Category Archives: Gay is the Old Black

09.23.11
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Will It Get Better?

This week I had intended to talk about something else but sometimes life gets in the way.

This week an American soldier got booed and scorned publicly at a political debate for asking a question.

This week yet another young person – in this case a 14 year old boy in Buffalo, New York – killed himself because he could no longer take the relentless bullying he endured at both his school and from his online community.

This week I publicly acknowledge – both of these events are connected because both of these young men (certainly compared to me they’re young) are (in the case of the 14 year old it’s “were”) gay.

Stephen & Jamey

This week I thought about a famous quote:  “People get the governments they deserve.” (FYI, it’s been attributed to everyone from French philosopher Alexis deTocqueville to 60s Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson and is usually intended to those of us lucky enough to live in a democracy).

This week I decided that what is important is not who said it (or any variation of it) and in what context, but rather

  1.  Is it true?  – and –
  2. Can it be applied to other areas in life?

This week I decided – the answer is – “yes.”  To both 1. and 2.

This week there are two clips I must ask you to watch and listen to.

The first is from Anderson Cooper and centers on the 14 year-old Buffalo boy, Jamey Rodemeyer.  It features footage of Jamey doing an “It Gets Better” you tube video just four months ago to encourage other gay youth to stick it out and not feel bad about themselves.  It also features footage from a right wing evangelical Christian leader proclaiming that a. bullying is merely part of growing up, and b. the opinion of a current member of the U.S. House of Representatives noting the “gay problem” and the legitimizing of this group in mainstream society is a more serious problem in this country than terrorism.  [On the latter point, I couldn’t help but think of this as the “Jewish problem” many Germans talked about pre-World War II and wondered if this Congressperson (her name is Sally Kern) was pondering some similar “Final Solution” to take care of what she sees as our current problem.  She needn’t worry in the case of Jamey – he found said solution without her.]

Watch the entire video here

The second is a short clip from the Wednesday night Republican candidates debate when Stephen Hill, a young soldier who, thanks to the recent overturn of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” respectfully by Skype (or maybe it was on a pre-tape) came out as gay and instantly gets booed.  He soldiers on (as our men and women in uniform do) and asked the candidates across the board whether they would reinstate said policy.  Needless to say, Sgt. (or Soldier?) Hill did not receive the public support or even answer he had hoped for.

And the second video here.

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This week I was reminded of something I’ve known for a long time but sometimes choose to forget because I have a pretty good life free of this insanity – the booing of this soldier, who is far more brave than I will ever be, and the fact that not one candidate on that stage spoke up to chastise the audience for booing a man of uniform in a time of war, is undeniably connected to the toxic atmosphere that pushed young Jamey to his death and will push other young Jameys to the same fate in the coming months and years.

Can we do better?

This week I acknowledge that it’s a lot more fun and entertaining to talk about film and television and why they’re great or why they suck and what this says about us as a society and how artists can make a difference in the world.

And how you can be a great artist.

And how you can fight all the self-doubt.

And how we all have a lot more in common on that score than we are all willing to admit.

And how, as a wise person who at one point I didn’t particularly like but then actually grew to like very much told a group of people I was in from all economic backgrounds and from all over the country that — “you’re more alike than you’re different.”

This week I’m particularly thinking about this last quote and wondering whether it is really true.  Because unless I’m mistaken, it’s not unreasonable to think that Sally Kern and her kind don’t feel this way at all and, in fact, are looking at their own “solution” to some of what (or whom) they consider society’s problems.

This week I’m considering whether I bear at least part of the responsibility for not speaking up (and doing) more when something like this happens.

As some of you have been nice enough to say – I do talk a good game.   But this week I have decided to take whatever brains, talent and cleverness I have (limited though it might sometimes be) to work on a new project that will try to change things in a more active way.  (More on that at some future date).

This week I’m hoping that – in whatever small, big or in-between way you can see fit – that you can take some small or larger action and try to do the same.  Because in no way, shape or form do I think or believe this week represents who we are.  Or – what we deserve.

09.08.11
by

The Nutty Professor

Once upon a time in the eighties I was over a friend’s pool lounging in the sun and listening to an Eddie Murphy comedy album.  Why?  Well, this friend of mine had just worked on an Eddie Murphy movie and they had enough of a love-hate relationship that he had an advance copy and we figured, why not?  Then I heard it – the joke.

I don’t know whether to repeat the joke because that gives it more credence.  So I’ll paraphrase.  Mr. Murphy was on a comic roll and mentioned AIDS and how scary it was at the time.  Then he made this off-handed remark about not dropping your wallet in a gay neighborhood for fear that you’d have to bend over, pick it up, risk getting AIDS and basically dying.

I didn’t find the joke funny at all then and find it even less so now.  Especially since the friend whose pool I was lounging around at the time is now dead of AIDS and has been for, oh, about 15 years.   And Mr. Murphy, who I don’t know but somehow still resent, seems to be flourishing.

Eddie Murphy was announced as the host of this year’s Oscars and for the first time in, oh, 40 years, I doubt I’ll be watching.

