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(05/02/01 9:00am)
It is beneath me to respond to outdated bigotry. But the ignorant people of the world make themselves more visible every day, and their beliefs lie so far from my plane of existence that I can classify them only as delusions and hallucinations. These people exist, and they speak, so while I am loathe to bless their inane battle cries with printed words, I know that we, the sane people of planet Earth, must type louder, and more often, if we wish to grind this archaic mythology into a permanent past tense.
The idea at work here is that homosexuality is a sin, and therefore should not be protected by law. Yet, if there's one thing I've learned about Christianity in the past few months, straight from the fingertips of e-mail-writing fundamentalists, it's that we're all sinners. According to my new e-mail buddies, I'm not damned to hell because I'm gay -- I'm damned to hell because I haven't accepted Jesus Christ as my savior.
Should the government, therefore, cease to protect all non-Christians? Of course not, because governments cannot function on religious dogma, or any dogma for that matter. The hallmark of an effective society is its ability to change -- an ability which is fundamentally threatened by a static scripture that relinquishes humans of accountability and judgment. It's simply easier to fall back on the Bible. But the real world isn't easy enough to fall back on anything.
So let's just push religion aside for a moment and speak like members of the secular society in which we live. Yet, once we do that, some secular speakers still insist that homosexuality is a choice. It's laughable that the same people who oppose the tyranny of big government will gladly impose their own tyranny on my feelings, which they claim do not exist.
No matter how many conservative scientists or brainwashed homosexuals you herd into a room to say that it's a choice, there is still the simple, and to me, self-evident, fact that I did not choose this, that none of my past boyfriends have chosen this, that none of the gay, bisexual or heterosexual people I've ever known have ever chosen any of their feelings on any subject ever in their lives.
Feelings are simply not something you choose. The Pope doesn't choose his. I don't choose mine. And no one on Earth is qualified to tell me otherwise. You can call that emotionalism or subjectivism, but we're not talking about tax policy here, we're talking about love. What is love if not emotional and subjective?
You can say that these are the justifications of a pedophile, but I'd like to think that anyone who can competently put on clothes in the morning, let alone attend an Ivy League institution, would clearly understand that active pedophilia is a predatory act upon a child incapable of mature sexual reasoning, whereas homosexual love is a consensual relationship between sexually mature adults. To claim otherwise is an inflammatory scare tactic unworthy of a junior high school debater.
"Even if it's a genuine feeling," they might still say, "it is still unnatural and should not be acted upon." I need only point out that all genuine feelings are, by definition, natural, and, in the absence of any apparent negative consequences, there is no reason why two people in love, regardless of gender, should not express that love emotionally and physically, or why a government should not recognize that love as the most natural human feeling there is.
In a rare instance of simplicity, the arguments against homosexuality can be easily defeated without resort to ancient texts. So, I'd like to declare this issue closed, declare that homosexual morality is no longer fodder for public debate, that heterosexism will now be treated, unilaterally, by all mainstream media, with the same moral scorn as racism and murder, that the validity of my life is so fundamentally self-evident that verbal justification would elicit the same "duh" as a lecture on the existence of bricks.
But recent events have reminded me that declarations of logic don't pack such a hefty punch when active word-processors and soapboxes still amplify anachronistic fascism. If I close this issue, then the only audible voice will be the cries of a false god from an erroneous mythology.
So I guess this is the price we must pay for free speech: we must descend below the reasonable realm of sane, autonomous thinkers, to squabble with monsters. We cannot linger in the land of self-evidence -- too much is at stake. So here we are. Beneath ourselves. Does anyone need me to explain bricks?
(04/23/01 9:00am)
It's my last column for the semester, and even though you may be hearing more from me in the fall, I still feel the need to be sentimental.
Sentimentality is a lost American art form, so I'd like to offer you these 700-ish words in hopes of eliciting an "aww" here and there. If I'm really lucky, maybe you'll turn to that stranger over there and give them a big kiss on the cheek, because that's what I'd like to give all of you: a big wet sloppy kiss.
Now that I've ravished you, do permit a brief moment of un-topical anectodalism. Last fall I wrote up two sample essays for a DP columnist application. I stapled all my papers together, and took one last look at the requirements. This time I noticed something about "relevance to the campus community." I glanced back at my sample columns and shook my head: "Nu-uh. Penn is a campus of Abercrombied trust fund legacies who I couldn't possibly relate to on a mass-produced level." I tossed the papers into the recycling bin.
My feelings hadn't really changed over winter break, but I was bored and feeling like an exhibitionist, so I actually sent in my application.
Four months later, I'm telling you, this is mad fun. I started out thinking that only gay people would read my stuff, but in the first few weeks, it seemed like my core readership was made up of sorority girls and Christians -- the kinds of people with whom I thought I shared no common ground. When people started e-mailing me, and stopping me on the Walk, I realized how many different kinds of people really do inhabit these few square blocks.
And the fact that so many people would actually sit down and read about the politics and/or love life of this paper's self-professed token gay columnist says nothing about me, and a lot about you. A lot about acceptance. And a lot about the willingness to diversify, in spite of a still-quite-lacking degree of diversity at this, our nation's first university.
I'm honestly not telling you this to be self-congratulatory -- I'm telling you this because you should get yourself one of these here columns too. All y'all. I don't care how many of you there are, we should all just give up classes and spend every day reading about each other's lives.
