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| 1. I am glad that someone who is as prevalent, popular, and known as Sacha Baron Cohen is making the effort to tackle LGBT issues head-on. (And he really is making the effort: "Sacha Baron Cohen has gone undercover as his alter ego Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion show presenter, to crash a rally in support of a measure that would ban same-sex marriage in California." [The Telegraph]) Yes, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal did a fabulous job with Brokeback Mountain. But outside of that, how many Hollywood stars are willing to engage in predominantly-LGBT-related movies? Thank you so much, Clea DuVall, Natasha Lyonne, and Lena Headey, but unfortunately, your names don't turn heads. Sacha's, on the other hand, breaks necks... which is a good thing. "If nothing else, let's hope this prompts a lot of conversation," said Cathy Renna, a former GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) official who is now a public relations consultant. Even if the movie doesn't achieve it's intended purpose, it certainly has sparked a lot of attention. The film is bringing LGBT issues to the forefront of Americans' political agendas, which is much better than having it hide in the back of the closet.
2. GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios said that the movie's mock marriage scene "doesn't help Americans understand the lives of gay couples who are denied the rights and protections of marriage in 43 states." However, I disagree. The scene in question depicts Bruno as a groom attempting to disguise his male assistant as a bride. The costumes, the acting, and the text are clearly over-the-top hilarious, yet they do comment on a serious and frustrating situation. Because of this, the scene presents the perfect satire for the issue. It's like a Helen Keller joke: at first you laugh, and then you start to feel horrible about yourself because you realize that it's actually not funny at all. With this scene, you watch and can't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. But when you come to the realization that these are lengths that LGBT individuals honestly do consider going to in order to attain the basic human rights that heterosexual couples are granted... that's when it hits you and makes you feel like shit.
3. A major concern with the LGBT community is that Bruno decreases the public's comfort with gay people. However, this issue is also resolved by the overtly flamboyent nature of the film. Universal took Sacha and turned him into a completely unrealistic gay man - one that you would probably never come across in real life. This image of Bruno, then, sticks in the audience's mind and almost becomes the "standard" of what an LGBT individual is supposed to be like. (So far, this doesn't sound beneficial at all... but stick with me.) This is a good thing, because when the audience comes across a non-heterosexual individual in real life and realizes that this person does not walk around in lederhosen 24/7, they'll see that LGBT individuals are not so different from themselves and, thus, will find it easier to connect.
4. GLAAD also complains that Universal did not take their opinion into serious consideration. "The organization 'shared a number of concerns, and unfortunately, the scenes that [they] had the biggest concerns about remained in the film,' ... One such scene shows Bruno in a hot tub with his adopted infant son and two naked men involved in a sex act." (The Associated Press) In regards to that specific scene, satire (once again) clearly prevails. It does not take a genius to realize that such a situation is not realistic at all in any sese. Thus, the point is obviously to poke fun of the prevalent, inaccurate mindset in which the public views non-heterosexual relationships. If you don't buy that, the effort Universal made to include GLAAD at all in the editing process is at least a step in the right direction.
5. "Of all minority groups I think gay people are the most likely to be able to laugh at themselves," said Renna. I want to give the population some credit and believe that many of them will be intelligent enough to understand the satire in the film. But even if it completely flies over everyone's heads, the movie at least serves as a sort of message to us from the movie industry/Universal/Sacha/whoever that they're on our side. The satire does indeed make us laugh as well as scare us... but ultimately, the intent is to make the case for the LGBT community - something that should make us proud and inspire us to fight on.
6. The reason why the movie doesn't engage in pure, simple, unquestionable satire is because the producers do want to make it appealing to the public. If they didn't push the envelope, people wouldn't be as enthused to see it and, thus, the exposure the issue is currently getting would have decreased exponentially. And in reality, it doesn't push the envelope that far. Yes, there are many parts that are pretty bad. But it's not completely horrible. Universal knew when to rein it in; there's a balance between ruining a movie with stupid, unneccesary elements and adding just the right amount to get people to come and still understand the main message of the movie. I believe that the producers achieved just that: they pushed it just far enough to attract the maximum amount of attention while still preserving the integrity of the flim.
