When I was younger I used to be religious. Then I turned five.Tom
When I was younger I used to be religious. Then I turned five.Tom
Ok, So I did it. I spent two hours watching television, which as my friens will almost certainly know is totally abnormal. But it was gay television which at least as a sociological investigation was most enjoyable.
Bullshit.
And the guys were really cute.
(There, I said it!)
Ok, and while I’m rambling, my history teacher bears a striking resemblance to James, the Leading man on Boy Meets Boy. Very Weird, but somehow hilarious.
They aren’t very racially or socio-economically diverse, but then, it fits the audience, and while it’s hardly forgivable, I don’t think it makes the shows unwatchable. Also as Dave points out, it’s a little crewel that they guy doesn’t know that there are straight guys mixed in with the gay ones. But that of course flies in the face of stereotype complaints because the stereotype line between gay and straight as presented by the show is very blurred and I think that’s good. Also the fuzzy line between the butch and femme poles nicely flies in the face of the very polarized definition that we can thank Will and Grace for.
I am a little disappointed that the show completely divides male sexuality into gay and straight. (The loud laughing sound you all hear in the background is Chris Knittel, excuse him please.) There are a lot of bisexual folks out there, and I’m not sure how you could include it in a television show with out invoking the porn principal, and all the trash that goes along with that. Nine times out of ten people don’t really understand bisexuality. I mean on the surface it’s really a simple concept, but in application its a bit more difficult. Molly (among others) has been known to say (and I agree with her) that everyone (or at least 80% of people) are bisexual to some degree, thus I think people tend to round to either one side or the other more often than not, leaving the minority that identify as bisexual to some sort of wasteland that they obviously donít disserve. I canít really suggest a solution, but itís something that pop culture (and by pop culture I mean pop culture as represented on television) is a long way from accepting.
The truth is that both of these shows are very Gay Male oriented, completely neglecting to recognize bisexuals, transgender people, and even lesbians. Thatís a real problem. You know shows like ìWill and Graceî made it with gay characters, but when you think about it there arenít even Lesbians on TV, aside from the two on Queer as Folk, and the new Showtime show forthcoming, unless Iím missing something. So while Iím really impressed with the hunky wonderfulness that Iím starting to see, itís only a start.
While I think Boy Meets Boy is my favorite of the two, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is really interesting. Itís witty, cute, and a lot of fun (this is television after all, so weíre not looking for a great deal of depth). The fashion guy annoys me to no end, and the hair guy is a bit not cool, and I think the culture guy is really great as is the food guy, and the rest of itís a wash. This kinda show makes me feel like Iím a slacker for not having such a chic and perfectly styled life, but then I realized that it doesnít matter that much and all it well.
The truth is that, as far as gay decorating shows go, I really much rather watch Christopher Lowell of the discovery channel. (Paulaís description: ìHeís so flaming Iím surprised that his studio hasnít burnt down.î) Funny, but very true.
Well there you have it, Iíd be interested to hear your reactions.Update:Another thing. I found the Fag Hag character to be bossy and pushy and just a general not good thing. The host was also trying to hard for the Dolly Parton look and even people who can pull it off don’t look prety. But thankfully they weren’t around too much.
If it were me I would have brought a lesbian, becasue I’m wierd like that, or I would have brought another guy, which would have made it wierd a little….
Oh, and all of the previews showed a lot of guy-guy smooching, and this episode didn’t have any, and I was disapoined by that, a lot. All the good stuff from the previews weren’t in this one, and I’m probably not going to see any more unless I get bored and someone Kazza’s it, or it’s on next week while I’m doing the tour.
Cheers
During the Car ride to Pittsburgh PA, I read the script for the first part of Angels in America, by Tony Kushner. I finished it in one very difficult sitting, teetering on the very edge of tears the whole time. When I reached the back cover I realized that I had just finished reading some of the most amazing prose Iíd ever set eyes on, and then realized that I *had* to get my hands on Part Two.
Angels in America is a play written about the AIDS crisis. As a play itís really creative, and really takes advantage of the form. All of my recent exposure to drama has been either to Shakespeare, which is of course brilliant, but requires a lot of thought and the themes are simplistic (not that thereís a problem with that) but theyíre also really obvious and I think that Shakespeare is more about the language (thus making it more akin to poetry) than it is about whatís going on in the play. Additionally Iíve been exposed to a very concise survey of the development of Modern drama including Anouilh, Brecht, Ibsen, Strinberg, and (T. S.) Eliot.
Brecht and Ibsen, in particular, especially wrote plays that would be impossible to produce on the scale that the script calls for. There is too much detail and so much symbolism that is easily missed. But all of the mentioned authors were guilty of this to some extent. In many ways, I think that for all their power and skill, the kind of drama that Iíve been exposed to recently havenít aged particularly, though I think Ibsen and Strinberg are most guilty of this.
