Have Some Pride

Here are all the ways to celebrate your Pride in Dallas-Fort Worth

The Dallas skyline is ready to rainbow.

Joseph Haubert

The month of June is designated as Pride Month to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, and various groups and businesses around Dallas-Fort Worth are showing their support in a multitude of ways.

Here's our list of the best ways we've found for members of community and allies to participate in Pride Month in style. We start with the festivities that are running June 3-4, followed by other celebrations that will occur all month long.

Dallas Pride Weekend
June 3-4: Start the month off right at the biggest official celebration taking place at Fair Park. This annual event, which used to be in the Oak Lawn area before moving to Fair Park in 2019, includes a music festival featuring headliner Allison Ponthier on Saturday; the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade on Sunday; plus other activities celebrating the LGBTQ community.

Pride Day at Reunion Tower
June 3-4: The little ball in the downtown Dallas sky is celebrating Pride month, too. It'll kick off on June 3 with a splendid rainbow flag show that'll run all weekend long, and will continue to pop up during the month with dynamic rainbow displays on most Fridays and Sundays in June.

"Party with the Queens” Pride Brunch at El Chingon
June 3, 2-4 pm: El Chingon, Fort Worth’s “Bad Ass Mexican” restaurant, will host an exclusive “Pride Brunch” as part of its recurring “Party with the Queens” series. The brunch will feature live drag performances, mimosa specials, and more.

Pride Pool Party at Adolphus Hotel
June 3, 7 am-11 pm: Pool Adolphus at Adolphus Hotel in downtown Dallas will host an all-day Pride Pool Party, featuring colorful cocktail specials, rainbow Jell-O shooters, and a local DJ.

Lakewood Brewing Co. presents Pride Vendor Fair + Yas Queen! ReleasePride Vendor Fair + Yas Queen! Release
June 3, 12-4 pm: Lakewood Brewing Co. will host a party at its taproom with Wandering Roots Markets celebrating the release of Yas Queen, a taproom-exclusive Raspberry Wheat ale. There will also be Pride Vendor Fair featuring local artists and vendors, as well as on-site flash tattoos.

Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum presents “Voices of LGBTQ+ Dallas”
June 7, 7 pm. The Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum is hosting “Voices of LGBTQ+ Dallas,” a special exhibition program for Pride Month highlighting trailblazers in the Dallas area LGBTQ+ community. The program featuring speakers such as Chris Luna and Naomi Green is already sold out, but the Museum’s current special exhibition, Rise Up: Stonewall and the LGBTQ Rights Movement, is on display through June 18.

Arttitude presents OutLoud: A Night of Pride
June 8, 6 pm: OutLoud: A Night of Pride is an inclusive event where artists and performers can fearlessly share their stories and experiences. The event will include poetry, burlesque, and a music performance by special guest Gina Chavez. At the Latino Cultural Center.

Dallas Wings Pride Night
June 9, 7 pm: Pride Night for the Dallas Wings of the WNBA. They'll be taking on the Phoenix Mercury, who feature Brittney Griner as their star player. All attendees at College Park Center in Arlington will receive a special rally towel for the occasion.

Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden presents Pride in Bloom
June 10-11: Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden will highlight Pride Month with its second Pride in Bloom celebration, featuring a full weekend of LGBTQ+ artisans, entertainers, chefs, and small businesses. Visitors can shop items at the vendor market, pack or purchase a picnic, listen to live entertainment, and enjoy Gary Lee Price’s Great Contributors’ bronze exhibition. Admission to the Children’s Adventure Garden will also be free.

Dallas Arts District presents Pride Block Party
June 16, 6 pm: The Pride Block Party in the Dallas Arts District features a variety of activities at the Dallas Museum of Art, Nasher Sculpture Center, and Crow Museum of Asian Art, and throughout the district. Activities include gallery tours, drag performers, comedy, dancing, and a fashion show.

Dallas Comedy Club presents "Stand-Up for Hope"
June 17, 5 pm: Stand-Up for Hope is a stand-up comedy show featuring all-LGBTQ performers and benefiting Dallas Hope Charities, which helps provide food, shelter, and services that instill dignity, stability, and Hope For All. Hosted by Stefan Newman, host of Queer Factor, the event will feature performances by Kim Wadsworth,Kerry Day, Charlotte Parker, Lucia Hardaway, and Jamie Zeske.

Ride for Pride
June 24, 9 am: Ride for Pride is a four-mile bike ride down the Katy Trail and back, starting at Reverchon Recreation Center. There will also be Health and Safety fair from 10 am-2 pm.

Monthlong celebrations

Pride Month screenings at Rooftop Cinema Club
Rooftop Cinema Club on top of the Worthington Renaissance Hotel in downtown Fort Worth will screen a variety of films with LGBTQ+ themes or characters throughout the month of June, including Mamma Mia!, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Birdcage, Moulin Rouge!, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and The Devil Wears Prada.

Special Pride drink from Gong cha
Gong cha, which has seven stores in the DFW area, will donate a portion of every purchase of their special Lemon Ai Love Yu bubble tea to the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA) in name of #Equalitea. The special Pride drink is a sweet and tart Lemon Ai Love Yu bubble tea with white pearls and (edible) glitter for some extra festive sparkle. The limited time promotion will run through June 30.

Luckys Pride Celebration
A Dallas institution off Oak Lawn Avenue for more than 35 years, Luckys has long been a supporter of the LGBTQ community. They'll celebrate Pride Month throughout June with a special commemorative T-shirt and a celebratory cocktail, the Pride ’Rita, featuring El Jimador Blanco tequila blended with Chambord, lime juice, and agave nectar.

Electric Shuffle Pride Brunches
Every Sunday in June starting at 12 pm, Electric Shuffle in Deep Ellum will host a Drag Brunch and donate 10 percent of those brunch sales to DIFFA. There will be big-name performers, a Drag Race Royalty special guest, high-tech shuffleboard, live DJs, and more. Additionally, $1 of each purchase of their new summer cocktail, the Prickly Pear Margarita, will be donated to DIFFA.

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Movie Review

Comedy all-stars Jack Black and Paul Rudd can't save Anaconda sequel

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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