7. I think the scene with Ron Paul is perfect and really makes a statement: complacency and a contradictory voting record on LGBT issues is not enough. Yes, we're all glad you voted against the Federal Marriage Ammendment in 2004. But when you turn right around and speak in favor of DoMA that same year, you screw yourself over... which kinda makes it okay for Sacha to go and screw with you. (Karma's a bitch, my friend.)
8. Two words: perfect ending. The last words of the movie come straight from the mouth of Snoop Dogg: "He's gay, he's gay, he's gay..." followed by a "who the fuck cares" shrug and the simple - yet powerful - word, "...okay." That sealed the deal for me. It was quite possibly the only LGBT-friendly moment in the entire film, but it was more than enough to prove that the whole movie really was satire with good intentions.
9. The movie and the surrounding criticism present an opportunity for those of us in the LGBT community to claim a popular film that, in all honestly, really belongs to us. The more we criticize the movie, the more distance we put between us and it... which is the quickest way to turn it into a gay-hating movie. (And who wants that?!) However, when we laugh at it and understand (and explain to those friends of ours who didn't quite get it the first time) the satire and intent of it all, we take the movie and make it a demand for LGBT rights. (And all of those people who list Bruno in the "Favorite Movies" section on their Facebook end up saying more than just, "I love Bruno" ... they're also saying, "I love gays.") | |
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| What is God?
It is my belief that God is completely and totally subjective. A spirit, an entity, man, womyn, or anything between... a bear, a butterfly, a tree, a truck, brown, green, black, orange, white, purple... sometimes God doesn't exist at all. The topic is left completely to the discretion of the individual in question.
What is God to me?
I do not feel that I have had an experience with God... if God exists at all. Appropriately, then, I cannot label, explain, or give a description of God - God is simply a blank space for me... though not a void. There's a big difference: I don't feel empty nor do I feel lacking because I have not had an experience with God. In fact, I feel completely whole as I am. However, I also would not close myself off to the possibility of having an experience with God. Therefore, God is simply a blank space - not an empty hole... simply a white, blank canvas.
Do I believe in a higher power?
I do, yet this higher power is not an entity acting upon my life/soul/thoughts/feelings/etc. My higher power is the karmic element of my life journey. My life journey is full of so many different things (the uncontrollable karmic element being one of those things), yet it is ultimately under my control. My life journey is not a predestined road ahead of me that I follow in order to reach my intended purpose/location/point. My life journey is an ensuing trail of experiences comprised of decisions that I have made. However, there are aspects of my life journey that I cannot control: the karmic element. When I make a decision, I cannot always control the repercussions of my actions that karma brings. Similarly, I cannot control the ups and downs of my life. (The unexplainable good and bad days.) Yet, I do know that these ups and downs balance themselves out in a karmic fashion - after a good period comes an equally bad period. In the end, I think of my life journey as a roller coaster: I can control which direction I go, but I cannot control when/where/how much I'll be going up or down.
What do you think of Christianity?
A quote from Mahatma Gandhi describes my feeling pretty accurately: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Although the lines between our interpretation and the "true story" of Jesus Christ have been heavily blurred, he really doesn't seem that that bad of a guy in the end. Under this Christian interpretation, he healed a lot of people, sacrificed himself on a cross... he seems to be a very loving and caring figure. But then people go and screw it all up by adding in a bunch of anti-LGBT, anti-choice, patriarchal bullshit. If Jesus Christ is who Christians make him out to be, he won't care that I'm bisexual - he'll love me anyway! | |
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| For the longest time, it didn’t even occur to me... but when I started thinking about it, I realized that it’s appalling how limited (and often simply nonexistent) the discourse on LGBT issues in the K-12 education system is. We teach our kids all about Black History Month, yet the term LGBT doesn’t even come into play until they get into high school. (I had a student in one of my classes this past year laugh and ask me, “What does that stand for, Long Beach Ghetto Thugs?” when I used the acronym.) The ignorance is frightening – especially considering the atmosphere that teens are growing up in these days, with “that’s so gay” being one of the most common phrases heard. (It doesn't matter where I am... I hear it at least once every day.) By the time any sort of unbiased, factual, LGBT-related information gets distributed, these teens’ lives have already been corrupted by the heteronormative, homophobic mindset in which “gay” is a synonym for “bad.”