Few things are too personal to blabber about to 30,000 people (although my recent run-in with a Student Health doctor's rubber glove barely escaped my editor's computer) -- the personal is political. The very fact that you are here, at this institution, probably says volumes about the nature of our society. What is your gender? What is the color of your skin? What do you worship? How do you feel when you hear Britney Spears sing oh-so-passionately about Pepsi?
As future college-degree-holders, these things matter. As college students under a Republican administration, your point of view matters. Whichever end of the political spectrum you inhabit, you are probably angry about something, and if you don't do something about it, write something about it, sing something about it, draw something about it, dance something about it, then you're wasting your tuition.
The SATs never weeded out the "unworthy" kids. Neither did our lists of extracurricular activities. The college admissions process is ultimately skewed toward people who can afford to look like college material. Some of you may disagree with me, so let's just assume for a moment that many of us are here for reasons other than academic merit. Let's just assume this, for just a second.
If this is the case, then I think we owe something to the people that have been excluded. We owe something to the kids who, no matter how hard they tried, could never have managed to get here. I'm not urging you to become activists (although that would be great) -- I'm urging you to talk, to write, to sing, to draw, to dance. To invigorate the flow of ideas in this all-too-complacent zip code. If we think enough, discuss enough, take our conclusions and act enough (which is the point of college in the first place), then things will get better. The world will get better. And we'll pay our debt to our less-privileged peers.
And I know you can -- because you've been reading this. This past semester, you've read, you've thought and many of you have talked back. Newspapers are only one-way means of communication if you resist the urge to scream. So is college. So is the world. So scream, you crazy kids. Scream.
(04/16/01 9:00am)
I received such beautiful e-mails a month ago, after writing a column about respecting Christianity. People thanked me so kindly, almost cathartically -- so relieved that someone had pointed out that they were not all crazy, right wing, fundamentalist Klan members.
That column, however, was somewhat simplistic. In it, I made the distinction between "good Christian" and "Christian-who-wants-to-disenfranchise-me." Since then, I've realized that there is a continuum, and I just can't find the proper place in my heart or my head for the vast population of middle-ground Christians.
On the one hand, I want to say that they are "good." They believe in peace and love, they are kind, thoughtful and considerate. They try to emulate Jesus in their daily lives, and I must admit, the man had the right idea. There are certainly worse role models. Even I have been tempted to get one of those "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelets, and not just for the kitsch appeal. This way of life comes from honest, productive religious devotion. This, I am fine with. This, I respect. This, is beautiful.
Yet, the flip-side of all this beauty is frightening and deadly. Those who accept the Bible as the literal word of God accept quite a bit. I take issue with a lot of scripture, so I'll limit the scope here to the most fundamental issue I can imagine: love. The physical expression of love between same-gendered people is prohibited by the verbatim Judeo-Christian god.
So how then should I feel about these people who love God, love peace, love me and happen to think that I will be damned the moment I consummate love with another man? It's not hate; it's not even conscious bigotry -- it's obedience. The question, then, is how relevant is that obedience? -- how volatile? How dangerous are these people, really?
I suppose it depends on perspective and scale. On the most micro of levels, there is no threat. I don't feel like I'm in physical danger around these middle-ground Christians. Take a few sociological steps back, though, and the circuit of one-on-one interaction unfolds into a massive machine, where the Christians in question are green lights on the control panel. Their opinion is abstract, intangible: Physical homosexuality is "wrong." It's not for mere humans to punish these "sinners" -- that's God's job, so the green lights just glow calmly and don't directly hurt anyone.
They do, however, activate a neighboring mechanism: it's those pesky "Christians-who-want-to-disenfranchise-me." Once you accept that homosexuality is abstractly "wrong," it won't take long to conclude that it's also evil. The signals zip through the machine as each circuit reinterprets literal Christian dogma until, at the end of the assembly line, far away from those calm green lights, emerges Rev. Fred Phelps, dancing on Matthew Shepard's grave.
In my column a month ago, I was angry that the extreme right had soured me on innocent groups of Christians. Since then, I can't stop wondering how innocent they really are. Their dogma helps validate homophobia. Even the kindest Christians, if they believe every word of the Bible, are part of a killing machine.
That may sound harsh, but it's true, and difficult to deal with. It's hard to look at a pacifist and know they've only kicked a pebble down a hill -- a pebble that gathers earth and turns quickly into a rock, then a boulder, and will land on: who? her? him? ze? me?
You probably think it's a stretch. You're wondering if I started out with an irrational fear and built up this contrived metaphor to validate it for myself. I wish you were right. I wish I could see people for people, and not for their macro-sociological function. If I ever accomplish such a change, I'll be happier -- blinder and happier.
Until then, I apologize to the "Topic/Support/Conclusion" gurus of journalism, because I see nothing final here -- I'm still working this out. Around these people, I still feel like a conflict-monger, as I watch them radiate that serene glow found only on souls who are unswervingly secure in their beliefs. It's heartbreakingly beautiful up close. But I can't not step back, and watch that glow turn into a mechanical green light, as tranquility gives way to death. I can't end it at this. It doesn't seem right.
(04/09/01 9:00am)
I bought the album Not a Pretty Girl in the summer of 1997 -- the summer I took to lingering in downtown D.C., a subway ride away from my sparse Maryland suburb.
