MTV Explains Why Christina Aguilera’s Lotus Wasn’t A Comeback At All She’s A Niche Artist.
By James Montgomery (@positivnegativ)
Christina Aguilera’s Lotus album was supposed to signify her return to prominence, a high-powered collection of songs penned by the biggest hitmakers in the business (Max Martin, Shellback, Alex Da Kid), preceded by a supercharged first single and paced by duets with not one, but two of her fellow judges on “The Voice” (she already ticked Adam Levine off the list last year with “Moves Like Jagger”).
Of course, when the folks at SoundScan released sales figures Wednesday morning (November 21), we learned that things didn’t quite pan out the way Aguilera had intended: Lotus sold slightly less than 73,000 copies, a number not quite disastrous but not exactly inspiring either. It debuted at #7 on the top 200, behind new albums like the “Breaking Dawn” soundtrack, the Weeknd’s Trilogy (the overwhelming majority of which was available for free online last year) and Soundgarden’s King Animal. And, somewhat tellingly, it came nowhere close to matching the sales of Taylor Swift’s Red — currently in its fourth week of release — or One Direction’s Take Me Home, which outsoldLotus by nearly 500,000 copies.
So while it’s not entirely accurate to call Aguilera’s latest a bomb, one can’t escape the fact that it wasn’t a triumphant comeback album either. Then again, maybe it was never supposed to be in the first place.
Because, while Aguilera certainly commands a massive — and maniacal — online fanbase (just write anything less-than-complimentary about her to see proof of this), perhaps it was unfair of us to heap such lofty expectations on Lotus, especially given Aguilera’s recent history. We all know how her last album, Bionic, fared (you can debate whether it was“ahead of its time” all you want), but album sales being what they are nowadays, that only tells half the story. It’s more telling to look at how she’s fared on the singles charts — the true test of any pop star — because, really, we probably should have seen all this coming and tempered our expectations accordingly.
Aguilera has had only three solo #1’s on the Billboard Hot 100, and two of them came during the Clinton administration. Her fourth was “Lady Marmalade,” a song also featuring Pink, Mya and Lil’ Kim, and her fifth was “Moves Like Jagger,” a Maroon 5 song on which she received a featured credit. Since 2002, she’s only had three singles land in the top 10 (2002’s “Beautiful,” 2006’s “Ain’t No Other Man” and 2008’s “Keeps Gettin’ Better”), and her best showing in recent years was “Not Myself Tonight,” which made it to #23. Lotus‘ first single, “Your Body,” peaked at #34, and eight weeks after it was released, it’s currently at #84. None of this is meant to pile on, mind you, it’s simply repeating the facts.
So why has Aguilera failed to replicate the dominance of fellow pop stars like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Rihanna or Beyoncé? There are plenty of theories — the prevailing thoughts (whether real or imagined) that she’s not as likable as Perry or Bey, does not work overtime to channel the same outsider spirit as Gaga (and therefore isn’t as relatable) or simply hasn’t been as smart with her choices as someone like Rih Rih — though I tend to believe that each of them are half-baked at best. Perhaps the truth of the matter lies in her lack of singles success, because it suggests that Aguilera is no longer a pop star; she’s a niche artist.
And that’s not a slight. In her best moments (and I wish there were more of them on Lotus), she can out-sing just about anybody, and as the recent crop of pop stars has proved time and time again, well, singing isn’t their primary concern. She still releases interesting stuff — I’m in the camp of folks who loved “Your Body” and think there are plenty of equally worthy follow-ups on the new album, like “Make the World Move” or “Sing for Me” — and, shoot, her backstory is as compelling as they come. She has a loyal fanbase, one that has thinned in recent years, but remains nonetheless. She can still work with anyone she pleases and make the kinds of albums she wants. As far as niche artists go, Aguilera’s got it pretty good. But I really think that it’s time for her to stop trying to compete with her contemporaries and embrace the uniqueness of her situation.
And that goes for us in the media too. Was it unfair to expect big things — the kinds of things she was capable of 10 years ago — from Lotus? Probably. Was it also inevitable? Most definitely. But why did Aguilera need a comeback anyway? From where I’m sitting, she’s fine exactly where she is.
German Interview Der Spiegel: Orlando Cruz Talks About His Struggles As A Gay Man In The Macho Sport Of Boxing.
SPIEGEL Interview with Orlando Cruz’Something Had to Change’
SPIEGEL: Mr. Cruz, is it important as a boxer to conform to the image of a tough man?
