And, on a lighter note

This one's just kind of confusing, but I think it might be a good thing.

A recent study done surveyed the television preferences of people on the basis of their political standing, and here's an interesting fact: among typically anti-gay Republicans' favorite shows is ABC's comedy "Modern Family," which if you don't know it, features a gay couple with an adopted Vietnamese daughter among its characters.

Wait, what?

Okay, to be fair, Modern Family features a very large family made up of three separate households: the aforementioned gay couple and their daughter, a traditional American household with a loving husband and wife and three children, and an older man (the father of one of the members of the gay couple and of the wife in the traditional household) who remarried to a somewhat younger Colombian woman with a son from her first marriage.  As explained to me by my sister's communication's professor (I was interviewing her about television for a school project) it presents lots of different options and lets the viewer decide which ones they like in order to appeal to a wide demographic.  But still, it's interesting that a show acknowledging the presence of many alternative lifestyles makes it into the top TV picks of Republicans.  What pleases me about this is the idea that the supposed best way to convince people to join a pro-gay rights stance is by them getting to know a gay person.  Although fictional characters are no substitute for reality, and may not actually have any effect whatsoever, at least Republicans are getting exposed to the idea.  Mitch and Cameron, the couple in question, have realistic concerns in a realistic life, and Mitch isn't even a stereotypical gay man.  Maybe seeing that will help people come around to the idea that there is no such thing as a secret gay agenda.

Oxy Student From CSP19 (2009) In The New York Times!

My goodness! One of my students from last year's CSP19: Gay Rights in the Obama Era, Josh Erdman (pictured above, right), is quoted in today's New York Times in an article entitled "For Gays, New Songs Of Survival":

THERE is no better place to witness the growing pains of pop music than on the video-sharing site YouTube, where for the past year Josh Erdman, 20, and Bill Klute, 19, both sophomores at Occidental College in Los Angeles [emphasis added], have been posting clips of themselves singing covers of pop songs by Miley Cyrus, B.o.B, Kelly Clarkson and other Top 40 regulars. Shot mostly in Mr. Erdman’s dormitory room, where the walls are adorned with posters of Lady Gaga and from the television series “True Blood,” the videos have the simplicity and sincerity of a campfire singalong. After several of the clips received over 100,000 views, the two men began to add a small stamp to the videos that reads “Legalize Gay,” a line that Mr. Klute cribbed from a T-shirt he bought at American Apparel.

“We weren’t sure if we were going to express our orientation with these videos,” said Mr. Erdman, a member of Occidental’s Queer Straight Alliance. “But we wanted people like us to know we’re out there.”

After finding “We R Who We R” on a music-sharing Web site a couple of weeks ago, they updated the stamp to read, “Legalize Gay ’Cause We Are Who We Are.”

“The lyrics obviously spoke to us,” Mr. Klute said. “What these artists are doing means the world to the gay community.”

The article even links to their YouTube channel, KoverBoys. I am amazed! Will some of you be in the New York Times next year? You can read the whole thing by clicking on the picture.

Homosexuality in the media part two

In which Hanna devotes an ENTIRE BLOG POST to the worship of Joss Whedon.  (I can't help myself.  Anyway, why the heck not?)

So I just kind of wanted to get some different opinions on this because, due to the fact that I worship Joss Whedon, I feel my point of view might be... biased.  If you don't know who Joss Whedon is, he's the guy who made Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel (a spin-off of Buffy), Firefly, Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, and most recently Dollhouse.  The reason I'm blogging about him is that in every single one of those shows (except Dr. Horrible, because it was a 3 episode webseries about 45 minutes long total) there is at least one episode with GLBT themes or a homosexual character.  To be specific, it's generally lesbians.