I started to recognize the homeless people whose walking routes intersected with mine. I would hide out in the gay and lesbian section of Olssen Books, catching up on my elusive cultural history. Sealed into my dad's tiny old protest T-shirts, I camped out under historical statues, diary in hand, and took notes. All the while, Ani Difranco sang to me, encouragingly, "I am not a pretty girl, I don't really want to be a pretty girl, I want to be more than a pretty girl."
Since then, I've discovered I wasn't alone. Ani Difranco concerts have always been primal, sweaty gatherings of like-minded political leftists, rainbow punks and gender outlaws -- conventional prettiness never dared show its boring, emaciated head.
So Friday night, entering my fourth Ani show, I was unsettled to find: fitted Calvin Klein sweaters, tight black DKNY pants and Kate Spade bags.
This wasn't your local folk venue -- this was Carnegie Hall. The ushers wore bow-ties and there was no room to dance. I saw neckties and leather dress shoes -- accessories not necessarily indicative of the wearer's personality (let's not be superficial). But one simply does not wear a tie, a symbol of patriarchal oppression, to an Ani Difranco show. Out of respect for the victims of lookism, sexism and poverty, it just isn't done.
But it was done, and the tie-wearers and upper-lip-waxers all joined in the thunder of praise that greeted our beloved folksinger as she entered the bare stage, guitar across her chest, walking to a single, isolated microphone in an eerie green spotlight. No sooner did she launch into her first number than did the first cell phone go off -- the first of many. From my still-rather-expensive fourth balcony nosebleed seat, I heard people talking well above whispers. I saw Gap-encrusted young men answer their rude cell phones and engage in conversation, to the visible annoyance of the neighboring pairs of buzz-cut, nose-ring riot grrls.
"Time for your medicine," Ani quipped when a beeper went off during her between-song tirade on affirmative action. I was too far away to see her facial expression, but when she sang, "Imagine that you are the weather in the tiny snow globe of this song / and I am a statue of liberty one inch long," I imagined a look of fear on the Statue's face as she bore down through the ice storm of audience disrespect.
During a guitar solo, the Statue backed away from the spotlight and into the darkness, as if retreating from our objectifying stares, but she was followed instantly by a battery of camera flashes, rooting her out, searchlights on an escaped convict. When she returned to the microphone, she looked like the center of a bulls-eye, the proscenium and spotlight zeroing in on target.
Since I am bemoaning a loss of intimacy here, I feel I must address You, or at least those of You who don't know what I'm talking about, but have been kind enough to read this far, in hopes of finding a universal conclusion You can relate to.
Well think about it this way: the Democratic Party, in the abstract, has some really great ideas. But out of the abstract, and into reality, it must face issues of money, power and compromise. It must incorporate itself into a corrupt system at the risk of corrupting itself, as must any vehicle for change short of an atomic bomb.
Whenever politicians, or activists, or folksingers get close to achieving their goals, or at least spreading their views, they run the risk of overextending and losing perspective like a presidential candidate before a mammoth, faceless crowd at a convention center, or a folksinger performing for people who look frighteningly like right-wing enemy spies.
Ani, however, seems to be coping better than the Democratic Party, and while You may not really care, I do; and just as she, my column's namesake, can punctuate her political anthems with heavy doses of the first-person-singular tense, I'd like to claim this simple moment for a personal note, in hopes that You enjoy watching:
I wish everyone could have a summer stranded in the city to find themselves and a hero; and I wish everyone could then see that hero threatened, could then sympathize with that hero, but then move on because they don't need heroes anymore. It's nice.
(04/04/01 9:00am)
It was nice being in the sexual majority the other morning. Usually, for me, majority status comes only with a smoky dance floor and a house beat that makes my jeans vibrate. The other morning, however, it came with a blazing sun and a crunchy breeze.
The B-GLAD rally contained so much condensed goodwill that I found myself smiling in spite of the windy chill creeping down my neck. My grin flinched though, often and painfully, upon each casual utterance of the word "queer." Finally, a friend whispered to me, "I'm still trying to get used to that word."
Smiling in spite of myself, I responded, "I'm not."
I'm insulted when some jerk on the street shouts "queer" at me, and I'm equally insulted when those shouts come from a rainbow-clad podium. "Queer" just like "faggot," "nigger" and "kike," has a very specific, derogatory meaning. It doesn't just mean "different" -- it means frighteningly different; it implies something insidious and deviant.
But many in the LGBT community disagree with me. They say that we've "reclaimed" the word. The B-GLAD supplement to the DP called "queer" a "self-affirming umbrella term." People who embrace this word have tried in earnest to convince me that it's perfectly fine, and I respect their opinion. I don't, however, feel that my opinion is given the same respect -- not by a long shot.
Last year, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Alliance decided to change its name. Being on the LGBA discussion listserv, I witnessed the dialogue unfold... and unfold and unfold and unfold. Dozens of epic e-mails would fill my mailbox every day, and "Queer Student Alliance" was clearly a popular option. But it was by no means unanimous, and the dissenting voices were dissenting with passion.
In the end, we became the QSA, and I removed my e-mail address from the listserv, wondering how on earth this organization -- supposedly a refuge of sensitivity and comfort -- could appropriate a word so clearly hurtful to so many people. As far as I'm concerned, if even one person in this community is offended by "queer," then the word has no business in public discourse, let alone in the name of an organization. I fear for my safety and dignity in the outside world, and I've accepted that. What I will not accept, however, is being disrespected in my own community.
And all of this for what? For an umbrella term. It's too much to say, "gay lesbian bisexual transgender and questioning," whenever you want to reference "the community." We needed an umbrella term, and this is all we could come up with?
