By Will McGuirk

“It has been challenging to write about the ‘Gay Bar’ video in the wake of the recent mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs. I can’t help but imagine the video’s cast of queer people – including my sister, my best friends, my peers, killed in a similar mass shooting. I feel righteous anger and profound grief, and it is because of these feelings that I want viewers who aren’t queer to imagine this: the beauty and joy of us dancing in this video, of celebrating our lives, destroyed by a gunman, like those who murdered 5 at Club Q in Colorado Springs and 49 at Pulse in Orlando.

“But this is not all that I feel. I also feel deep love and gratitude for my community, and eternal hope for our collective healing. This part of me wants viewers to see only the celebration of our lives, the warmth of our joy, and our resistance against acts of queer-phobic violence and terror.” - Evangeline Gentle

Evangeline Gentle is a Scottish-Canadian folk-pop singer/songwriter based in Peterborough, ON. Her debut self-titled album was produced by Jim Bryson.