In the last little while, I've been trying to catch up on my queer culture. I've read Gay America, watched Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, and listened to Barbra and Liza, among many other things.
One of the queer cultural must-reads that I've most enjoyed is Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series. I'd heard a lot about them and thought that they would be a great entry into the history of queer culture.
I was right. Really, really right.
For someone born in the mid-eighties (sorry), it was an extremely informative and fascinating look at the attitudes, opinions, and culture of the gay community in the 70s and 80s. I felt like I almost learned more from reading the series than I did from Gay America. So many issues were touched on, so many trends, cultural icons...it was a handy, book-shaped time machine and I loved every moment.
First of all, I love media with a ton of characters that all unexpectedly intertwine. Movies like Love Actually and Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her are so fun and totally what I dig, regardless of their artistic merit. So the hilarious cast of characters in Tales of the City that fall in and out of one another's lives was so fun to explore. Then, the situations they dealt with were so alternatingly absurd and heart-breakingly real that I couldn't help but keep turning page after page. I literally read the entire seven book series in a matter of weeks.
One of the things that I loved most about it was how complicated and human it was. In the end, not everything finished happily. Normally I hate that in media (I like a happy ending, what can I say?), but with this series, it felt right that characters would drift apart, die, or move to a foreign country. It was all part of the fun. I think the first three books and the last, most recent edition (Michael Tolliver Lives, published a couple of years ago) were my favourites, but the whole series is worth a read.
I think I may re-read them once summer hits. They're just the perfect mix of clever writing, fun characters, and outlandish plot points to entertain, excite, and move you to the very last page.
I just finished reading an excellent book called In Bed with the Word, written by one of my favourite former professors. Although not distinctly queer, in its dealing with identity, cultural politics, and "otherness," Daniel Coleman's book reminds me of much of the queer stuff I've read in the past. His slim, inspiring volume also emphasizes for me the importance of storytelling (in various forms) to our own personal struggles with identity. In a world where we inevitably come to understand ourselves through stories in their limitless forms and genres, it's of crucial importance to see ourselves (or an understanding of ourselves) reflected back at us; in other words, we need to hear and read stories about us and the parts of our identities that we deem important. As Coleman writes:
"One of the great pleasures of reading is the experience of having confirmed in a book impulses or instincts that may not yet have become clear enough to be thoughts. There's a real delight that comes when some words on the page give clear, concise shape to a morass of ideas or opinions that you haven't had the opportunity or stimulus to sort through" (105).
The book, for me, was Virginia Woolf's Orlando in my fourth year of university -- I had my mind blown by the crazy idea that our selves were so bound up in performance that we may never have recourse to a true or essential identity or "self." Maybe I had been straight, maybe I was now gay (just as Orlando shifted from male to female) -- did it really matter? Who knew that labels -- male, female, gay, straight -- were just words that had arbitrary definitions and models for behaviour ascribed to them? And although it wasn't a book-oriented discovery, I also learned a lot about my high school aged self by stealthily watching episodes of Queer as Folk in my basement after my parents had gone to sleep. The availability of these queer stories helped me negotiate the twisted path of self-discovery -- or, in Coleman's words, they gave some shape to the "morass" of confusing thoughts about sexuality that I hadn't really sorted through.
So: stories and reading are important. We need to tell our own stories while reading and talking about the stories of others. You should start with Daniel Coleman's book.
Now, since Ogaypogo seems to think - and I quote - that "posting a video and calling it a blog is not a blog", I will accompany the above video with some commentary. (Love you!)
I think it's great that the majority of people were totally fine with those lads canoodling. I think it's awesome to see straight, older men telling a jackass in a bar to cool it with the gay jokes. I think it's wonderful that a woman could be so upset at the situation to refuse to stay in it (and to have a kickass quote: "So you can't kiss your boyfriend in f***in' America?").
Overall, I think the people in this video are fine, upstanding humans.
The real offenders, however, are the producers. I'm sorry, but in this day and age, tolerance is not a virtue. Acceptance is.
According to Merriam-Webster, tolerance is the "ability to endure pain or hardship"; whereas, being accepted is "being generally approved of". In my life I would much rather be approved of than endured, don't you agree?
Tolerance has been an interesting buzzword lately in the politics surrounding gay issues. While it is a step above previous opinions, it still has an undertone of disapproval or of giving just enough to assuage us for the moment. I don't want people's approach to the gay community to be that of dealing with us kindly enough until we are done our tantrums as you would a child. I want to be embraced and cared for, like every human deserves to be.
