David Mixner had an interesting post about how straight media ignores the larger themes of hit gay movies to concentrate on the perceived ick factor. The post’s money shot:
“One of my biggest regrets with “Brokeback Mountain” is that I did not speak out as we allowed this work of art to become a national joke. Not only did our straight friends mock it with one liners and parodies but, the LGBT community was first in line to make a joke out of a movie that had a powerful message for all to hear. It was a movie about love, the destruction of the closet, gay-bashing and the definitions of masculinity. Unfortunately, most missed these powerful messages as we watched clip after clip on “YouTube” of different, humorous (yes, they were funny) versions of “Brokeback Mountain”. The result of this was that we laughed “Brokeback Mountain” right out of an Academy Award. Please lets not allow the same thing to happen to “Milk” this year.”
He then rails against the recent David Letterman interview with the co-star of Gus Van Sant’s movie about the assassination of the country’s first elected openly gay politician, Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn). See trailer after jump.
Why? Because Letterman focused the interview on what it was like to kiss another man, not the larger themes of the movie.
Is he right? Ahem. I watched the clip (below)–yes, they were a little awkward, but it was cute actually, especially when franco kissed Letterman. Look, straight guys WHO ARE NEVER GOING TO SEE OR RENT MILK, witnessed two famous straight guys talking about kissing men in a way that was not threatening, slightly comic and somehow ok.
I don’t disagree that they lowered the conversation from courage, freedom and the sacrifice that is often the midpoint between the two, but HELLO, it’s Letterman. It’s TV. It’s comedy. And the truth is, “what it’s like to kiss a guy” has more resonance to straight men than a movie they’re never going to see.
I thought the interview made the kind of impact that everyone hopes the movie will make–to question, to engage, to reveal a higher truth. The best way to change people’s mind is to meet them where they are and invite them forward. Letterman and Franco reflected straight male discomfort (meeting them where they are) then pulled them toward a “no big deal” attitude that ended with a sweet peck on the cheek. Sometimes, distractions from the point of a movie makes a bigger point.
Russell Brand, the English comedian who hosted this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, said this on the Graham Norton show last night:
“I once drew a face on my penis. A lot of my other achievements have been overlooked because of that.
I drew it on my “helmet.” And because I’m uncircumcised, I could draw back my foreskin to reveal the face of Helmet Harry. Which you know, served as a wonderful punch line. The element of surprise always draws laughter.
Unfortunately, I also drew concerns. People worried-why would a young man, well not so much deface a penis, because I had, in fact, given it a face…. Well, there was an investigation, I had to be spoken to…and nobody believed that I thought it was just plain clean fun.”
Hillary Duff and Wanda Sykes star in a series of public service announcements dedicated to getting teens to stop saying the phrase, “That’s so gay!” The idea is to discourage anti-gay language after the latest student climatereport shows nearly 90% of gay middle and high school students reported being harassed, sometimes violently.
. . .
The first time I heard a teenager say, “That’s so gay,” she was referring to a vacation she took with her parents. I got that look ostriches get when they hear two whistles: WHAT? It was completely out of context to anything I know about being gay.
I asked a nineteen-year-old friend for a reality check. “Yeah, I got a brain fart the first time my younger brother, who’s 17 and straight, used it,” he said. “I couldn’t understand the context–there was no connection to being gay.”
That’s because teens don’t really say, “That’s so gay” to refer to gay people or our perceived characteristics or activities. Not only is it pretty much divorced from the offensive gay stereotypes-like being campy or effeminate-it doesn’t even reference the positive ones-that we’re all hip, stylish trend-setters. Teens use it to tag objects, places or activities as lame, tired, or silly. There’s no venom in the phrase-it’s just the updated 50’s version of, “That’s so square.”
Yet, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) is using Hillary Duff and Wanda Sykes as spokespeople on national TV to stop middle and high school students from saying the phrase. (see below)
GLSEN is rightfully worried about the latest student climate report that shows almost 90% of students have suffered some form of harassment in school. But they should be more worried that they’re adding fuel to the fire. By trying ban the phrase for a meaning it doesn’t have, they’re just going to rile up straight students.
