Queer Eye For The Straight Lie
"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality, against which they are dashed to pieces."
Several days of loafing and several minutes of amateurish DIY later, here I am. The former because Jenn and I are officially on vacation for another nine days or so, the latter because the computer desk in my new residence has been having some issues which I, the man of the house, have now repaired.
Heh. Man of the house. I'm killing me.
Anyway, I'm not yet up for trying to sort through jetlag and euphoria in order to bring you the nuts and bolts psychology of transatlantic relocation, so let's sidestep all that for a moment and talk about...yes...man-on-man action.
Ah, it's these curveball moments that make blogging fun.
We're going to step into something of a politicised subject here, so before we do, I'd like to throw out a few bullet points by way of a disclaimer:
1. I am, if you want to stick a label on me for the purposes of this particular debate, a straight male.
2. I don't much care for that sort of label. Never have. But some folks like a box to fit people into before they start arguing with them.
3. I have no particular political affiliation, certainly not in the partisan sense of the term.
So let's go.
I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain yet, but I've been amused and somewhat amazed at the media reaction to the movie. Here in the States, the backlash has been pretty similar to that I was reading just before I left the UK, that being a certain sense that, while Ang Lee's little cowboy love story might be a thought-provoking and even insightful piece of work, nobody actually needed to see two guys swapping spit. I mean, gross, right?
Which is fascinating to me. After all, don't we live in increasingly gay-friendly times? I'm talking outside of the circles where homosexuality is EVIL and WRONG here. I'm talking about the kind of people who are gay-friendly in the sense that they enjoy Will And Grace, the kind of people who are cool with Anne Heche and Ellen Degeneres because it's, like, totally admirable that they're comfortable with their sexuality and in a position to campaign for their rights.
Gay-friendly. But not really. Because when you look at it, we're talking about homosexuality as a cultural movement here, not as a sexual preference and an identity. What's 'gay' about Sean Hayes on Will And Grace? Well, he has a high-pitched voice, feminine body language, an interest in things ordinarily considered girly (fashion, for example), and he's almost completely asexual in every definable way. He's your friendly neighbourhood queer, free of any but the vaguest suggestion that he might, say, enjoy another man's cock in his mouth.
Because we don't want to think about that. Just like we don't want to see two men kissing.
Two women, though? Two women is good. Girl-on-girl action? Fuck, yeah. Oh...So long as it's Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair, Calista Flockhart and Lucy Liu, Denise Richards and Neve Campbell. So long, in point of fact, as it's something that fits a distinctly male perception of lesbianism that a lot of women are also guilty of perpetuating with what I like to think of as an I'd-SO-do-Angelina mentality that caters to male fantasies steeped in the kind of thought we tell ourselves we've long since left behind. That kind of girl-on-girl action? Two words: straight porn.
Forget the love story aspect of Brokeback Mountain for a minute. Nobody is too worried about that. Two people already in committed relationships share a forbidden love. It's an old story, no big deal, and as a society we seem able to deal with that in terms of the two protagonists being male. That's not the problem here. The problem is that we have this idea of what homosexuality is that's so horribly devoid of passion, desire, lust, and all the things we take for granted in hetero relationships, that when we see two actual men - and we're talking idealised, Hollywood men here - kissing with tongues, our immediate reaction is disgust.
So here's your homework question: How gay-friendly are we really?
Several days of loafing and several minutes of amateurish DIY later, here I am. The former because Jenn and I are officially on vacation for another nine days or so, the latter because the computer desk in my new residence has been having some issues which I, the man of the house, have now repaired.
Heh. Man of the house. I'm killing me.
Anyway, I'm not yet up for trying to sort through jetlag and euphoria in order to bring you the nuts and bolts psychology of transatlantic relocation, so let's sidestep all that for a moment and talk about...yes...man-on-man action.
Ah, it's these curveball moments that make blogging fun.
We're going to step into something of a politicised subject here, so before we do, I'd like to throw out a few bullet points by way of a disclaimer:
1. I am, if you want to stick a label on me for the purposes of this particular debate, a straight male.
2. I don't much care for that sort of label. Never have. But some folks like a box to fit people into before they start arguing with them.
3. I have no particular political affiliation, certainly not in the partisan sense of the term.
So let's go.
I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain yet, but I've been amused and somewhat amazed at the media reaction to the movie. Here in the States, the backlash has been pretty similar to that I was reading just before I left the UK, that being a certain sense that, while Ang Lee's little cowboy love story might be a thought-provoking and even insightful piece of work, nobody actually needed to see two guys swapping spit. I mean, gross, right?
Which is fascinating to me. After all, don't we live in increasingly gay-friendly times? I'm talking outside of the circles where homosexuality is EVIL and WRONG here. I'm talking about the kind of people who are gay-friendly in the sense that they enjoy Will And Grace, the kind of people who are cool with Anne Heche and Ellen Degeneres because it's, like, totally admirable that they're comfortable with their sexuality and in a position to campaign for their rights.
Gay-friendly. But not really. Because when you look at it, we're talking about homosexuality as a cultural movement here, not as a sexual preference and an identity. What's 'gay' about Sean Hayes on Will And Grace? Well, he has a high-pitched voice, feminine body language, an interest in things ordinarily considered girly (fashion, for example), and he's almost completely asexual in every definable way. He's your friendly neighbourhood queer, free of any but the vaguest suggestion that he might, say, enjoy another man's cock in his mouth.
Because we don't want to think about that. Just like we don't want to see two men kissing.
Two women, though? Two women is good. Girl-on-girl action? Fuck, yeah. Oh...So long as it's Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair, Calista Flockhart and Lucy Liu, Denise Richards and Neve Campbell. So long, in point of fact, as it's something that fits a distinctly male perception of lesbianism that a lot of women are also guilty of perpetuating with what I like to think of as an I'd-SO-do-Angelina mentality that caters to male fantasies steeped in the kind of thought we tell ourselves we've long since left behind. That kind of girl-on-girl action? Two words: straight porn.
Forget the love story aspect of Brokeback Mountain for a minute. Nobody is too worried about that. Two people already in committed relationships share a forbidden love. It's an old story, no big deal, and as a society we seem able to deal with that in terms of the two protagonists being male. That's not the problem here. The problem is that we have this idea of what homosexuality is that's so horribly devoid of passion, desire, lust, and all the things we take for granted in hetero relationships, that when we see two actual men - and we're talking idealised, Hollywood men here - kissing with tongues, our immediate reaction is disgust.
So here's your homework question: How gay-friendly are we really?
posted by Michael at 8:21 PM
2 Comments:
Welcome home Cowboy! There's the thought provoking, witty, intelligent dude who's been wrapped up in red tape for what seemed like forever.
I haven't yet seen the film either but look forward to doing so.
I thought it was a great film - and there wasn't a great deal of sexual 'action' in it at all by any stretch of the imagination. It definitely was more about the universal themes of loss, unrequited love, etc. and I think that was blatantly obvious.
These 'complaining' people should go and see Mysterious Skin. The best film I've seen for ages, but it makes Brokeback look like Sesame Street.
Post a Comment
<< Home