So while this video shows that most certainly attitudes are changing by leaps and bounds, I think the real attitude change needs to happen in the vocabulary we use surrounding our gay brothers and sisters.
But, in the meantime, I guess I'll just have to tolerate those who have yet to come around.
Every year, I tell myself that I will not waste countless hours of my life watching American Idol.
There's so much I despise about the Idol machine. The meandering, substanceless filler between performances. The in-your-face product placement (those heinous Ford commercials are nauseating). The cheesy, step-clap group numbers (what's up with the pre-recorded schlock this year??). The eternal results shows. And yet, here I am sitting on the couch, laptop in .. uh, lap .. watching David Cook perform live when I don't even like David Cook, completely prepared to sit through 5-6 more commercial breaks in the next 25 minutes simply because I have to know who "America" has voted out this week.
Something different seems to suck me in, year after year. Last year, it was the cherubic David Archuleta (his cover of Robbie Williams' "Angels"? Heavenly.) This year, it's the fabulously flamboyant former Fiyero: Adam Lambert.
Adam first wailed and belted his way into my heart with his performance of Michael Jackson's "Black or White." He further intrigued me with his bizarre version of "Ring of Fire." But it was today, over lunch, when I found some clips of Lambert riffing it up as Fiyero from the musical Wicked that he sealed the deal.
In a broadway.com interview, former Elphaba Eden Espinosa says that Lambert "was one of my favorite Fiyeros to sing “As Long As You’re Mine” with, because his voice is obviously just so gorgeous. He was one of only two Fiyeros I know who would do optional notes higher than Elphaba’s in the song!" Sister does not lie. See below:
This afternoon, I engaged in a bit of creepage on Adam's various Facebook fan pages, and I was surprised (although not really?) to see just how much of the chatter about him revolved around his sexuality. I knew that, a while back, a couple of pictures of Lambert locking lips with another dude had surfaced on the web. But it was disturbing (although, again, not that surprising?) to see the usual ignorant epithets and Biblical references being tossed about. Although most of them aren't even worthy of anyone's attention, I'll share some of my favourites gleaned from my short-lived perusal (spelling and grammar, of course, have been left intact in the name of authenticity):
"Taylor," from Nashville, has the following pearl of wisdom for us:
i agree with all of you homosexuality is an abomination but the bibles also say there is now tehrfore no more condemnation! and god says to show love to all and love our enemies more and show compassion to those who dont know the love of Christ homsexuality is a sin but we must love and be loved the greatest lesson in life is to love and larn to be loved in return- moulin rouge
also we should show adam the ways the lord so he may turn from sin not run from god in fear
... ah yes, nothing like a fluidly integrated quote from the puritan classic Moulin Rouge to support your argument about the sins of "homsexuality."
"Shirley" from Lubbock, Texas, informs us:
Welllll....I believe...NOT ENOUGH SAID! "Intolerant" is not the word. Gross and horrible is MORE like it. Homosexualism is NOT right and NEVER WILL BE. I know I have just shaken the hornets nest. BUT...I still live in America so I can speak freely just as everyone else can. This really saddens me.
HomosexualISM! I find this very exciting! Shirley's insightful critique prompted me to wonder -- what is homosexualism? What is the system of beliefs, the ideology, the philosophy that guides the gross and the horrible of this planet? Peronsally, I believe in the fabulousness of rangy belting and the aesthetic value of owning cute socks. What about you, fellow homosexualists?
I should add, of course, that for every Shirley and Taylor there are four or five refreshing comments telling the Shirleys and Taylors quite specifically what they can shove and where they can shove it. Here is one of my faves, courtesy of my friend "Tyler" from Staten Island:
wtf is wrong with some of you, are you retarded, hes gay. get teh fuck over it. its not liek littel rainbows fly out of his mouth when he sings, its not leik hes having sex on stage. close your eyes and listen to him. u wouldnt give two shits if he was gay. if you spend so much tiem absorbing the fact that he f*&#s men, then you need to get a freakign life.
Hear hear, brother! I'll forgive your typographic troubles with the letter "e" because of the beautiful images you've conjured...
Homosexualism: to worship one who possesses a belt so fierce that rainbows fly from his/her mouth as the notes are sung...