Teens, who have an unerring sense of when they’re being manipulated for no good reason are going to seize on this campaign and use the phrase even more. Try telling a teen not to do something he knows is harmless and see what’ll happen. GLSEN should stop doing the new math and go back to basics:
Best of intentions + worst of tactics = More of what you don’t want.
GLSEN should be discouraging students from saying incendiary words like Faggot or Dyke, not banning some kitschy phrase. It’s noble to discourage language that sets up an environment for harassment or violence, but as somebody who’s been attacked on the street by a bunch of homophobes, I can promise you when they swung their bats and tire irons they weren’t yelling, “That’s so gay!”
There are better words to discourage teens from using.If you want to stop a fire, douse the matches, not the pin lights. If I were a teen, I’d take one look at this campaign and say, “That’s so gay.”
American Idol’s 2003 runner-up Clay Aiken came out in a People Magazine cover story.I’ve got mixed feelings about this.On the one hand, it’s a good thing for Middle America to see that many of the people they like and care about are gay.
On the other hand, there’s a certain “Duh!” factor that makes you think the editors hit the cooking sherry a bit too hard.Clay Aiken coming out as gay in People Magazine is like Gordon Ramsay coming out as a chef in Cooking Magazine–completely unnecessary.
Still, I’m glad Aiken came out.If homophobia is a brick wall, then every falling brick helps.I just wish we could get rid of the bricks faster.Imagine how many would fly off the wall if a conservative right winger like Idaho Senator Larry Craig or the Reverend Ted Haggard came out on the cover of People Magazine.
I guess that’s my only hesitation about Aiken’s cover story.It used up a lot of ink telling people what they already know.To shed new light, reach new people and change more minds we need to have unexpected people gracing the covers of magazines.
As Lewis Black once said (I’m paraphrasing), “Gays are a serious problem confronting this country, but it’s on page eight, right after ‘Are we eating too much garlic as a people?’”We need to put “Gay” in its proper place—on Lewis Black’s page eight.But, for too many people it’s on page 1.And for that, millions of gay men and women have to lie if they want to serve their country, lie if they want to serve God and lie if they want to stay in their families.And for the growing number of us who don’t have to lie, we still have to measure everything we do or say in relation to the risk it brings.Just ask somebody who’s completely out how that adoption search is going.
Bottom line:Thanks, Clay.Even if your news came out of the Department of Redundancy Department.
A friend said, “Chelsea Handler is the new Kathy Griffin.”
Not quite. The difference is the jeans in their genes. Griffin’s comedy is catty; Handler’s is muscular. Griffin’s alter ego would be a drag queen; Handler’s would be a construction worker. Chelsea Handler isn’t the new Kathy Griffin; she’s the new Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay. Only prettier, funnier and more acceptable.
She ain’t a chick with a dick but if she were, she’d be hung like a rhino.
Aiken visiting a North Carolina summer camp affiliated with his charity.
Clay Aiken got his gal pal producer pregnant. Jewelry may have been involved but a pearl necklace was not.
I’ve always dismissed “Gay” Aiken as a lightweight. His singing made me long for a shot of insulin. His flaming gay denials made me long for a can of lighter fluid.
But his pending fatherhood changed all that. He could have faked a girlfriend to throw people off his scent. He could have gotten married to cover his tracks. He could have gotten his “wife” pregnant to make the hounds go away.
But he didn’t. Instead, he artificially inseminated a woman who wasn’t his girlfriend or wife and got two for the price of one: He came out without any speeches and lived out a dream without living through a nightmare.
Good for him. I still don’t like what he’s done to music but I love what he’s done to his character. You can just tell he’s going to be a great parent. Anybody who goes through the hellish machinations of IVF to bring a child into the world is doing it because they want to devote their lives to something bigger than themselves.
Right. But that’s the problem when you give sex advice for a living–everybody assumes you’re so highly sexed you could turn a burglary into a porn scene.
Occupational hazard, I guess.
Reminds me of a great line by Michael C. Hall, who played a gay funeral director in Six Feet Under. A reporter asked him if he was gay. He said:
“Why doesn’t anybody ever ask if I run a funeral parlor?”
Co-host of HBO's The Sex Inspectors, author of Men Are Pigs But We Love Bacon, columnist for Manhunt.net and principal passenger on the Grey Goose bus.