ANZEIGE
Cruz: Boxing is a sport that is largely dominated by machos, by men who think we have to conform to a very specific role model. The ideal boxer doesn’t think too much, is raw and brimming with strength. I am also fascinated by strength, but for me style is a part of that.
SPIEGEL: At the beginning of October, you announced that you were gay. Then two weeks ago in Florida, you climbed into the ring for the first time since you came out. How did your fans and your opponent react?
Cruz: I had the feeling that the spectators accepted me. They kept calling out my name, much louder than during my earlier fights. My opponent, the Mexican Jorge Pazos, had said beforehand that what I did outside the ring was none of his business. I think that is the right attitude.
SPIEGEL: Once, when Pazos missed you, you shrugged your shoulders. Another time, you beat your chest wildly with your fists.
Cruz: Those gestures were my way of saying: “This is my ring, my moment. No one is going to take this away from me.” My body language was also important because I wanted to prove to people that I am not a girl in the ring. I am a man in every sense of the word. That is how I want the spectators to see me.
SPIEGEL: So you do have to fulfill a few clichés about boxers?
Cruz: No, but being a bit macho is part of the game in the ring.
SPIEGEL: You have been a professional boxer for twelve years. Why did you come out at this particular point in time?
Cruz: I have earned myself respect as an athlete. I have only lost 2 out of 22 professional fights. I knocked out some of my opponents in the first round. But I never really received respect as a person. That’s something I had come to realize over the past few years. The end of my boxing career is no longer that far off, and it was time for me to make peace with myself. And there was a second reason for me to come out: I hoped it would make me a better boxer.
SPIEGEL: How do you mean?
Cruz: Until now, I have kept my personal life and my career strictly separate from each other. No one was supposed to know that I’m gay. This game of hide-and-seek was incredibly strenuous and it took a lot of energy out of me. Now I’m hoping that I can put that energy into my training.
SPIEGEL: Did you fall in love when you were a teenager?
Cruz: And how.
SPIEGEL: With a girl or a boy?
Cruz: With a girl, she was the great love of my youth. We split up when we were seventeen. She was the person who gave me my first kiss.
SPIEGEL: When did you realize that you were gay?
Cruz: I was 19 years old. I was boxing at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000. I met a man there. And when I got home, I sensed that something in me had changed.
SPIEGEL: How did you feel about that?
Cruz: Awful, I was in a very bad state.
SPIEGEL: Why?
Cruz: Because I wasn’t prepared for it. For a long time I didn’t want to accept that I was gay. Better said: I couldn’t accept it because I was too afraid. Homosexuals were discriminated against in Puerto Rico back then, sometimes even killed. I had a friend named José, but we called him Linoshka because he was a transvestite. He was stabbed to death in the street at the age of 19 by a homophobe because he had taken part in a gay-pride parade.
SPIEGEL: How did you handle it all?
Cruz: It was a painful path, but I was lucky in that my mother gave me her support. One year after the Olympics, I explained to my parents that I was gay. My mother told me she didn’t care, and that she loved me. After that, we both cried for joy.
SPIEGEL: And your father?
Cruz: That was more difficult. He was never as sympathetic as my mother. In the meantime, my parents have separated. During my fight two weeks ago, my mother was sitting right next to the ring; my father was up in the stands. But I was happy that he was there at all.
SPIEGEL: For 12 years, you tried to keep your homosexuality secret. How did you do that?
Cruz: I acted a part. I sensed the suspicion. When other guys talked about a woman’s backside, they’d pay close attention to see whether I joined in. So I played along: “Yeah, yeah, great ass.” But inside me there was only emptiness; that wasn’t me. Each time, I was denying my own self.
SPIEGEL: How did that feel?
Cruz: I had bad thoughts about myself because I wasn’t being true to myself. Inside there was emptiness, and it felt as though I was being weighed down by five tons.
SPIEGEL: Were there people in the boxing scene who knew the truth?
Cruz: That’s inevitable. Óscar de la Hoya, my former promoter, once asked me quite openly before a fight: “Orlando, tell me, are you going to tell people that you are gay?” There were other people standing around us too, boxers, managers. I was shocked and said: “No, I’m a man.”
SPIEGEL: Did people put you down?
Cruz: Four years ago, I was fighting for the world championship title in Puerto Rico. The spectators bad-mouthed me; they called me a faggot. They told my opponent to pluck my feathers. In Puerto Rico, when you talk disparagingly about a gay man, you call him a duck. That’s when I realized that something had to change.
