Bits 'n' Bites: Liz Langley

"Gay marriage should be legal if just to raise the standard of dancing at receptions."

And the Winner is...

Dustin Lance Black, in more ways than one.

I know Ogaypogo already blogged about this, but - here's the deal - I had already laid claim to posting Black's speech as a blog post. So, while I know the link has already been posted, I wanted to actually put his speech in its entirety right here.

As I sat beside Ogaypogo, we both found ourselves wiping the tears away. If only I could have seen this speech ten years ago, high school could have been a lot easier. It took a lot of courage to say what he said and it was inspiring and uplifting to see him take that step.

It is sad that it is courageous to say something encouraging to gay people everywhere, but it is the truth.

All of that said, I was quite moved by it and I will let Black's words speak for themselves:

"Oh my God. This was, um, this was not an easy film to make. First off, I have to thank Cleve Jones and Anne Kronenberg and all the real-life people who shared their stories with me. And, um, Gus Van Sant, Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, James Franco and our entire cast, my producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, everyone at Groundswell and Focus for taking on the challenge of telling this life-saving story. When I was 13 years old, my beautiful mother and my father moved me from a conservative Mormon home in San Antonio, Texas to California, and I heard the story of Harvey Milk. And it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life. It gave me the hope one day I could live my life openly as who I am and then maybe even I could even fall in love and one day get married.

I wanna...I wanna thank my mom, who has always loved me for who I am even when there was pressure not to. But most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he'd want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches, by the government or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights federally, across this great nation of ours. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, God, for giving us Harvey Milk."

To all you commie, homo-loving sons of guns

Even my most fervent cynical impulses couldn't stem the flow of tears from my eyes on Oscar night.

And flow they did, like Swarovski crystals from the ceiling of the Kodak Theatre, first and most heavily as Dustin Lance Black implored queer youth around the world to consider themselves "beautiful, wonderful creatures of value," and later as Sean Penn shamed Prop 8 supporters for their intolerance and made a resounding call for queer rights throughout America.

Truthfully, I wasn't sure I'd ever see the day where even one Oscar-winner would make such a passionate call for gay and lesbian rights. Sure, Ang Lee acknowledged in his 2006 acceptance speech for Brokeback Mountain that gay and lesbian love is "denied by society," but his overall message seemed trumped by the reductive and euphemistic popular rhetoric surrounding his film: that Brokeback was a universal love story that transcended gender and sexuality and blah blah blah. In actuality, it was a film about two dudes who were in love and totally doing it when they should have been minding the sheep, and society's lack of tolerance for homosexuality is what made their relationship impossible. Not much universal about that, in my opinion.

But, I digress. Now we have Milk, a film about equal rights, yes, but a film specifically and undeniably about gay and lesbian rights and queer visibility, filled with gay characters who celebrate their sexuality while struggling with the forces that try to keep them in the closet. "Gay brothers and sisters," Harvey exclaimed, "you must come out. Come out to your parents... come out to your relatives... come out to your friends... come out to your neighbors... to your fellow workers... to the people who work where you eat and shop... come out only to the people you know, and who know you."

Hollywood has set an amazing and important precedent by not only celebrating Milk, but also by embracing and applauding the powerful words of an openly gay screenwriter and a hugely famous actor who played an openly gay character in a popular film. This is indeed a powerful moment, and hopefully one that catalyzes a shift in popular consciousness towards acceptance and increased rights for our queer American neighbours. But now it's time for Hollywood to continue to follow Harvey's advice. It's time for more actors and screenwriters and directors to come out, to put themselves out there as visible role models so that Black's words don't fade from the memories of all the queer kids who watched the Oscars on Sunday. It's time to eliminate this awful notion that being out destroys your career as a performer (this is, of course, best illustrated by Tom Cruise, who has repeatedly sued everyone who ever called him gay on the grounds that it would damage his ability to find acting work). It's time for Hollywood to make manifest their applause by continuing to pave the way for increased queer visibility in all forms of mass media.

The cynical part of me feels like it's somewhat safer for Hollywood to celebrate an openly gay screenwriter than an openly gay actor, which is why we can have a homo write the script for Milk but can't seem to cast real-life, out gays in major gay roles (and if they are gay, why won't they admit it?). After all, off-camera, your personal life is subject to much less intense scrutiny. However, don't get me wrong: I'm very happy to have witnessed a gay screenwriter and a gay-for-pay performer speak passionately about queer rights. But I'm waiting for the day when many openly queer performers can stand up and be visible enough to all the queer kids who are uncertain about whether or not they belong in this crazy-ass world.

And in the meantime, if we have a need to see lots of gays giving acceptance speeches, we'll all have to watch the Tonys.

Canada Reads: Queer Youth Fiction!

Every year, CBC sponsors a literary competition - Canada Reads - which chooses "the book for Canada to read". Five celebrity panelists pick their favourite CanLit and then defend it to the death on national radio for a week. Each day a book is knocked off the list until Canada is left with the champion.

This year's picks (and the people defending them) are: The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (Avi Lewis), The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant by Michel Tremblay (Anne-Marie Withenshaw), Fruit by Brian Francis (Jen Sookfong Lee), Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards (Sarah Slean), and The Outlander by Gil Adamson (Nicholas Campbell).

I've only read one of these books, but I really want it to win.

Fruit by Brian Francis.

Never in my life has a book reached straight into my heart and splayed its contents all over the page in a way that this book has. Reading about Peter Paddington's tortured adolescense was like reading my own diary. The body image issues, the pining, the paper route: it's all there!

That said, as specific as this book is to my own youth, it is a universal coming-of-age story. Even if you didn't go through any of the specific mortifying atrocities of youth that Peter does, you can still relate to the larger issues woven through the book.

I also think it's fantastic that a book like this should be nominated for a national competition like Canada Reads. It's bizarre, funny, sweet, endearing, and more than a little bit gay (even though that's never really stated in its contents, per se).

I think Fruit should win because it is a funny and fresh take on something that has been written about a lot. I mean, let's be honest, we've all read enough coming-of-age/coming-out stories in our lifetime. Yet, Francis' tale is so quirky and real that it is sparklingly new and, often times, quite surprising.

Francis himself comments on his chances of winning by saying: "I feel like I am the complete underdog in this competition, but that makes me feel good. I have a purple book. I was the only purple book in the line-up. Hopefully people will respond positively to the purple book. [...] I'm glad that Peter has been given this chance."

Me too, Brian, me too.

Go out and read Fruit and listen to the Canada Reads debates on CBC Radio, March 2 - 6!