The lesbian and gay communities have come a long, long way in both real life and cinema, and "Pride" is evidence of that. The film is set in 1984-85 England, when miners across the country went on strike to protest the government's closing of a large number of mines and the loss of more than 20,000 jobs. Imagine the miners' surprise when, seemingly out of the blue, a London-based gay/lesbian coalition group called the LGSM (Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners) descended upon a tiny mining village in Wales to offer financial and moral support.

Why Wales? The LGSM apparently pointed randomly at a map after other towns had turned them down. When the LGSM pull up to the village headquarters in "Pride," a querulous old lady welcomes them by saying to a friend, "Your gays are here!"

In reality, the period was a sad and definitive moment for British labor — many economists later cited the strikers' subsequent defeat as the beginning of the end for the English working class. The individuals in the LGSM were starting to see changes in society that had never been seen before and doors opening where they had been tightly shut. The fear of AIDS was looming on the horizon, but, for now, they could reach out to another maligned group, and dispense some skills in dealing with authoritarian bigotry.