This didn't really emerge fully until season 4 of Buffy.  When the boyfriend of one of the main characters (Willow) leaves Sunnydale, a few episodes later, she meets her new love interest, Tara.  As the name might imply, Tara's a girl.  It takes them about a year to kiss onscreen, but they have a clearly loving, compassionate relationship, and in the musical episode, Tara sings a love song to Willow that is absolutely loaded with sexual subtext.  Their relationship is treated just as seriously as any of the heterosexual relationships on the show, and Willow's prominence as a character does not decrease at all as a result of her getting a girlfriend.  That would be all well and good, except that Tara dies tragically at the end of the sixth season (at the hands of a misogynist serial killer.  Make of that what you will.)  Which would still all be pretty well and good (Buffy characters love interests have been dying and/or leaving them since season one) if it weren't for Kennedy.  Introduced as a potential slayer in season 7, Kennedy is a brash, bossy, often obnoxious lesbian who makes a point of showing off just how lesbian she is (sometimes to humorous effect... e.g, another potential slayer, holding a stake, says that she loves the feeling of wood in her hand, to which Kennedy responds "Lost me there.")  About halfway through the season, Kennedy and Willow start dating.  Willow is sweet, shy, bookish, and not entirely over Tara's death yet.  Kennedy does not seem in the least like her type.  So why?  It sort of seems like she just jumped on the first lesbian that came around.  (Also interesting when talking about Willow is her relationship with her boyfriend Oz, the one who leaves.  Though they're made out to be quite in love with each other previous to his departure, once she starts dating Tara, she pretty much becomes and out-and-out lesbian... no chance that she'd date a boy in the future.  Does this paint homosexuality as a choice?)

Excluding Angel (I remember there being an episode with GLBT themes but I can't remember which so I'm just gonna skip it) we have the lesbian encounters in Firefly and Dollhouse, both of which follow a similar theme, because from a certain viewpoint, both cases are a form of glorified prostitution.  In Firefly, this takes place between the Companion Inara, a main character on the show, and a female client.  Companions in Firefly are sort of a cross between prostitutes and geishas, very high-class, very expensive courtesans whose services extend beyond sex, who choose their clients very carefully, and who give careful attention to the emotional and spiritual components of sex as well as the actual sexual component.  Though only female Companions are seen in-show, it's likely that there are male ones as well according to many fans, and apparently, the gender of the clients doesn't matter either, judging by the episode War Stories in which the 'councilor' Inara is meeting with turns out to be a woman.  Note that Inara herself is implied to be completely straight, up to and including being the love interest of the show's main character Captain Malcom Reynolds.  In Dollhouse, the situation has a similar tenor.  The entire premise of the show is of an underground business in Los Angeles that rents out "Actives," people whose real personalities and memories have been wiped out and replaced with literally whatever the client wants.  Echo, the show's main character and an Active, is hired out at various times to be a spy, a break-in artist, a bodyguard/singer, a negotiator, an investigator, a hit man, a therapist, a mother, and most often, a romantic partner, in any form the client desires (ranging from dominatrix to schoolgirl.)  And like Companions, there's more to the interaction than just sex, because Actives can be "imprinted" to be anything and anyone you want, and when there is romance involved, they will truly feel they're in love.  It is implied frequently in Dollhouse that it is far from unusual to have a female client hire a female active for a romantic engagement, or have a male client hire a male active for a romantic engagement (Echo even married a female client on an engagement once, according to the episode "A Love Supreme").  Still, however, when the Actives have their real personalities restored to them, all three of the central character Actives are straight.  Dollhouse also has one minor character, Mag, who is not and never has been an Active and is implied to be lesbian, but she only appears in the two season finales.

The reason I find all of this interesting is that the GLBT themes in Joss Whedon's work are all filled with "Yes, but"s.  GLBT encounters in Dollhouse and Firefly are forms of prostitution in which at least one participant is straight, and in Buffy, though one of the three most central characters is a lesbian, she only becomes one halfway through the series, and in seventh season doesn't seem to care what her partner is like so long as she's a girl.  Personally, I'm inclined to think that Whedon's work sends an overall positive message about GLBT issues, but I am forced to admit there's a mixed quality to it.  What do you think?  Are these messages a good thing overall, a bad thing overall, or somewhere in between?

An Example Of Willful Blindness or Defiant Ignorance?

The student newspaper The Daily Targum at Rutgers has published an editorial which claims that the media is exploiting the death of gay teen Tyler Clementi.

Here is the editorial in its entirety.

The death of University student Tyler Clementi might have been properly mourned if it were not for the massive rallies and aggressive news coverage that altered the nature of the situation. The truth is that an 18-year-old boy killed himself - he was a student just like the rest of us, someone just trying to receive an education. Yet people's relentless agendas took his death and turned it into a cause based on false pretenses.

