the bar’s founder and owner. A poor Black lesbian woman, the world had four targets for intolerance ready to bludgeon against Thais-Williams, a woman who deserved more from the world than most. She died last year and the film’s re-release on major streaming channels comes shortly after the first anniversary of her passing.

Catch One was the nation’s oldest Black-owned disco. Their motto was to turn away nobody, a motto that the queer and especially queer Black community in Los Angeles found meaningful in an era of inhospitality. The documentary surveys the history of the establishment from its founding in 1973 to when Thais-Williams sold it in 2015, fluctuating in both primary audience and success with the passing years.

Police harassed Catch One, city ordinances targeted gay activities, and an arsonist tried to burn everything down. Firefighters openly told Thais-Williams they wished the arsonist succeed. Director C. Fitz never lets the darkness of these barriers to equality and safety –even when birthing into belligerence– tonally overshadow the vibrancy or hopefulness of the community the bar nurtured.

Continue reading at the Bay Area Reporter.