Friday, February 10, 2006

Some NYT-Opinion fisky

I know Fisking something from the New York slimes ... Its not difficult but this point I think deserves a bit-o-the-fisk

Dan Savage is a sex expert frequently featured on VH-1 programs but Dan has decided to become a object of the snark and ridicule I am going to start off....

roll that beautiful bean footage

Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Ex-Gay Cowboys


I like this... a headline that goes after you for not liking brokeback AND for the ex-gay movement at the same time.

That right there is a choice headline

FIRST, a little of that full disclosure stuff: I have not actually seen "Brokeback Mountain" or "End of the Spear," both of which I'm going to discuss here.


I'll second that.... not a fan of cynical packaged movies and really not a fan of movies in the jungle unless Sean Connery is involved.

But since when did not seeing a film prevent anyone from sharing his or her strong opinions about it? Before the posters for "Brokeback Mountain" were even printed, everyone from the blogger Mickey Kaus to the Concerned Women for America to gay men all over the country had already said a lot about the film. (Their opinions were, respectively, con, con and pro.)


again we go great right here. Adding moral authority by "gay men all over the country"

and of course Gay folks weren't universally snuggly about brokeback nor is disliking it as an idea nessecarily bad.

So, let's get to it: Remember when straight actors who played gay were the ones taking a professional risk?


I sure don't... because I can't think of a time when playing gay was a risk... now the TYPE of gay charecter, well thats a different story. But Dan Savage isn't looking for an intelligent discussion about the evolution of gay roles is he..no no he is out to look down on all you rubes out in the heartland who don't agree with him.

Those days are over. Shortly after Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, both straight, received Oscar nominations for playing gay cowboys in "Brokeback Mountain," conservative Christians were upset when they learned that a gay actor, Chad Allen, was playing a straight missionary in "End of the Spear."


Which I think was really stupid. A gay actor can play a straight man if he wants. Rock Hudson show'd us that. Rock was able to play straight very well as was the patriach of the Brady clan

neither man was what we would call a member of team hetro. And both of their bodies of work by the bulk of the christian right would be viewed as "the good old days" of American culture. So.... Not so smart there.

"End of the Spear" tells what happened after five American missionaries were murdered in 1956 by a tribe in Ecuador. Instead of seeking retribution, the missionaries' families reached out to the tribe, forgave the killers and eventually converted them to Christianity. An evangelical film company, Every Tribe Entertainment, brought the story to the screen. In a glowing review, Marcus Yoars, a film critic for Focus on the Family, noted that the "martyrdom" of the slain missionaries has "inspired thousands if not millions of Christians." But after conservatives took a closer look at the cast list, the protests began. Many felt Chad Allen's presence in the film negated any positive message.


Again you see how he is building up the story of the love of christ... yes he is compairing the love of christ to "the love that dare not speak its name" now is he doing it intentionally who can say.
The pastors claim they're worried about what will happen when their children rush home from the movies, Google Chad Allen's name, and discover that he's a "gay activist." ("Gay activist" is a term evangelicals apply to any homosexual who isn't a gay doormat.) They needn't be too concerned. Straight boys who have unsupervised access to the Internet aren't Googling the names of middle-aged male actors gay or straight — not when Paris Hilton's sex tapes are still out there.


Again he goes out to say "well why are you -so- intrested in homosexuals?" wink wink....nudge nudge say no more. But ok I did a Google search and the only thing i could see activistrific
As a matter of fact, he has been on the cover of The Advocate, the leading homosexual news magazine, at least three times. He also staged Terence McNally's play, Corpus Christi, which portrays Christ as a homosexual involved in a homoerotic dynamic with his disciples.


Ok he worked in a gay jesus play.....*shrugs* thats the most actvisim i could find but then again I'm not working hard. I think the production team should have had an angle to handle it.

Frankly, I can't help but be perplexed by the criticisms of Mr. Allen from the Christian right. After all, isn't playing straight what evangelicals have been urging gay men to do?


And here we go... no trying to encourage, to talk to or dialouge. Slam bam insult you ma'am.

That's precisely what Jack and Ennis attempt to do in "Brokeback Mountain" — at least, according to people I know who have actually seen the film. These gay cowboys try, as best they can, to quit one another.


Actually from what i've been told they try to have the best of both worlds and only to late realize that won't work.