I find it absurd that the existing terminology is so limited that we had to resort to one with so many horrid connotations. And who said we needed to rummage through the existing lexicon? If you have something to say, but you don't have a word for it, make one up! We can be Shmoo people, or Mifo people -- whatever you want! I dare you to be offended by "Bafaz Student Alliance."
That certainly doesn't offend me. To be fair, I'm not easily offended. That's why this is a problem. If I'm offended, imagine a bisexual girl from a small Midwestern town, just discovering a community of people like her, and then confronting the word "queer." It's hard enough to come out of the closet without a synonym for "strange" and "deranged" plastered all over the land beyond the closet door.
The irony is that this term has fragmented the community it was meant to unify. In the process of herding gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people into a word, the community establishment -- on campus, academic and national levels -- has effectively excluded people who feel as I do.
And it's not our problem. Stubborn as it may sound, it's not our responsibility to change. If an African-American campus group changed its name to "Nigga Student Alliance," I dare say black student dissent would be understandable. No one would ask them to politely rid their minds of previous semantic knowledge to conform to their newly imposed label, and if anyone suggested such a thing, he or she would be called condescending and insensitive.
But now, even in gatherings where I'm in the sexual majority, I feel condescended to -- I feel attacked. And I'm not alone.
Our campus LGBT community -- a community that calls "queer" an umbrella term while using a "silent T" in "B-GLAD" -- should prioritize sensitivity over semantics.
(03/26/01 10:00am)
When I was in fifth grade, I slaughtered my entire class.
In my own series of comic books, I was Captain Kid, the courageous superhero who rid the world of its most vile supervillains (my classmates' alter egos) one issue at a time.
Each issue would begin as the supervillain terrorized some poor nerd; then Captain Kid would swoop in and defeat his foe in a splattering of blood and intestines. I went through dozens of red markers.
So, around seven years later, when this sort of thing started happening for real, I was horrified to find myself relating to murderers. I knew exactly what they were going through -- right until the moment when they lost all hope.
Up until recently, when schoolyard victims lost hope, they just got rid of themselves; the next day, society would mourn and wonder melodiously "Why'd they do it" but never really ask -- never, as a collective, vocal society, really try to figure it out -- let alone actively try to prevent it from happening again.
But now, the loss of hope for one can equal the loss of life for many. Now, we equate hopelessness with aggression, as though the teenage suicides of the past were not themselves acts of violence against the individual by a suburbia that incubates hate.
Now, the victims of American childhood are no longer satisfied to fade silently into oblivion. Now, the loss of hope is accompanied by a loss of patience, and while the materialization of all this loss chills me through my bones, I must point out, mournfully and hopefully, that we're seeing results -- people are discussing.
They began this search for answers after Columbine, but talk quieted down, and it has shamefully taken another tragedy to propel this issue back into public discourse. The short-sighted will ask, "Why do kids kill?" and the broader thinkers will ask, "Why are kids miserable?" In the twilight of our "kid-ness," it is our responsibility to add a freshly-veteran perspective into this conversation, so here is what I see, having only recently left the trenches:
I see unfocused blame. First, it was placed on guns. Fine, a valid, but incomplete observation. Now, the media is narrowing in: bullying. Closer, and almost synonymous with what I see as the problem. "Bullying" is a physical action -- a symptom, not a disease.
The problem as I see it can exist without punching, without even name-calling. Simply being ostracized is enough to embitter. Violence and verbal abuse are all just superficial markings of a larger social structure that systematically isolates smart kids, fat kids, different kids; deprives them of early socialization and turns them all into doomed awkward kids.
A smart, lonely 30-year-old is not isolated because other 30-year-olds pick on nerds; he's isolated because the bigotry of second graders prevented him from ever learning how to have a normal conversation. The easily-dismissible cruelty of elementary school packs victims into a system of outcast tracking. Once on that track, one can either suck it up and hope for a better future, or give up and grab a gun.
So you can go into high schools and preach acceptance all you want, but once the freaks and nerds get that old, all the anti-bullying legislation in the world won't make the well-meaning, well-adjusted kids want to be their friends. That's the real root of the problem -- not violence, but isolation: lack of intimate contact. Ostracized kids lash out because they are alone.
So the moment they enter the school system, we have to teach kids to be friends with those who are different -- that's the key to the problem, and, in a larger sense, the point of America.
But how on Earth can "we" do it? This problem exists outside of political sway. It's a cultural problem, and a cultural solution. That solution can't come from a teacher. It can only come -- frighteningly enough -- from popular entertainment: the real teachers of America's children.
Kids aren't going to learn camaraderie when they're obsessed with Pokemon, an enterprise based on violent competition. They can't avoid judging each other on looks when they watch Britney Spears jiggle her breasts on the Disney Channel.
If outsider kids are to be saved, they must be exalted in the media. Only then can everyone else learn to do the same.
When I was in fifth grade, a chubby, bookish nerd with a distinct swish in his step, I'd turn on the TV and the closest thing I saw to my own reflection was Steve Urkel. He went to school with the reflections of my classmates, and they laughed at him. And the unseen studio audience, the reflection of America, laughed on, approvingly.
Nobody laughed but me in "Captain Kid" comic books. And no one's laughing at all in Santee, California. They're talking. They're talking everywhere, and I only hope it doesn't take more blood to sustain this volume of conversation, and keep it going until America stops breeding murderers.