Have you lost your damn mind?

Is this a hissy fit, or just typical Scorpio behavior (my astrological sign being the one that you supposedly never want to cross for fear of retribution), or an honest reaction.  Or all three?  I’m not sure.  I mean, life isn’t fair.   People get sick and die.  And the nature of comedy is that you have to put yourself on the edge and joke about things that a segment of people will in no way, shape or form feel is funny.

Nevertheless, I can tell you that I hadn’t seen an Eddie Murphy movie in more than 20 years (ask all of my friends) until “Dreamgirls,” which was directed by an openly gay writer-director and, as a film adaptation of an iconic musical, seemed gay enough in my mind to make an exception.  Not only that, but I actually leave the room whenever he or one of his films is on television.  And I avert my eyes whenever the coming attractions for his movies appear at my local theatre.

Meaning, I can’t stand the sight or sound of Mr. Murphy doing comedy.   Perhaps I’m the only one.  At the very least, I must be in the minority.

But I know a long line of women who do this with Woody Allen movies ever since he married his longtime girlfriend Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter.  I understand their anger but don’t have the same reaction.  Is that cause I’m insensitive to anyone’s plight but my own or a typical double standard-bearing man?  Or is it because we all have our own issues?  Probably the latter.  But again, I’m not sure.

What I do know is that the Motion Picture Academy could do better for a night of movie celebration.  But ask producer/director Brett Ratner to co-executive produce and you wind up with the star of one of his upcoming holiday films (whose name I won’t plug) hosting the show.  It reminds me of the time I was in a charity committee meeting years ago when a very high level gay Hollywood lawyer wanted to get his then client, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to be keynote speaker at a huge L.A. gay fundraiser event.  This was not long after Mr. Murphy’s AIDS joke and right after Ah-nold (then years away from Governator) had publicly endorsed any number of top politicians of the day who were outwardly unsupportive and downright anti all of this group’s issues.   But he personally likes gay people, the attorney argued.

Really?

Well, this guy and I did get into a bit of a row when I called his client a snide (but not dirty) name and this lawyer scolded me for being “very unfair” to his client.  For the record, I stated I was actually being quite fair because the last thing this lawyer really wanted to do at the time was put said client in a room full of lesbians and gay men who, most everyone else in that room agreed, would feel no compunction at biting his head off or booing him off the podium for his public support of the very politicians (and in turn laws) their organization were fighting to circumvent.

Was this a missed opportunity?  Perhaps.  But nearly two decades and many fighting-for-civil-rights years later, I don’t think so.   Still, Pres. Obama preaches bi-partisanship and reaching out to the other side.  Building bridges.  And since that’s obviously working for him, well then, I guess perhaps I could have been wrong.

Yes, that’s a bit petty and cynical but that’s why he’s the president and I’m a mere blogger and not Martin Luther  Queen  King.

But back to Eddie Murphy and the Oscars.  Do we have to?  Oh yes, I think so.

Where are we going with this?

My arguments are admittedly personal.  But FYI, others that younger people have voiced to me in person and online about Mr. Murphy’s Oscar hire are: “uh, what a great choice – for 1985.”  Or – “are there going be fart jokes?”  Or – “huh, what was the last good movie he was even in?” I prefer the latter argument because it would have me believe more than a few of you in the upcoming generation believe Oscar night should still be about film quality and that does give me (or us?) hope.  In fairness though, those same people have said things like, “Bring Back Whoopi,” and when I try to think of the last good film she was in, my mind goes blank.  Though I do remember her famous Oscar line when she hosted one year and, looking at the array of young women so impossibly perfect-looking who were modeling that year’s costume designs, quipped to us all at home – “Don’t they ever smile?”  So there is that.

But obviously Mr. Ratner and folks want some new blood and, after the debacle of trying to “hip it up” with James Franco and Anne Hathaway last year to somewhat disastrous results, they’re going with a film comedian whose movies, they tell you, have grossed  $7 billion worldwide (HOW is this possible??). In the end, I guess you have to bow to and accept and even love the overriding rule of show business and all industries (and in fact, the world) – survival of the fittest.  This is not necessarily the same as what you, the audience member, blogger or pundit see as those who are the most deserving.  Which is why boycotts, hissy fits and any combination thereof actually do matter.  It’s irrelevant if you’re Martin Luther Queen or well,  Ellen (who has also hosted the Oscars).  The only way to get your voice heard and have any effect at all (even for the next time and because you never know who is listening, or is listening and will tell someone who is listening) is to voice it.  And loudly.  Yes, I’m talking to you Motion Picture Academy — In honor of my then poolside friend Rafe who very much loved the Oscars, the movies and pretty much all of the business.

No, it’s not fair to play on your sympathies, but as they say on the battlefield, “by any means necessary.”   I suppose that’s one way those who will be judged the fittest among us, will survive.  By any stretch of the imagination, Mr. Murphy is a survivor, and a damned resilient one at it.  But he’s not the only one.  Is he?