SPIEGEL: That was the key moment for you?
Cruz: Exactly. In 2008, I moved from Puerto Rico to New Jersey. The distance did me good, also because I was able to prepare myself at leisure for my coming out.
SPIEGEL: How did you prepare yourself for it?
Cruz: First of all, I was forced recognize that I could not manage it alone. Three years ago, I went and got help from a psychologist, and we met every two weeks. He helped me to work out whether I really wanted to come out for my own sake, or whether I was being pushed into doing it. Only once it was clear to me that this was my most deep-seated wish was I was able to go through with it. Six months ago in New York, I met with the founder of an organization that fights for gay and lesbian rights. He helped me with the media relations work. He gave me tips for my press release, and we set up a Twitter profile especially for my coming out, which I now post to in English and Spanish.
SPIEGEL: Was your boxing team initiated into your plans?
Cruz: Of course. My promoter Tuto Zabala was very cautious at first. He asked all the important contacts whether anyone had problems with a gay boxer. He went to the television network Telemundo, which broadcasts all my fights in the US, and he talked to the boxing organisation WBO. They all indicated that my coming out was fine by them.
SPIEGEL: Were you nevertheless frightened?
Cruz: The preparations dispelled my fears, but I really was nervous and worried about what the reactions would be. I was prepared for a lot of nasty comments. But after I came out most people were happy for me. Professionals like world champion Miguel Cotto stood by me; he congratulated me. Ninety-five percent of the reactions were positive.
SPIEGEL: And the remaining five percent?
Cruz: The other day I was training at a boxing gym in Puerto Rico, and a group of boxers were standing next to me. They were talking about me and I could hear everything. One of them said to his pals: “Hey, we’d better not take a shower before going home today.” That’s totally ignorant. I’m a professional, an athlete. I go to the gym every day and I train hard. I don’t go there to watch anyone in the shower.
SPIEGEL: Did you confront them?
Cruz: No. In the old days that would have made me angry. But now that I’ve come out, everyone knows the truth. That’s like a protective shield against comments like that. Stupid remarks and jokes no longer hurt me, because I can stand by being gay. Nowadays I can even laugh at jokes about gays. Now I feel free, hungry and strong.
SPIEGEL: Have people outside the world of boxing also been in touch with you?
Cruz: Loads of them. There are messages from Venezuela, Poland and Australia in my mailbox. Even from Afghanistan. Many of the men who write to me have fallen in love with another man and don’t know how to explain this to their families. I can offer advice because I know what it’s like.
SPIEGEL: Do you know other professional athletes who are gay?
Cruz: If I did, I certainly wouldn’t mention their names. But there are definitely many more homosexuals in sports than we think.
SPIEGEL: News of your coming out spread incredibly quickly. Were you expecting that?
Cruz: Even though I tried to be prepared for everything, it was more than I could cope with. Suddenly I was sitting on US morning TV shows. Producers were asking me whether I would be interested in a reality show about myself. I received offers to take part in a TV celebrity dancing show. Even my mother was interviewed by journalists.
SPIEGEL: Why did your coming out attract so much attention?
Cruz: It’s not just because I’m a professional athlete. It is very unusual for someone from Latin American society to openly stand by his homosexuality. In my hometown, there are still lots of prejudices against gays. We are often not considered to be fully-fledged people. The family is sacred there; having children means more than anything else.
SPIEGEL: Englishman Justin Fashanu was the first and so far only professional football player to reveal that he was gay. After coming out in 1990, he constantly felt discriminated against, and later committed suicide.
Cruz: Of course, there are still some tough days ahead for me. But I have built myself such a strong network that I can be sure of always receiving support. Some 15 or 20 years ago it would not have been possible for me to come out. Back then, people still had such narrow views, but today many of them are more liberal. Being gay is no longer a taboo in many parts of society. That has affected sports, even boxing.
SPIEGEL: Since your victory against Jorge Pazos you have been considered a candidate to fight for the World Boxing Organization title. You could become the world champion.
Cruz: Yes. But I don’t want to be seen only as a boxer who is gay. I want to be a boxer who is professional, who pursues his goals and realizes his dreams. And my biggest dream is the world championship belt.
SPIEGEL: Did you have many female admirers before coming out?
Cruz: Oh yes, I got lots of offers. The girls would come around after my fights wanting to flirt. They’d say: “Hey, you’re so cute, come on Orlando.”
SPIEGEL: What did you answer?
Cruz: Well, what do you think? I said: “Sorry, not with me. That doesn’t work on me.” I think there are a few girls who will be sad after my coming out. I’m almost a bit sorry about that.
SPIEGEL: Your last opponent had no problem with your homosexuality. What will you do if your next adversary is less tolerant?
Cruz: Oh, you know, there will be people like that, I’m sure. Someone will come along who calls me a faggot or a fairy. I’ll say: “What? You call me a faggot? Okay, if you like. But you’d better watch out, because I’m the faggot who’s going to kick your ass.”
SPIEGEL: Mr. Cruz, thank you for this interview.
Interview conducted by Lucas Eberle.
Days Of Our Lives Preview To Monday: Will & Sonny’s Gay Romance Goes To Next Level They Make Out Passionately On A Bed!!!
Finally, it took almost a year but the Days of our lives writers and NBC got it right with the gay storyline! For months fans have complained that Will and Sonny’s gay romance lacks passion.
On the October 26th 2012 episode, Will and Sonny relationships advanced to the next level. I commend Freddie Smith and Chander Massey for giving 110% in the make out scene. The kisses were powerful, passionate, full of lust and desire.
Freddie and Chandler are hot and it was so sexy that I felt like a voyeur watching them make out!
UK Telegraph Article: Orlando Cruz Breaks Barrier Is The World’s First Openly Gay Male Professional Boxer!!!
The world of sport has become a little more colourful now that the 31-year-old Puerto Rican boxer Orlando Cruz, currently ranked fourth-best featherweight in the world, has given a statement to the Boxing Scene website openly declaring that he is gay.
“As I continue my ascendant career, I want to be true to myself,” he wrote. “I want to try to be the best role model I can be for kids who might look into boxing as a sport and a professional career. I have and will always be a proud Puerto Rican. I have always been and always will be proud gay men.”
Cruz himself, however, has precious few role models. Traditionally, there has been a tendency for gay sportspeople to hide their sexual orientation until they retire. Justin Fashanu, the only English footballer to openly declare his homosexuality, was disowned by his brother John Fashanu and subjected to a great deal of homophobic abuse; he took his own life in 1998.
Emilie Griffith, a welterweight in the 1960s who was the first boxer from the US Virgin Islands ever to become a world champion, is another tragic figure. He managed to keep his bisexuality largely hidden from the public despite being seen by Alan Hubbard, a sports writer, “passionately kissing one of his cornermen”.
In 1962, Benny Paret, a Cuban boxer, threw homophobic insults at Griffiths during the weigh-in. Griffiths was restrained, but in the subsequent fight he responded with such a devastating chain of blows that Paret was knocked unconscious. Griffiths continued to attack while the Cuban was propped against the ropes, and Paret died of his injuries 10 days later. Griffiths suffered from guilt throughout his life, but was also haunted by the bitter irony that underpinned the episode. “I kill a man and most people forgive me,” he said. “However, I love a man and many say this… makes me an evil person. So, even though I never went to jail, I have been in prison most of my life.”
In 1992, Griffith was beaten almost to death in New York after leaving a gay bar near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in an attack that was thought to be motivated by homophobia. He currently received full-time care and has been diagnosed with pugilistic dementia.
But for all the dark tales from the past, times have changed. Cruz’s announcement has not provoked the same degree of shock that it might have done in previous decades, and his career is not in any danger. Nevertheless, he will doubtless be the victim of a degree of abuse, and is clearly brave to have put his head above the parapet. Orlando Cruz is poised to become a symbolic figure among gay sportspeople, whether they are out of the closet or not.
Huffington Post Article: ‘Gaycism’ and The New Normal: The ‘Hot’ Trend on TV Is Bigotry!!!
Nico Lang
Co-Creator and Co-Editor, In Our Words
In recent months, there’s been a lot of chatter on the interwebs about this thing called “gaycism” on the TV. As defined by Lauren Bans of GQ, gaycism is “the wrongheaded idea that having gay characters gives you carte blanche to cut PC corners elsewhere.” In her example, Bans cites shows like Modern Familyand freshman comedy Partners as emblematic of this trend. Modern Family is an Emmy-juggernaut, a critical darling and a much-lauded champion of LGBT characterization on TV, but that progressivism comes at the expense of Gloria, the lone woman of color. Sofia Vergara is a terrific comedienne and kills in the role, but the brunt of her jokes revolve around her flimsy command of the English language. Gloria’s B-story FOR AN ENTIRE EPISODE dealt with her use of malapropisms, like “doggy dog world” and “don’t give me an old tomato,” because being foreign is her whole purpose on the show. Oh, and having boobs.
Although Modern Family has gotten away with Charlie Chan-ing South American women (so fiery! yelling!) for three seasons, Two Broke Girls came under fire earlier this year for the same stuff. But the difference between the two is that Modern Family is racist like that friend you have who wears Native American prints from Urban Outfitters until you say something about it and then they apologize and never do it again. You know they mean well, and “flesh colored” band-aids provewhite privilege is hard to spot sometimes. However, Two Broke Girls is like your white gay friend who thinks he’s entitled to say whatever he pleases because he’s been oppressed, so he’s allowed to oppress other people and call it being an “equal opportunity offender.” He’s earned the right to be a racist, insensitive asshole, because I guess he asked Audre Lorde and she said it was okay?
For example, look at Michael Patrick King. For the queers in the audience, we know MPK as the man who brought us Sex and the City, a series notably gaycist with its Lena Dunham-esque exclusion of anyone not white, except for the groundbreaking depiction of Miranda’s sexy fling with a chocolatey black man. However, King recently upped the gaycist ante with Two Broke Girls, a show the New Yorker referred to as “so racist it is less offensive than baffling.” The show reduces black men to sweet ol’ jive-talkers, Eastern Europeans to crazed sex hounds and Asian Americans to Long Duk Dong and “Yellow Panic” stereotypes. On the latter, Andrew Ti of “Yo, Is That Racist?” notes, “It’s distressingly easy to imagine the writers sitting around and listing off every single ching-chong stereotype, ultimately deciding with some sorrow that a Fu Manchu mustache would be impractical for budget reasons.”
And when Michael Patrick King was asked about it a panel for Two Broke Girls earlier this year, was he like your friend who vowed never to shop at Urban Outfitters again? Nope. He was like your friend that then buys a bunch of Native American print underwear afterward and then dances half-naked on a coffee table bragging about how edgy he is — because he’s, like, pushing boundaries or whatever. In defense of being a racist douche, King eloquently summed up the problem with a heaping helping of white gay male privilege, “I’m gay! I’m putting in gay stereotypes every week! I don’t find it offensive, any of this. I find it comic to take everybody down, which is what we are doing.”
Into this controversy steps The New Normal, the new Ryan Murphy show about two gay men who decide to raise a baby together, a show that marries Murphy’s trademark tonal inconsistency “with more gay jokes and regular old racism than Gallagher’s stand-up act.” All of Murphy’s shows have huge problems, and Glee has faced heavy criticism for not only being super racist, but also for being super transphobic, which was recently kiiiind of rectified by introducing the character of Unique, a young trans* woman of color. However, as the Cracked article on the show argues, the real problem is that everyone is a “something” on the show, and all the characters conform to broad caricatures, “like the awkward Jew with the afro, the black girl who always sings the big gospel notes, the gay kid with the great fashion sense, the overachieving Asian [and] the fiery, underprivileged Latina.” Although you could argue that in high school, everyone conforms to a stereotype, Cracked‘s Ian Fortey notes the Michael Patrick King logic behind that rationalization: “Glee’s producers think that by shoving their parade of characters and their intense stereotypes in your face, rather than having them be subtle, it’s cool, because they’re acknowledged.”
Similarly, The New Normal announces its offensive stereotypes as if it were shouting them through one of Sue Sylvester’s bullhorns. TNN has already caught a lot of flack for its “lesbian problem,” as it reduces all lesbians to “ugly men” with “gingerbread man bodies,” but this is pretty much the tip of one big problematic, racist iceberg. In one greatmoment for the history of gay characters, main gay Bryan (Andrew Rannells) refers to vaginas as “tarantula faces,” with the implication that gay men think vaginas are icky and gross. Elsewhere, he prances around a lot, listens to Lady Gaga, talks about dressing his baby up in Marc Jacobs clothes and does lots of other stereotypically “gay things.” This is not progress. This is pretty much the same crap that shows like In Living Color (see: their “Men on Film” sketches) used to pull, except now the “Equal Opportunity Offenders” are on “our team” (aka. Team Queer). As a self-proclaimed “femme,” I know there’s nothing wrong with being effeminate, but nothing about Murphy’s characterization of femme males feels particularly nuanced.