(03/05/01 10:00am)
You are the lead singer/songwriter in a four-member rock band, and you want to quit your day job at XandO. Somehow, you manage to get a contract with a major record label. The label says, "Hey, we're going to give you 20 percent of all sales, and a whopping million dollar advance!"
Welcome to rock stardom, yo. This is the big-time.
But it isn't as simple as that. Out of your advance, you have to pay about $500,000 to record your album, $100,000 for your manager's 20 percent commission, $25,000 to your lawyer and $25,000 to your business manager. After $350,000 in taxes, that leaves the band with $45,000 per member. That's for a year. And eventually, the original million dollars will be completely recoupable.
That's without considering the post-production costs of marketing and distribution, most of which are entirely recoupable by your company. If you're real lucky, you might break even. And to top it off, you don't own the rights to your songs, and you're obligated to keep making records for your label for up to 14 years, or until they drop you.
I'm horrified, and so is Courtney Love. Love is seeking to break her contract with Vivendi Universal, and, in the process, break down the entire major label system. She claims that the Big Five record labels have formed a trust, providing musicians the only means to wide-distribution and promotion, thereby coercing them into signing "sharecropper" contracts, restricting their artistic freedom, and denying them wages.
Now, I've been reading up on this issue (hence the professional-looking statistics), and I'm real tempted to relate all the disgusting details of music-industry fraud, along with each and every intriguing claim in Love's case.
After all, this is a newspaper, and you deserve some facts.
But we've got a week until spring break, we're all cramming for midterms and we don't need any more blasted facts. I'll do us all a favor and wax editorially.
We've been hearing a lot about intellectual property and artists' rights lately -- … la the Napster fiasco -- and the whole mess has illustrated a painful reality of modern life: art is soda is running shoes is long distance service.
Jennifer Lopez has insured her ass with Lloyds of London. N'Sync is a brand of lip-gloss. Music will always be a business as long as artists must get paid, but the music has become significantly less important than the business.
On the surface, something like Napster is a celebration of music and a condemnation of the music business, but it is undeniably at the expense of the artists. To celebrate music is to respect the artist is to buy their album. As Glenn MacDonald writes on his weekly music review web site The War Against Silence, "The major labels are really now just paying the logical price for having promoted musicians as interchangeable cartoon figures, and thus bred shallow, fickle listeners with no sense of ethical responsibility."
The entertainment industry promotes rock stars as virtual fictions, and we buy into it. It is this dehumanization of the musician that has enabled us to qualmlessly steal their music.
Such dehumanization is ironically well-illustrated in the character of Courtney Love. We see her as an attitude, as a lifestyle, as a cartoon character with bad makeup and a ripped-up designer dress. Why should we pay money to a cartoon? And if we shouldn't, then why should the record company?
The more musicians are touted as rich, pampered fictions, the fewer rights they have. And while that may not be significant for Courtney Love, or Metallica, or Dr. Dre, it's vital to the struggling folk rockers and hip-hop outfits who are trying to make a living wage.
Where did it start? Who's to blame for this system of dehumanization? Whoever is at fault, the musicians aren't the only victims. Artists are the soul-doctors of the world -- to cripple them financially is to deny them a creative outlet is to deny us the necessary catharsis brought by music-listening. If the real artists are disenfranchised, then the only ones we'll hear will be the easily-marketable cartoons, except for the precious few independent Ani Difrancos who make it without industry assistance (actually, who else is there, other than Ani Difranco?).
This issue demands scrutiny beyond the ramblings of Courtney Love. In a society in need of cultural healing (and what society isn't?) the rights of the artists are just as important as health care or education reform.
(02/26/01 10:00am)
A lot of Grammy winners thank Jesus Christ in their acceptance speeches, but I must admit, it was a surprise coming from the first recipient of the Best Native American Music Album award.
How ridiculous, I thought, that this award was being hailed as a triumph against oppression, and then the winner gave all the credit to the oppressor's God. I had to laugh.
Context aside, it's hard not to laugh at name "Jesus Christ" these days. I hear it used interchangeably with expletives like "Damn!" or "Oh shit!" more often than with its literal meaning.
So, when I hear someone say, "My lord and savior Jesus Christ," it sounds just like, "My lord and savior, Oh Crap." And that, frankly, is no fair to Christians.
So, of course, I felt like a total jerk in the audience of the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship's, "Is Seeing Believing?... Glimpses of God."
Whenever someone said, "Jesus Christ," my brain registered, "Swear Word," and I had to swallow a chuckle. How awful of me, I thought, to enter this place of serious religious devotion and not only disagree with these people (and feel threatened by their ideology) but subconsciously register the name of their god as potty language!
The performance was a showcase of Christians who express devotion to God through art. My friend Liz was scheduled to dance, so I braved the snow and arrived just as the master of ceremonies was giving her welcome speech. The weather was just awful, so I didn't expect many people to show up -- but the place was packed. I had to sit in the back row. I felt like a sack of melting sludge, but when I looked around, everyone was sunny and chipper.
It was actually rather frightening. Here's why: I associate "Christian" with "oppression."
While the words "Jesus Christ" make me think of swearing, the word "Christian" makes me think of the Christian Coalition. The Christian Coalition makes me think of homophobia. Homophobia makes me think of violence. Violence makes me think of death. And death makes me think specifically of my death.