A crowd of more than 20 people ended up lying outside the entrance of the Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus the first night of the news breaking. The chants were, "We're here. We're queer. We want safety in our homes." The mistake was that Clementi's death should not have been turned into a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender protest for gay rights and safe spaces at the University. Robert O'Brien, Department of Anthropology assistant instructor, led the rally as he chanted, "Not safe in dorms, not safe at Rutgers." Essentially, an angry mob fending for their rights turned the death of a young boy into a cause for "safe spaces" for gays across the University - all the while, these spaces already existed. We have groups across campus that deal with students' psychological difficulties - 17 Seconds is one that deals with suicides - as well as groups that address their sexual orientation. We have these spaces, and the University community is diverse enough to provide students with whatever it is they need.

The focal point of Clementi's tragic death should have been a boy's inability to deal with the hardships of life. And yet the news and certain organizations picked this up and carried it into the ranks of general causes for major social groups - for their profit. Did Tyler really feel unsafe after all? Do we know the reason behind his suicide? Do we know if he, himself, would take part in the movement behind his death - the push for safe spaces?

It is disappointing that everyone from news to celebrities picked up the story. Actress Brittany Snow and actor Neil Patrick-Harris are just two of the many celebrities belittling Clementi's death - forcing his remembrance into a cause rather than a proper mourning.

We did not know Tyler. It was barely three weeks into his first year at the University, and most of his neighbors in his residence hall barely knew him. Turning his death into a push for gay rights is a fallacy. Homosexuality is not the only reason for which people kill themselves. In this case, it might have pushed Clementi over the edge, but the fact that he was gay should by no means turn his death into a march for safe spaces. These groups want to be heard. They want the attention. They want their agendas to shine in the limelight.

Instead, we should address that the signs of a suicidal 18-year-old kid were unseen and went unnoticed, not "We want safety in our homes." We have the safety, or as much of it as we together as a University community can in today's world. What we need is to notice those of us who need help and help them. Entertainers stay away. O'Brien leave the issue alone. Let us - family, friends and the University together - mourn for Clementi, and just for him, rather than using him as a martyr for a cause that has yet to be proven.

To me, this appears to be an example of what USC Politics Professor Ange-Marie Hancock called "willful blindness" and "defiant ignorance." Willful blindness is the deliberate action by one group to not acknowledge or care about the oppression faced by another group. Defiant ignorance is the unwillingness of one group to be informed or educated about the oppression faced by another group.

Are the editors at the Targum being disingenuous (a manifestation of willful blindness) when they discount the known facts that occurred before Clementi's body was found? There are electronic records of Clementi's last statements before he jumped off that bridge, since he used the web and social media to express his thoughts, and they refer to his roommate and what had happened.

Or are they just exhibiting cluelessness (a manifestation of defiant ignorance) about what the life of a closeted 18-year-old kid in his first three weeks of college at a huge state school are like?

I think its both. Either way, the editors are the ones that are abusing Clementi's memory, in my opinion.

Effeminacy. Too Feminine?

While I was browsing Twitter this morning, I saw a link to an article that claims that there should be a line between those who are effeminate (and male identifying) and homosexual and those who are effeminate and claim to be heterosexual. The article (found here), pictures Bill Kaulitz from the German band Tokio Hotel. Bill is the lead singer, and self-identifies as a heterosexual male. He does, however, have a very soft face, and can often be seen wearing eye makeup, which I've come to realize is a signifier of femininity.

This is Bill. He doesn't, however, wear traditionally feminine clothing. He dresses in jeans and t-shirts, but he chooses to wear his hair long. I fail to see how this makes a person "too feminine to be straight."

Intrigued, I started thinking about the different ways that the media affects what people think of a person's sexuality. For example, Adam Lambert is openly homosexual, but his bass player, Tommy Ratliff (on the right), is heterosexual. During the "Glamnation" tour, there are multiple homoerotic moments between the two, and there are many different kisses throughout the night. Does this make Tommy Ratliff homosexual, or is it a part of the desire for more attention? Maybe it's just fun?

So then, where do we draw the line? At what point does typically homosexual behavior make a heterosexual man seem gay? Who decides?