Angels in America is a completely different sort of play, and Iím debating weather this difference makes it better or just different, but in any case let me describe it again. Itís set during the onset of the AIDS epidemic, around a sizeable handful of semi-interconnected characters. Everyone is affected by AIDS in some how and many of the characters are gay, and while thatís easily the defining characteristic of the play, I donít think that itís an artifact of Queer Art because while I think gay audiences will certainly learn and gain a great deal from reading this play, a certain part of me wants to say that the intended audience is a mixed bag I feel.
The play also presents AIDS from a perspective that is different than the usual spin and, and itís a perspective thatís I think is often lost. At least in the material I get day in and day out AIDS seems to neglect the wasting nature of the disease, and the fact that it doesnít kill anyone very quick. AIDS is painted as a bad thing, which is appropriate, but it is all to often presented to impersonally for my tastes. The disease isnít given a face to often and I think thatís a shame. In our efforts to convince people in the seriousness of the AIDS, we completely neglect the disease itself. People are seen as being HIV- and people are seen in the unaffected early stages of the disease, and people are represented as being dead, but that whole middle section is completely left out. I can see perfectly reasonable explanations for this, but at the same time I think in general we lose something by functioning in this way. In any case…
Angels in America completely deglamorizes (as if there was any glamour in the first place) the entire situation. It shows characters in various stages of the illness (set in a time frame where without recently developed treatments) the progression happened more quickly. Thus there were characters who were only beginning to show signs of the illness, and there were character who were struggling with more advanced stages of the disease. We also got to see the impact of AIDS on family members , and how denial and homophobia was really elemental in promoting the spread of the disease. This kind of approach, and this kind of treatment of this particular social issue is, I think really powerful, and I think this is the kind of light that this epidemic needs to be preserved in.
Beyond the particulars of the social commentary, I liked the fact that rather than a thematic focus on one of lifeís more puzzling metaphysical quandaries, Angels in America focused on an issue that is not only relevant to our times, but emblematic of the social condition of our times. From this starting point t is then possible to draw conclusions about a couple of metaphysical issues, whereas in all of the ìgreat worksî that Iím generalizing against work in reverse order, and require more interpretive work for less insight, in my opinion.
The unavoidable poignancy of the message and the perspective of the presentation gives the play purpose and direction, but itís power is directed from the dramatic technique and storytelling style. More ìtraditionalî and/or ìclassicî have a hand full of characters that interact with each other and contribute to one developing plot. In this play there are three (or so) situations, each with a couple of characters. The situations are all connected, though not in a traditional sense, and the directions for staging and sets indicate a sparse set, and no blackouts, which makes the production aspect of the play much more transparent. The traditional school of thought is stage things so that it looks ìreal,î but thatís ultimately a futile goal, so Kushner (and a lot of other contemporary playwrights) donít even try, and for some reason I think it works really well.
I think the word on the street is that HBO or some such is going to produce Angels in America sometime in the near future, and I really hope that they do a good job of it, and I think they will. Iíve only read the first one, but the second play promises to be even better.
Well I lived through yet another weekend with my family, and I must say that nothing excruciatingly bad happened.
Other than the fact that I lived through a weekend with my family, of course.
Having prepared for the absolute worse possible outcome, I was pleasantly surprised when a few things turned out ok. It was generally torturous, but I’ve developed a few coping strategies that worked for me this time.
First of all, I had something completely unrelated to look forward to. My mother and I went to a completely awesome contra dance. I am a little jaded about the contra dance group here. It’s a little too hetero and the people aren’t really as accepting as I might like. I mean they’re nice, it’s just I’m not terribly connected to them. In any case the contra dance we went to was particularly nice because it gave us an excuse to get away from the stresses of a visit.
The second thing to do is to find a way to occupy yourself independently of what’s going around you. Read a book, read several books even. In one weekend, I finished the book that I started before I left (Melissa Scott’s Roads of Heaven), the latest Star Wars New Jedi Order (my literary vice), and the second Armistead Maupin Tales of the City book. In addition I got an outline of a play mostly written.
Now I get to pack for another trip. I’m going to visit some collages, and to spend a week with my grandmother, which promises to be much more enjoyable. So I get another week of being in contact before I’m spirited away for two weeks of various non-wired activities.
Thanks to Chris for taking over while I was gone, and for doing the same in the future, there’s more on the way. Cheers folks
http://www.deadjournal.com/~argosrealityYou had to know that I was going to post it here, I mean it was obvious. Chris seems’ intent upon using that teenager-centric DeadJouranl site to host is brainfeed style site. So be it. He’ll see the error of his ways sooner or later. In anycase, we can all keep an eye on the alternate site from here.
One sacrifices convience for real power.Silence Leigh, Mangus (Melisa Scott, “The Empress of Earth”)
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