To condense, that's "Christian = my death." Needless to say, a room full of happy Christians made me apprehensive.
Then Liz took the stage, glowing in a long white skirt. She craned her neck up to the microphone, Bible in hand, and spoke of God's indiscriminate love. She read a passage where Jesus lets a prostitute wash his feet. His floowers are shocked that he would let himself be defiled by such a woman, but he doesn't care.
Liz put her book away, and the music started. Mind you, I usually hate watching dancers, but I was completely transfixed. Liz, usually boisterous and frenetic, poised herself with such singular purpose. She wasn't dancing so much as she was being carried somehow, her inward concentration too intense to let me believe that she had conscious control of her movements.
Only during such moments of satisfying artistic experience do I ever have real epiphanies, and rarely do I remember what they were, but I will endeavor to reconstruct.
What I understood during that performance was that the word "Christian" is insufficient. There really should be different words for "good-Christian" and "Christian-who-wants-to-disenfranchise-me."
It's wrong that I should be paranoid in a group of people who love Jesus. It's not their fault that I'm scared -- it's the doing of their less-Christ-like counterparts. The extreme Christian Right has soured me on Christianity, just like vapidly sexual TV shows like Queer as Folk might sour Christians on gay people.
And while it's easy and true to say that it's the fault of the stereotype-feeders, it's difficult and equally true to say that it's our fault too for lacking the ability to discriminate where discrimination is due. If we can't figure out who the bad guys are, we might become the bad guys ourselves.
If I expect Christians to understand that TV-gay people aren't always the same as real-gay people, then I have to understand that not all Christians are Jerry Falwell. And if I expect Christians to omit offensive phrases like "that's so gay" from their vocabulary, then I must in turn cease to exclaim "Jesus Christ" when I could just as easily say something neutral like "Shit."
We should return those words we hold dear to their proper semantic resting places -- let "gay" mean "homosexual" and "Jesus Christ" mean "Jesus Christ." Amen.
(02/19/01 10:00am)
I made fake vomit noises when Elton John started doing songs for Disney movies, but that was all in good fun. He was supplying the children of America with some harmless, formulaic tunes about... what was it -- love?
Today, those vomit noises are no joke. Sir John has agreed to perform at the Grammys with everyone's favorite overrated potty-mouth, Eminem, effectively condoning, validating and participating in some of the cheapest, most socially destructive garbage ever to reach the stereos of elementary schoolers. Now, Elton John is supplying the children of America with hate.
The word "hate" is used pretty freely in this debate, and often wrongly. I would be shocked if Eminem was indeed a hateful person. He has said, "To be honest, I don't think about gay men. I only said that shit to piss people off. They just don't get it."
Well you know something? -- I did. I got the joke. When I first listened to most of the songs on The Marshall Mathers LP, I was mildly impressed, and I laughed when he talked about killing people, and even when he used the word "fag."
I laughed because it was so ridiculous that it couldn't be real. I laughed the same way I laugh when I hear Marilyn Manson sing about sodomizing white trash, or when I saw Divine eat dog poo in Pink Flamingoes. I understand the irony, the satire.
I, however, am not nine years old. I am impressionable only to a point, like stale Play-Doh -- the longer I linger out of the package, the less likely it is that someone will change me.
Little kids are fresh out of the container -- their minds are malleable. So we, as college students, can listen to Eminem, and rock our heads to the beat, and laugh when he talks about killing "fags" and "lezzies," and we can simmer in the monotonous ironic humor that has pervaded, if not defined, out entire youth culture.
Meanwhile, the femmy boy in a middle school locker room gets punched in the arm as kids yell "faggot," his self worth seeps down his hunched shoulders, and he begins to wonder how just how many sleeping pills it would take to end the taunting, the "playful" violence, the inability to come to school unconcerned with survival.
Eminem does not make music in a vacuum. Of all the professions in the world, a pop musician has the most direct impact on the lives of America's children. Granted, parents and teachers have some sway too, but their relevance is frankly dwindling.
Once kids enter that school, they are at the mercy of pop culture. So when Eminem is "cool," the "cool" kids start listening to Eminem. And when the aristocrats of the elementary school social elite get their hands on expletives, they will use them. Words like "faggot" are not just words -- they are socially debilitating weapons.
Cue Eminem-fan: "Hey, this is America! We have free speech!"
Well, simmer down -- of course we do. No one is saying that the federal government should rip out the boy's vocal chords. Eminem should be suppressed civically -- by record buyers, by television and radio executives. And by other pop stars (ahem). Those acts of disapproval alone might have enough sway to reverse any damage he's already done.
Or maybe it's Eminem's acceptance of Elton John as a duet partner that will reverse the damage. Maybe I'm wrong -- maybe this is a good thing. But then, when I think about the people in question here, the kids that listen to this music, it seems more likely that they won't quite internalize the various abstract gestures of approval and disapproval.
What they understand is the music, the anger, and the easy targets.
So now Elton John is sitting in some hotel room in L.A., picking out which sequined blazer to wear for his performance, while a generation of mini-Eltons are getting the crap kicked out of them to the tune of "The Real Slim Shady."
Our Sir John thinks he gets the joke, but he only gets a joke -- the asinine shock of dirty words. The real joke is on him, on me, on all of us. When this kind of "joke" is allowed to seep into our collective unconsciousness, hate in general increases, and everyone suffers.
I don't know which is sadder: that more kids are going to be hurt -- perhaps killed, or that our culture is too impotent to stop it.