I think the root problem of this issue is the idea that non-heterosexual concepts are too “adult” for children to be educated about. It’s an inherent notion in many individuals’ brains that non-heterosexual relationships are not “pure” and “simple.” You see a man and a womyn and can immediately imagine the 2 car garage, white picket fence, and 2.5 kids. You see two men or two wimmin and can only imagine the couple as having a “sinful” sexual relationship and nothing more. Why is this? Blame it on biblical biology. Penis + vagina = baby (the foundation for marriage, as arbitrated by the bible)... which quickly yields to the big house, white picket fence, etc. Any other relationship cannot produce this same result and is, therefore, categorized as being outside of the "norm" - the "pure" and "simple" hetero norm. It is under this false mindset that I feel like we choose to only educate our children (the young, bright-eyed youth of our country) about those things that are good and pure – heterosexual marriages.
Yet if we break this dichotomous mindset in which we choose to only see things based on anatomy, we can begin a sort of rhizomatic understanding of relationships in which a man and a womyn are not the only components of a family. A good friend of mine (AJ Jenkins) once said, “...family is about building liberating human relations with people who care about and love one another. Family is about supporting each others goals and aspirations...” The inability to biologically reproduce doesn't make one dirty, impure, or "against the family." If that were the case, sterile couples and older couples (those past the age of fertility) would be standing right alongside with us queers. What about artificial insemination? What about in vitro fertilization? What about adoption?
Step One: Stop thinking in terms of biology, and start thinking in terms of what a family really is.
Step Two: Realize that "family" is not an exclusive concept.
Step Three: Begin to teach our children about all types of relationships and families.
Step Four: Live in a better world.
I don’t see why Kindergartners can’t learn about princes marrying princes. If we don’t start then, when will they ever learn? | |
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| Every year on this date, Americans pull out their red, white, and blue t-shirts and fire up their grills to celebrate the independence and "greatness" of our nation. And yet, this is the first time I've ever stopped to actually reflect on the holiday. I asked myself, "What is the purpose of the 4th of July?" I came to three conclusions:
1. To celebrate our independence from England.
"In the United States, Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain." (Thanks, Wikipedia.) Though there certainly were a myriad of reasons, taxation without representation was clearly one of the driving factors leading to this separation. It's simple: the colonists did not want to have to pay taxes if they weren't going to have a say in the politics that governed them - they did not feel it was fair to have to make sacrifices for a country that treated them like second-class citizens. Hmm... sounds familiar. Where have I heard this story before? Oh, yeah - the feminist and gay rights movements! Yet, those two fights still have not gotten their happy ending. Call me cynical, but I find it extremely hypocritical to celebrate and pride ourselves on the concept of freedom while we continue to consciously strangle and deprive certain living, breathing human beings of their inalienable rights.
2. To celebrate the men and wimmin who have died in battle for our nation.
My philosophy on death is that humans should not be able to control it. If you disapprove of the actions of a criminal, then go ahead disapprove of them. But you better not give that individual the death sentence. We as humans should never have the power to determine whether or not an individual is worth life or not. It goes without saying, then, that I disapprove of war. (Especially when other options are available that aren't so primitave.) I understand the need to fight for rights (trust me on that one, sweetie), but I don't understand why violence has to be involved - especially when said violence almost always leads to death. So yes, I will mourn for those who are not alive anymore. I think death is a terribly tragic thing. But I hesitate to celebrate these individuals, for they do stand for the very concept of war and violence that I refuse to glorify.
3. To celebrate our accomplishments as a nation.
I will admit, our country is not as screwed up as I've made it out to be thus far. There have been some amazing landmark events and decisions throughout history that make me proud of our country. (Wimmin's suffrage, Roe v. Wade, election of Obama, CA Supreme Court judges' decision to legalize gay marriage for that brief period of time, etc.) And we definitely don't have it as bad as some other countries do. But I also realize that we have a long way to go before we can truly live up to the title that we have given ourselves: a "free" country. When the day finally comes that I am treated completely equally under the law as every other American citizen... that's the day that I'll celebrate.
But for now, I'll wait. | |
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