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To: Straight filmmakers
From: M.D.
Enough with the gay slurs, the gay baiting, imitating, limp-wristing, so-not-funny lisping — in other words, enough with the hating. Yeah, some gay men are hilarious (Oscar Wilde). But people are funny, their identities are not. Try this simple test: Every time you feel the need to mock or denigrate gay men or lesbians, replace that joke with an equally vicious dig about African-Americans or Jews. Doesn’t sound so funny anymore, does it?
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Mark Simpson →
Sorry, but I’m going to quote myself again from three years ago�when the NYT ran a much worse article than Musto’s musings called ‘Gay, Straight Or Lying?’:
‘Fear and loathing of male bisexuality is something tends to bring heterosexuals and homosexuals together. Instead of pondering the possibility that public attitudes towards male bisexuality are a truer, less censored indication of what many people actually feel about male homosexuality in general and its enforced incompatibility with masculinity, gay men too often rush to condemn bisexual men and reassure heterosexuals: don’t worry, you’re not being homophobic when mouthing off about bisexual men coz we hate them too!’
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There’s only one small problem, however. It isn’t. With award-winning hypocrisy, Milk actually bundles Milk’s sexuality out of sight. This movie, far from ‘destroying every closet door’, builds a brand new bullet-proof one around it’s subject’s sex-life. ‘Milk’ you see is living a lie.
Harvey Milk, the famously horny middle-aged gay activist in 1970s Free Love San Francisco, who combined cruising and political campaigning - and had a taste for men half his age - is presented in Milk as a serially monogamous chap looking for The One to make house with. True, Harvey is allowed to be a bit flirty, and Van Sant drops subtle hints to those in the know, but essentially Harvey is presented to the world as a very domesticated Mary - apart, that is, from his political altruism and desire to battle homophobia which, sadly, stops him settling down into fully-fledged home-making bliss.
…….So why did it happen? Why is the closet-busting film about Harvey Milk so fearful of its subject’s own sex-life? His own masculinity? Well, partly because a glossing over of human details, especially in regard to sex, is what becoming a saint usually involves - even a gay one. But probably the main reason why his sexuality has been bundled back in the closet is because that’s what today’s US gay rights campaigners are doing with gay male sexuality itself in their crusade for gay marriage. In order to try and persuade an unconvinced American public to support gay marriage under the rubric of equality, gay male relationships are being presented, rather disingenuously, as ‘just the same’ as male-female ones.
"Milk Toast: How Van Sant Cut Off Harvey’s Balls
By Mark Simpson
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"Every man must define his identity against his mother. If he does not, he just falls back into her and is swallowed up."
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Awesome…Give it to your wife, It’s Her Job (via tmblg)
Hahaha!
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"Only America, God Bless Her!, could have produced UFC, a hugely popular pay-per-view ‘full-contact-sport’ that involves two young muscled men in shorts trying to get each other’s legs around their ears (Tom and Mark probably watch it together - in their UFC shorts). Only America could produce a best-selling men’s workout magazine like Men’s Health, put men’s pumped tits and abs on the cover every month and strenuously maintain the pretence that none of its readers are gay or bisexual - or even metrosexual. Only America could produce a film like last year’s ‘300′, essentially a toga-themed Chippendale flick for boys - but because it was made for American boys its denial was even more preposterous than its pectorals and so the baddie had to be a big black club queen in a spangly Speedo."
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"On the metrosexual:
“The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis - because that’s where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference. Particular professions, such as modeling, waiting tables, media, pop music and, nowadays, sport, seem to attract them but, truth be told, like male vanity products and herpes, they’re pretty much everywhere."
Theme: Linear by Peter Vidani
