Here I am, trying so hard to NOT write another "I hate Michele Bachmann so much" post but have epically failed. I mean, things started off better. I was actually going to write about something I disagreed with in
The Advocate. But then Rick Perry
pissed off the world, and I was going to start off there. But then [Львица] stumbled across
this. And of course, it was back to Bachmann.
Here's the section I found appalling:
Bachmann warned The Lion King was Gay Propaganda: At the November 2004 EdWatch National Education Conference, Bachmann said
the “normalization” of homosexuality would lead to “desensitization”:
“Very effective way to do this with a bunch of second graders, is take a picture of ‘The Lion King’
for instance, and a teacher might say, ‘Do you know that the music for
this movie was written by a gay man?’ The message is: I’m better at what
I do, because I’m gay.”
Basically, I'm going to let Stewie Griffin say what I feel about that. Because words alone aren't going to cut it.
I actually forgot that the quote ended that way until I made the pic. Thank you, Stewie, for creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bachmann's attempts to keep America from normalizing homosexuality will just make people gay. Yes, that is exactly the point I wanted to make :P
Where I was actually going with this is I kind of loathe Michele Bachmann. It's not that I wish her ill. It's not that I actually want to harm her or any such thing. It's just... the things that she says makes me physically ill and I very much wish she wasn't saying them. Lemme put this in perspective for you.
Before I read this article, I came across
one about John Barrowman (thanks to
bloggingbarrowman on Tumblr). Now, as the entire universe probably knows by this point, I love this man to the point of being utterly irrational and insane (I'm sorry; he named a his Jack Russell terrier "Captain Jack." If that's not the cutest thing ever, then I don't know what is). Anyway, this article quotes many clever, wonderful things from Barrowman. But this is perhaps one of my favorite:
John is clearly in an impossible situation when it comes to his
sexuality. He would like it to not be an issue. He says, 'I'm an actor.
Not a gay actor. Is Brad Pitt ever described as a "straight actor"?'
Word. Point is, being gay is not the first thing a lot of actors want to be described as - for reasons we discussed in social psych. Say things like "male nurse" or "black lawyer" or "woman doctor" imply that they are outside the social norms and perpetuate stereotypes. So, using their sexuality as a reason they're better at what they do is... well, flat-out wrong. Or, as [novel killer] said about the subject on Facebook: "Does this mean that Bachmann
does view gay people as more talented and thus that is why she seems to
not like them? Because that seems to be the only way she could come up
with that correlation." Agreed.
Of course, there's a problem with having these concerns so near and dear to my heart. While mentioning this about Bachmann to my dad this morning, the conversation went basically something like this:
Dad: "She's not going to win the nomination anyway, so don't worry about it."
Me: "Yeah, but she's not the only one saying stuff like this."
Dad: "Sure, but I'm more worried about getting four more years of what we have now. That'll really destroy our country."
When you're in an economic crisis, it's difficult to make something like human rights a priority - I sort of touched on this in
my politics post. But like I said, I feel like I shouldn't have to choose. Candidates should care about both. But I digress...
And though I have been hating on Bachmann (a lot), something else Barrowman said in that article got me thinking about a TV show that has been troubling me of late:
He was famously rejected for the role of Will in Will & Grace, on
the grounds that he was 'too straight'. He rolls his eyes. 'Because I
like sports and I like cars, I'm not easy to slot into that "camp" box.
To me, it is just pigeonholing. Too easy.'
He believes that
the Will & Grace model is a perfect example of what is wrong with
the way the big American networks portray 'gayness'.
'If that
programme was true to life, Will would have a boyfriend. But they want
to perpetrate the myth that he is waiting to be "cured".'
John Barrowman was rejected for the role of Will?! Wow... just wow. I kind of have a special place in my heart for "Will and Grace" because it was the first sitcom I ever seriously watched. And it was the first show I ever saw homosexuals on. But I gotta agree with Barrowman here. I remember one episode - the last episode I watched of it, actually - where Grace wanted to have a baby and for some reason she wanted to have Will's baby and instead of doing artificial insemination, they were going to sleep together. And I was like, "WHAT THE FUCK?!" It seemed totally wrong to me. Let me have NPH explain why:
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| via the-slow-show.tumblr |
There you go - how simple was that? Will is a gay man. Will would probably never sleep with Grace unless under threat of death - he's her friend, not her friend with benefits, boyfriend, OR A STRAIT MAN AT ALL. Within that moment, the entire show went from being kind of stereotypical but supportive of gay culture to being totally... awkward. I've never felt quite right about that show ever since.
This is the whole reason why I don't like the term "fag hag" (and thus wrote
that post about it) - because it in some ways insinuates that women who are friends with gay men just want to change him into a strait man and sleep with him (not necessarily in that order). That's not to say "fag hag" is always used that way. But that association is one of the major issues I have with it.
So, it seems the pic I used on my post for "fag hag" might be more fitting than I thought. There's some weird, complex stuff at work here - wanting to portray Will in a stereotypically gay way, but getting him to end up with Grace in the end. And making women who are friends with gay men just wanting to actually sleep with him instead of being friends. It's this weird, discordant... mess.
And to add to that mess, I feel like addressing people who keep saying stuff like "I'd totally sleep with [insert name of hot gay celebrity here] if he wasn't gay!" Partly, I feel like it could be too easy to slide back into the "wanting to turn him straight" mess (or have people declare that's what you mean). I also feel like it's not true. Honestly, I'm totally obsessed with John Barrowman because of who he is; I feel like if he were straight, he'd be an entirely different person. So girls out there who have a major crush on a gay man: it's okay. You want to sleep with a gay man. It'll never happen, but neither will sleeping with Brad Pitt. That's the way it goes.
So... this took me a lot longer to write than I thought it would. Mainly because of the
Will and Grace tangent. And I still haven't gotten to that article from
The Advocate. Dammit. Well, to be continued then...
