Recently Edmund White publicly skewered Gore Vidal in a Salon.com interview. Uneducated quasi literate Americans love a good old, gay-bitch mud fight because they see queers as lowly minstrel shows. Even the most well meaning, queer eye folks out there can be as patronizing as shit when it comes to reinforcing and believing old school queer stereotypes. Maury Povich and Jerry Springer are among the worst recyclers of queer and transgender minstrel. In fact many queer gossip columnist play the old school bitch queen role and keep the old shit a cycling!
Lots of queer media boxes up those GBLT stereotypes that are supposed to be pushed our ways as "queer culture". I'm say'n, it's tired shit and we need healthier and new images. I don't know about you but I'm tired of seeing stereotyped, old school lame assed dyke characters, fey queer boys and transsexual prostitute characters on TV. These stereotypes reflect some real people but so many are Not be represented.
What about healthy unaffected GLBT characters such as a for real, diverse group of people? I Love Sister, Actress LaVerne Cox. Why cast her always as a ho? Of course The Village Voice and New York Press are almost fully supported by ho ads, particularly tranny ho ads. but again they are only one small portion of that population!
Why not cast sister LaVerne Cox as an everyday female, or whre she's a doctor, an everyday woman? If you gonna make her a Ho make her a generic female ho, she does not look in any way shape or form as a "man". Transgender people are more than some genitals, they are human beings with individual characteristics as us African appearing people are more than just a skin tone or complexion.
I saw LaVerne Cox on "Law and Order" and "Bored to Death" Cox dammed bitches! You writing only roles for Miss LaVerne play'n trans-ho's. Come on ya'll! This ebony beauty is far more talented then some lame assed casting director with myopia putting her in trans only roles. She's a woman be it of trans experience and actors act. A good actor should be able to play any person-gender etc.!!
You see there's an agenda going on here, as long as transgender people are still seen as freaks people, even the less educated gays and lesbians can point and laugh. Making our gay and transgender children punch lines is not liberated, it's fuck'n stupid and shameful! So directors out there get Sister LaVerne some good acting roles playing all kinds of everyday women! Do not turn her into the Amos and Andy show of 2009. Minstrel shows were once a staple of old, African American stereotypes. They evolved into Amos and Andy, 70's,Blaxploitation comedies and nowadays Medea. Though most educated people are in on the joke, the less intelligent cannot distinguish between the empowerment of humor versus being a stereotype and still playing a real life stereotype.
Gore Vidal is an American Legend and mart. Gore has also been apologetically queer, but in a smart way. Edmund White writes about gay experiences from the 50's and very stuck in a 70's post liberation place. White's material always has that ever so slight hard-on, porn-ish touch about his characters. White believes in promiscuity and does not support gay marriage. Promiscuity was encouraged in the post 60's 1970's especially among gay men. Wife swapping was big in some suburban circles, people were trying out their sexual adventure water wings. People were trying to, especially in American break free of old, systemic puritanism by trying lots of new things via sexual exploration. Many in my opinion were attempting to buck the uptight, frigid sexual mores, this was especially true of women and gay men attempting to forge a new and freer sexuality.
Nowadays us young, post liberated people want the right to marry and raise families. We don't buy into the.promiscuity as liberation myth, at least those of us who are educated and have learned the horrors of history. We often see reckless promiscuity as a symptom of self loathing only serving to destroy our capacity to have authentic intimacy. We are conscious to anything that can discredit our rights to marry and raise families. If we act like old school stereotypes we become the reason for uneducated people to see us as legitimately incredible.
Many of us gay women can be promiscuous as well, but at the end of the day promiscuity is the by product (no pun intended) of internal self loathing and sex addiction. Never mind Aids, there are many other nastier STD's, and even with new vaccines, like bedbugs, STD's evolve and become resistant to medications and vaccines, so we all had better pull our collective shit together and realize this truth: If you are sexually active you Must keep practicing safe sex!
Let's be honest, promiscuity and excesses have been the main culprit of a gay holocaust called the Aids epidemic that annihilated a huge chunk of the gay male populations in the 1980's. Most of these men came of age during the 1960's and 70's while unbeknown to themselves, sexually active, particularly anal receptive gay men were getting infected. The silent killer also began claiming the lives of bisexuals, gay, straight, transgender sex workers and hemophiliacs, intravenous drug users worldwide.
Our communities became galvanized to fight Aids and save the lives of the victims. Truthfully, promiscuity and unprotected sex contributed to many deaths. So when old school douche bags like Edmund White praise promiscuity they green light young GB LT and other sexually active people to indulge even more. Sexual and drug addicts, Addiction is an illness and its own deadly disease contributes till today to these infections. The saddest victims were and still are the men and women who were partners of people who had unprotected sex or used i.v. drugs. Most tragic victims historically were the people who received tainted blood transfusions from volunteers doing a good deed by donating blood. Even more tragic are the worldwide children born infected to Aids patients.
The GLBT communities and our allies were and still are united in finding an Aids cure since we hit the mid-late 1980's. Condoms became a reliable stock and product. Trojan commercials began to hit the air. The once humorous concept of bagging it became a smart and educated choice, it still should be and must be!
The most tragic aspect of all of this is along came a 90's cockiness(again no pun intended) of young GLBT folks who decide in spite of themselves to go bag less and prove a point. This evolved into the bug chasers and gift givers. "Gift" givers? Such a "gift" is actually a polite word for assassination! Bug Chasers are in reality mentally disturbed people who are so out of touch with their suicidal wishes. Bug chasers and "gift" givers are demented plain and simple. Anyone who has watched a person die or suffer from this horrible disease would Never endorse such asinine, assassination!
It is time for the GLBT community to grow the fuck up and get really wise! That is it's your own business if you are sexually active and with who. However if you are stupid enough to have unprotected sex with strangers then you are falling into the arms of horrible illness, enslavement to the pharmaceutical companies who view you as a demographic for profits. If you want to be the ho to the big-pharmaceutical, pimp daddy then act the fool and kill and be killed. If you are infected then Be fucking Responsible, get health care and Bag your stuff. Do not assassinate others because you are ill. Also taking care of yourself and not having unprotected sex will keep you healthier in the long run as you won't be mixing up your viral load.
If you cannot behave responsibly then get your fuck'n head checked!
Plain and simple if us Queer folk also known as GBLT's want to be respected we had better start by respecting our selves and teaching the world through example. Education is empowerment. I'd rather be a smart woman going about her business being a part of the world at large then stuck in some mutha fuck'n ghetto.
In the ghetto there are 2 communities and mindsets, One is let's band together and do aF.U.B.U.( for us, by us) protect and pull our collective asses up and out! this is a wise, educated and healthy choice.The Ill-est choice is: Let's shoot up, cut up and fuck ourselves up so fiercely that we stay fuck'n down and let's known down and drop quick anyone daring to be better and make a healthy choice!
In ghetto life we all have to make an executive decision and distance ourselves with the more destructive elements of our communities. If Barack and Michelle OBama tried to keep it real and be all down with the people, especially the more destructive people, they would never be up on the hill where they are as role models. I don't know about you but I'd rather be alive, healthy as possible, educated and fully self supporting in work that brings pride and spiritual fulfillment. So get your head and you ass healthy and empowered. If you messed up pull it together as it's Never too late to begin a good life! If you have never been to hell then pay the negative ways no mind and keep on a walkn'n to heaven: which means education, credibility, self respect and power baby!
Peace Ya'll,
Ms. Rae
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment