| re: I could listen to these seasoned theatre professionals talk about leading ladies all day | |
| Last Edit: Singapore/Fling 12:20 am EDT 07/17/20 | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 12:14 am EDT 07/17/20 | |
| In reply to: re: I could listen to these seasoned theatre professionals talk about leading ladies all day - Michael_Portantiere 09:17 pm EDT 07/16/20 | |
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| I can tell that this topic upsets you, and I don't wish to add to your discomfort, but there are a few points that call to be addressed: "...what a wonderful, positive thing it is that a word that was once considered derogatory had long ago been claimed by the theatrical community as a badge of honor." This is really simple: it wasn't our word to reclaim. And also, let's be honest: the word wasn't reclaimed from being a slur and turned into something positive; it was adopted by relatively privileged people to refer to their existence moving from show to show as if that was akin to the Roma being forced to literally move from country to country because they were being persecuted and vilified everywhere they went. But of course, when people started calling themselves "gypsies", they most likely weren't thinking about that; they were most likely thinking about some romanticized idea of happy, mystical people living in caravans and playing music in the woods. Honestly, I would be surprised if they were thinking about the Roma as real people at all. Again, would you say that a football team using a derogatory term for Natives is okay because they turned the name into something to be celebrated? As for me being ridiculous: when I write the phrase "gay men have largely achieved equitable treatment in the Western World", I am clearly talking about the present moment. The phrase "largely achieved" is the indicator about time period. I am talking about the last ten years. I am talking about gay men (so not the larger LGBTQ+ diaspora, just cis gay men) living in the US, Canada, and most of Europe, who have access to a full host of legal rights and privileges that were unthinkable at the beginning of my lifetime - and, surprisingly, parts of East Asia now as well, which I did not expect to see in my lifetime. There is in my statement a bias towards cities and secular communities, and I might be minimizing the different lived experiences of white gay men versus BIPOC gay men, but those caveats aside, I stand by what I wrote. Now, what do I mean when I write that we have largely achieved equitable treatment? I am talking about places where gay men can live openly, get married, be relatively secure in their employment status (though we are seeing carve outs for religious institutions), be considered psychologically normal by medical professionals (with, again, a caveat for religiously conservative societies), and have the culture affirm their existence (turn on the TV right now and gay male culture is normalized and celebrated in ways that I could not have imagined even a few years ago). I'm not talking about countries where being gay is criminalized. I am not talking about North Africa or the Middle East. I'm not talking about Russia or parts of Eastern Europe. I'm also not saying that being gay isn't without its hardships. I am not denying that there are areas of the Western World that are still actively hostile to gay men, especially in religious communities. I am not denying problems with gay teen suicide or rates of trauma-induced drug abuse in our community. All of that is true, and yet gay men have achieved what appears to be a very stable level of societal acceptance and legal protection. One big surprise of the Trump Presidency is that, religious exemptions aside, the rights of gay men (and women) have been relatively unaffected. What's more, even while the President uses incendiary language to demonize minority groups, gay men and women have not come in for attack. We're no longer the demonized other. We're no longer the punching bag. It's almost eerie how much Trump has not made fun of us or used us as an example of why the country must be saved from the Left (maybe Pence, the you'll pardon the expression heterosexual*, keeps him in line). That says to me that our rights have been enshrined in this country. Am I being too optimistic? Maybe. You can certainly push back against my statement without being denigrating. Perhaps I am ignoring the trouble areas or showing my Coastal Bias, but I stand behind my original comment: gay men in the Western World largely have access to a life that is equitable to their straight peers. The same cannot be said of Roma populations throughout Europe, who are largely treated as not-even second-class citizens, often live in extreme poverty, and have been targets of forced relocation and cultural demonization as recently as the past decade. * to either quote or paraphrase Tony Kushner, based on how well I remembered that line from "Angels in America" |
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| Previous: | re: I could listen to these seasoned theatre professionals talk about leading ladies all day - Michael_Portantiere 09:17 pm EDT 07/16/20 |
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