(02/12/01 10:00am)
Last fall began, and I was tired. I had seen a spring of academic tedium and a summer of mono, so my swollen neck was just beginning to shed a few pounds, and my willingness to engage in potentially impotent academic pursuits was just starting to seep back into my bloodstream.
But I didn't want to overdo it. So I didn't audition for any plays. I didn't fill out that application to be a Daily Pennsylvanian columnist. I didn't recruit for that trip-hop band I kept meaning to start. I stuck to my comfortable four classes and hoped to recuperate.
But I overestimated my fatigue. I didn't feel mentally involved with the outside world. So I turned to that trusty commodity that's always supposed to cure you of your ills -- boys.
Oh, not the actual things -- just the idea. My friends and I always joked around on the Walk, checking out cute guys and making up stupid nicknames for them, quoting My So-Called Life, and laughing at the frighteningly small degree to which we were only kidding.
But, in the absence of another satisfying extra-curricular activity, my checking-out and nicknaming skills went into hyperdrive.
There was "Short-with-a-Big-Head Boy," who was short and had a big head. There was "Kitten Boy", who I swear looked just a like a little kitten. There was "Skinny Boy" who was, as Grunge Hour personality Derek Tagliarino commented, "a rather slight fellow." No, the monikers weren't creative, but they stuck.
So I noted their comings and goings, their daily quirks. In boring lectures, I would fill in my notebook margins with comments about their questionable wardrobe. In conversation lulls, I would say, "So I saw 'Skinny Boy' today," and my friends would all strike silly school girl poses, and self-ironic, giggling banter would ensue.
Well -- self-ironic to a point. We're all strong, independent young people. We don't need a romantic partner to validate our existence. That kind of foolishness is for bitter spinsters and sorority girls.
The problem is that we were all raised by the same television, the same fairy tales, the same pop songs. The same insinuations that, somewhere in the monochromatic crowd, we'll see that singular, striking face. All the Ani Difranco albums in the world won't shake that vigilance: "he's out there -- find him."
An important distinction: I was not stalking anyone. I never even adjusted my walking routes to pass them on their way to class (Although, I have to admit, I'm pretty sure I could have).
There's a big difference between leaving obscene answering-machine messages and merely observing what happens to be in your line of sight (Yes, I was doing the latter, thank you).
Ridiculous? Yes. Immature? Yes. Indicative of larger relationship and socialization issues? That's really a whole 'nother column. But most importantly, it was just time-consuming.
This semester, I auditioned for that play. I filled out that columnist application. I still have no trip-hop band, but do you know what they're charging for four-track recorders these days?
Basically, I've got a full plate. I don't have time for self-ironic boy-watching. Prince Charming can wait. So I adjusted my New Year's resolution. I crossed off "Read Moby Dick" and wrote in "Stop being boy-crazy."
Then, the other day, I was reading a book for class, and looked up to see "Skinny Boy" walking past. And he was wearing glasses! He never wore glasses last semester!
But you know what I did? I just resumed reading my book. The event went by unnoted.
Yes, I've got better things to do with my time.
I know what you're thinking. You're saying to yourself, "Does he have any social skills at all? Why didn't this dork just introduce himself in the first place?"
Well:
1) Yeah, I've got social skills. One or two.
2) All the guys were smokers!
There are really few more disappointing sights than a cute, intriguing boy who spoils his allure with a filthy cancer-stick hanging from his lower lip. So I've fooled you -- this isn't a column about my romantic disabilities -- it's anti-tobacco propaganda.
The moral? If you smoke, then a real catch like me will draw the line at school-girl-level obsession. No wink, no "Hey," No "Wanna get coffee after class?"
Just a passing comment in the journal of a classy boy with lungs as pure as country air -- beautiful, beautiful country air.
(02/05/01 10:00am)
Each time he announced a new nominee, I couldn't take my eyes off the corner of the TV screen. The nominee would be talking, but I was fixated on George W. Bush's tense, twisted, sniveling, vapid little face and couldn't stop thinking of that old saying, "What will it mean for the Jews?"
Then I'd walk outside, look around, and realize that the Jews have it pretty damn good. So a better question would be, "What will it mean for the gays? For the lesbians? For the bisexuals? For the transgendered people?"
Well, a lot of things could happen, so let's start with a worst-case scenario: It's the first meeting of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the cabinet and the Congressional leadership. A freak gas leak causes an explosion which leaves but one survivor -- Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The only official left in the line of succession, Ashcroft assumes the presidency and interprets the accident as a sign from God.
Not just any God; it's the God from "GodHatesFags.com."
Ashcroft whips out his Confederate flag-print pen and signs a slew of executive orders, repealing every existing gay rights measure, and shipping the entire gay population to a remote settlement in Utah, where we undergo intense aversion-therapy: shock treatment, hormone injections, 24-hour viewings of Normal, OH.
Meanwhile, the rest of the country suffers from a sudden lack of lascivious Calvin Klein underwear ads, and Xena: Warrior Princess goes out of syndication.
It's enough to make you move to Amsterdam. But what's the best-case scenario?
Well, we're not exactly looking at legalized marriage and gay Boy Scout quotas here. Even with a Democratic administration, we'd be a long way from a transgendered secretary of state. But we've still got a couple of good things going for us.
We've got Mary Cheney. As long as good old Dick stays away from red meat, roller coasters and sudden loud noises, our country will have a vice president who has officially spawned a lesbian.
