Sun, August 10, 2003

Homosexuals are getting a lot of media attention lately and that media attention is getting some serious media attention. For a second I thought America might be finally coming around on the concept that gays are people too, but then I realized it's summer and the news just doesn't know what else to talk about. Time for another war!

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy

Just when you thought NBC had run reality TV into the ground and TLC had killed the makeover show with overexposure... from the ashes rise, homos! Despite sounding like the dopiest TV concept ever, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is irresistible fun and audiences are lapping it up. (Bravo parent NBC is even putting it in the ER time slot this week.) The music, editing, and graphics are top-notch, and I also like it because it portrays gays in a more realistic light than Will & Grace. It shows them interacting with straight guys in a way that neither group necessarily feels compelled to "ham up." It also makes the point – quite effectively – that gays aren't so much prissy and fastidious as straight guys are just boorish slobs. Watching the Fab 5 together, I'm struck by how much the gay lifestyle is really about having a confident, affirmed self-image. They're not afraid to be silly or spend an hour picking out a scented hand lotion because they're proud of who they are. There's a lot we could all learn from that.

Boy Meets Boy

Bravo's other gay-reality offering this summer, Boy Meets Boy is like The Bachelor or any other dating show, except that everybody is male. Which is fine except for the twist: some of the potential mates are heterosexuals posing as gays. How mean! You didn't see any lesbians on The Bachelor! I haven't watched it because it reminds me of the editorial in our college newspaper that advised straight guys to "play gay" in order to win chicks. Which is not only a dishonest way to start a relationship, but cruelly trivializes homosexuality as a cute façade that can be affected or tossed aside at will.

Lawrence et al. v. Texas

The Supreme Court decided that it's unconstitutional for states to legislate the private sexual behavior of consenting adults in their own home. Hooray! I've long said that it's preposterous to limit someone else's freedom when it shows no danger of encroaching upon your own. As though the ability to know that nobody in your county is having gay sex represents a constitutionally protectable freedom on the level of knowing that someone isn't allowed to shoot your or steal your car. Silly. Let them have gay sex, and they'll let you... not.

Rev. V. Gene Robinson

The Episcopal Church has elected its first openly gay bishop. This is nice because it indicates that there are some Christians who think that the faith can peacefully coexist with homosexuality. It's a minority to be sure, but it gives me hope. Plus, Robinson seems like a nice guy and maybe he can do something to restore the image of gays in religious service that Geoghan and the other Catholic priests have tarnished lately.

Anal Sex

Not a fan. I'm not saying nobody else should do it, but if I were in love with a guy, I really think a handjob would be just as good, wouldn't you? Maybe I'm a little squeamish on the issue because I still have an image stuck in my mind of perennial ass-rapist Javier Bardem ramming it into some kid in the dressing room of a bath house in Before Night Falls. It makes me all giggly when I see trailers for The Dancer Upstairs.

Will & Grace

At first it was fun to watch because Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally so completely outshone the dull titular duo, but even that has worn thin as Hayes's character has pushed the homosexual stereotype into new strata of flaming pranciness and the show's toothless approach to the queer lifestyle has made clear that while enlightened to the point of having gay characters, the point is still to laugh at them and not with them. Any self-respecting homosexual quit watching the minute the "maybe Will is in love with Grace after all" story line surfaced, along with all but the most myopic of straight men. (I mean, sure it happens that gays switch teams, but who alive could fall in love with that?!)

(Yep, half a star. I'd rather have anal sex than watch Will & Grace. You wouldn't?)

Gay Marriage

For it. I think marriage represents a powerful and loving bond that results in a life-long commitment to someone else, and same-sex couples should be included in that, too. Particularly since there are so many legal and cultural areas in which "marriage" is the only recognized union available. Gays deserve the same legal rights entering into those unions as well as dissolving them, both of which are tremendously chaotic without the title "marriage." I understand those who believe that "marriage" as a word should be reserved for uniting a man and a woman, but I respectfully disagree. Just as "son" doesn't mean only the relationship between a dad and his straight male offspring, "marriage" shouldn't bear on the sexuality of the two lovers it unites. Their love and their union are just as worthy of recognition.

From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Gay: adj. slang (chiefly U.S.). Foolish, stupid, socially inappropriate or disapproved of; 'lame'.

I really like this. I don't know enough gay people to know whether they're against it or not, but I really think it's funny and perfectly innocent to say "that's gay" about something dumb or lame. Everybody did it in high school, and at the time I thought maybe it was pretty offensive, but today I feel like the atmosphere has changed enough to where (hopefully) homosexuals can see it as a separate thing that doesn't actually intend to disparage their lifestyle. Either way, I'm encouraged by the fact that the use is officially recognized by the OED. By the way, their approach is to show the term's use in quotations from published works. This entry included the following quote, which I swear I am not making up:

1999 T. PARKER & M. STONE Cartman's Mom is Dirty Slut in South Park Scripts: Bk. 1 150 (stage direct.) As the camera zooms in on their faces, that gay 'Near/Far' song from 'Titanic' plays.

Greg Louganis

This is just a shameless attempt to fondly remember in front of a slightly broader audience that when our college paper mentioned that Louganis was coming to speak, I said "He puts the 'gayness' in Greg Louganis," and it made Joe laugh.

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