They marry women, start families. But their wives are crushed when they realize their husbands don't, and can't, ever really love them. "Brokeback Mountain" makes clear that it would have been better for all concerned if Jack and Ennis had lived in a world where they could simply be together.


Does it? from what i've heard how much they love each other is even debatable from the presentation. (could just be hollywood has trouble doing love stories cause of the craptacular plot)

That world didn't exist when Jack and Ennis were pitching tents together, but it does now — even in the American West. Today, the tiny and stable percentage of men who are gay are free to live openly, and those who want to settle down and start families can do so without having to deceive some poor, unsuspecting woman.


again from what my mother told me even 50 years or so ago "Unmarried uncles" and their roomates existed.

Straight audiences are watching and loving "Brokeback Mountain" — that's troubling to evangelical Christians who have invested a decade and millions of dollars promoting the notion that gay men can be converted to heterosexuality, or become "ex-gay." It is, they insist, an ex-gay movement, although I've never met a gay man who was moved to join it.


Ok here we have a few levels of problems with this statement. "straight Audiences are watching and loving" that part is debatable. I remember the folks who loved The Passion of the Christ until i pointed out how un-biblical and contridictory it was in some areas to mainstream christian doctrine. How much of the Audience who see's it and -loves-it does so because of their own Religous/Social/Political bias?

by merging it with a critique(some one of a legitimate one) of the Ex-Gay movement he tries to say that the opinion of the Ex gay movement is irrelivent -because- people like brokeback. (and with Mickey Kaus's examination of the Brokeback money list shows that first assumption may not be so much what dan thinks)

This "movement" demands more from gay men than simply playing straight. Once a man can really pass as ex-gay — once he's got some Dockers, an expired gym membership and a bad haircut — he's supposed to become, in effect, an ex-gay missionary, reaching out to the hostile gay tribes in such inhospitable places as Chelsea and West Hollywood.


well the type of movement he is speaking of is theological in nature....

so ummmmm they going to go out and Missionize well ummm DUH.

Its what religous based movements tend to..ya know... DO

What should really trouble evangelicals, however, is this: even if every gay man became ex-gay tomorrow, there still wouldn't be an ex-lesbian tomboy out there for every ex-gay cowboy. Instead, millions of straight women would wake up one morning to discover that they had married a Jack or an Ennis. Restaurant hostesses and receptionists at hair salons would be especially vulnerable.


LOL wow... Ok so here he is assuming an anti-gay bias in the folks who buy into the ex-gay movment. But he also assumes the Kinsey 5/10% number system is valid

I think just from prior periods of social acceptability and the differences on how women practiced sexuality until the mid 19th century we'd be seeing more lesbians then the kinsey numbers (which are bogus) would say

but his entire article with its smug superiority needs you to hate the queer for its point to work so I won't let the short sightedness slow to to long.

Sometimes I wonder if evangelicals really believe that gay men can go straight. If they don't think Chad Allen can play straight convincingly for 108 minutes, do they honestly imagine that gay men who aren't actors can play straight for a lifetime? And if anyone reading this believes that gay men can actually become ex-gay men, I have just one question for you: Would you want your daughter to marry one?

#1) Ok maybe their problem was some one who is "activist" by promoting homosexuality is incapable of giving out a pure religous message
#2)Again with the playing straight part... you know a very brief exam would have told him their is more to their ex-gay methodology.. but oh wait thats right then you couldn't make them into ~the other~ and thus devalue their opinions and their values as a human being

you know... like you are accusing them of doing.

Evangelical Christians seem sincere in their desire to help build healthy, lasting marriages. Well, if that's their goal, encouraging gay men to enter into straight marriages is a peculiar strategy. Every straight marriage that includes a gay husband is one Web-browser-history check away from an ugly divorce.


*IF* his -gayness- remains... but you don't want to consider that argument now do you.

If anything, supporters of traditional marriage should want gay men out of the heterosexual marriage market entirely. And the best way to do that is to see that we're safely married off — to each other, not to your daughters. Let gay actors like Chad Allen only play it straight in the movies.


and now an attempt to sound like you are respecting their opinion

really poor... not even worthy of Usnet

F- -


I know I know what am I expecting Dan Savage to view this fairly or without Bias.

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