And this isn't a skeleton in the closet either -- she managed part of his campaign.
So while Dick Cheney may have the politics of Archie Bunker, he presumably has a little useful fatherly compassion.
Furthermore, his former press spokesman at the Department of Defense, Pete Williams, is also openly gay. On top of that, Cheney reacted to the issue of gay marriage during the debates by saying, albeit vaguely, "I think people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into."
Also in the debates, Bush was asked about the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, a gay civil rights bill, and replied (gasp), "Well, I have no idea... I mean, he can throw out all kinds of -- I don't know the particulars of this law."
Presumably, now that he's president, he will -- who knows -- pick up a newspaper, find out those particulars and get back to us. But let's get real. That could take all four years.
Therefore, the next four years probably won't be too horrendously bad. We might not make any great strides forward, but any steps back will be, with any luck, minimal.
Ah, to be satisfied with "minimal discrimination." Just a few
months ago, I was so hopeful. But then, on Election Night, I remember staring at another face on my TV screen. It was Ralph Nader, and I wanted to beat him inside out.
He had ruined any prospects of a progressive four years, or at least a comfortable status quo. But it was only a televised image, so I kept my fists to myself and watched him give a devious little smile. And for that moment, even though he was silent, I knew what he was telling me.
That grin said, "Don't worry, you paranoid freak. If things don't get that bad, then great! But if things start looking apocalyptic -- that's even better. Because then, people will get mad; mad enough to make a real difference, a difference that can last."
So maybe things won't be so bad after all. Frightened liberals will give more money to the right organizations. The Daily Show will have some great material. And by the time the next election rolls around, maybe people will come to their senses and punch in enough Democratic votes to make even a Florida-sized fraud irrelevant.
(01/29/01 10:00am)
So my mom hangs up the phone. Apparently, we just ordered the Showtime network.
I ask why and she says, "I read about this new gay TV show I want to watch."
Red alert! She means Queer as Folk and, from what I've heard, even supportive parents like mine aren't going to take to kindly to this kind of entertainment -- namely, soft-core porn.
My parents are saints. They're one-for-two with straight sons, but they're resilient. So resilient, in fact, that I decided to try out this new show along with them. It couldn't be that bad.
Granted, two years ago, together we saw Wilde -- the biography of Oscar Wilde -- and I was almost orphaned right around the 52nd time Stephen Fry inspected Jude Law's prostate. But my parents have come a long way in two years.
As soon as the show started, I knew we were in for a bumpy ride. Two men wake up in bed together -- how's this for an opening dialogue:
Brian: "Who the hell are you?"
Anonymous Man: "I'm the guy you fucked last night."
Brian: "Oh, right. Were you any good?"
At least Fry and Law were witty and interesting! Perhaps, I think, once the plot becomes clear, then this Brian's rather irritating vulgarity will fade into the background, and I can immerse myself in something -- anything -- other than casual sex.
Alas, my high hopes went squish, along with my general optimism about the quality of television, when the camera cut to Justin, a frightfully good-looking 17-year-old, sitting in a therapist's office along with his frazzled mother. The inquisition begins, and the camera zooms in on Justin. Is he going to say it? -- those three iconic words: "I am gay."
Well, he had three words. But not those three. Instead, he said "I like dick."
That pretty much sums up Queer as Folk's analysis of modern life for gay men. No more euphemisms, or even labels; they get right down to the meat of things. None of the characters date -- they only have one night stands.
When Michael is wined and dined by a rich doctor who doesn't want to hop into bed right away, he gets out of the doctor's car and goes straight to a club where he lets a kneeling stranger unzip his pants and... Well, there was a fade out, but I doubt the next line was, "Turn your head and cough."
Why all of this plot summary? To show you why this plot made my mom cry. Just after the credits, she turned to me, face sunken nearly to the ground, repeating, "I don't think I like this!"
Of course she didn't. The major gay male characters in this show come in three basic varieties: mean and lonely, vapid and lonely and confused and lonely.
Hardly the traits a mother prays for in her sons, yet -- with media portrayals of gay life pretty much consisting of this show and Will and Grace -- the TV-manufactured chances of her sons turning out that way are around six in seven. (Will Truman being essentially the only gay man on TV who isn't mean-spirited, shallow, or a price short of a hooker).
Queer as Folk creator Ron Cowen predicted my peeves, and has labeled them "a form of internalized homophobia, that you are basically afraid to show straight people what your life is really like, and so you put forth a PC image out of fear."
My first response to such a statement is, "But this isn't what my life is really like!" And that's tricky ground; to get defensive is an implicit insult to people who do lead lives like this.
All of a sudden, I'm the odd man out. Now, I'm a judgmental, homophobic victim of an outdated, heterosexist "morality."
Now, let's set aside all arguments about "sexual morality," and get to the real issue, which is that my mom is really upset. She's not a relic of an archaic conservative age of chastity belts and dowries; she's a liberal, modern, parade-marching, angry letter-writing advocate for gay rights.
So if she's upset, something is wrong. She sees gay characters on TV having casual sex, and it scares her. There are certainly things to be scared about; yes, there's AIDS, but, perhaps more visibly, there's loneliness.
From what I've seen, in spite of good lighting and a catchy soundtrack, these men don't seem happy. This is a problem not just because it upset my mom; it's a problem because it makes gay men seem sad and a pathetic.
With visibility so sparse, such a portrayal is just plain irresponsible.