The problem is that instead of writing actual characters, Murphy falls back on tired tropes, showing his writing hasn’t evolved out of high school cafeteria labels. On top of Bravo Gay Bryan and his Butch Gay partner (Justin Bartha, who gets to watch football and do “dude stuff”), we have a Precocious Child (Bebe Wood), a Single Mom With Big Dreams (Georgia King), a Sassy Black Woman (Nene Leakes) and a Homophobic, Racist Grandma (Ellen Barkin, who deserves so much better). Some of these stereotypes are harmless, but Leakes’ and Barkin’s characters make my brain hurt, as they seem to be taken from deleted scenes from Crash. Barkin’s Nana exists in some Paul Haggis-ian alternate universe where people can just shout racist invective all the time, in place of actual conversation. And in The New Normal, the people around them just shrug it off or laugh at them dismissively. Because old people are so old, amiright?
Nana has a lot of people to offend, and like Andrew Ti, I can picture her crossing off a Glenn-Beck-created checklist for every episode. Jews? Check. Gays? Check. African-Americans? DOUBLE CHECK. To give Nana a lot to complain about, Ryan Murphy casts Real Housewife Nene Leakes to be the embodiment of every single stereotype about black women this side of an Aunt Jemima bottle. Leakes plays Bryan’s assistant, and in her first scene, she discusses stealing her boss’ credit card to buy new shoes, ones (of course!) covered in rhinestone bling.
When’s she’s not stealing, Leakes has a constant “mhmm” expression on her face, as if she spontaneously developed a case of Lana Del Rey lips. She serves no other purpose on the show except to be loud and to and validate Bryan and David — in the same way that most TV shows and films use people of color solely as vehicles for white narratives. General, non-gay-specific racism is nothing new in the media. Non-whites are always relegated to supporting roles where they are acted and commented upon by the white characters (e.g. Bryan and Nana), but rarely get their own agency or the ability to write their own narratives. (Both of the creators of The New Normal are white.) After all the criticism The Help received for similar issues, I’m surprised this ever made it past NBC’s people. I know the struggling network is desperate for anyone to take it to the prom, and Ryan Murphy is SO HOT right now, but this is just pathetic.
All of this overt stereotyping makes it particularly hypocritical when Leakes calls out K-Mart Sue Sylvester for being racist, asking Nana to take her “dirty, racist mind back to the South.” I couldn’t believe that the pot dared to call the kettle African-American, until I realized that the problem was that Murphy and Ali Adler (his out lesbian co-creator) don’t see any problem with Leakes’ character. TV sitcom writers don’t necessarily have to care about white privilege or how stereotyping perpetuates a system of systemic injustice, as they are more concerned with putting on a show and getting viewers. Murphy and Adler will do whatever is necessary to get laughs, even if that means offending people, because pushing buttons is part of comedy! Haven’t you seenBrickleberry?
In response to that reasoning, Lindy West writes:
This fetishization of not censoring yourself, of being an ‘equal-opportunity offender,’ is bizarre and bad for comedy. When did ‘not censoring yourself’ become a good thing? We censor ourselves all the time, because we are not entitled, sociopathic fucks. Your girlfriend is censoring herself when she says she’s okay with you playing Xbox all day. In a way, comedy is censoring yourself–comedy is picking the right words to say to make people laugh. A comic who doesn’t censor himself is just a dude yelling. And being an ‘equal opportunity offender’–as in, ‘It’s okay, because Daniel Tosh makes fun of ALL people: women, men, AIDS victims, dead babies, gay guys, blah blah blah’–falls apart when you remember (as so many of us are forced to all the time) that all people are not in equal positions of power.
To Murphy and co., it’s not being racist, it’s being politically incorrect, which Debra Dickersonargues is often the same thing:
The rhetorical cul-de-sac where white hate went–in goes racism, out comes political incorrectness. Use of this phrase is a tactic designed to derail discourse by disguising racism as defiance of far-left, pseudo-Communist attempts at enforcing behavior and speech codes. However, vicious, brainless, knee-jerk, or crudely racist a sentiment may be, once it is repackaged as merely ‘un-PC’ it become heroic, brave, free-thinking, and best of all, victimized.
And that sense of victimization is exactly what makes the gaycism in The New Normal so troubling, because it makes the show feel entitled to being offensive. Shock humor is the only type of humor The New Normal knows, and it insists on shoving it down our throats, like when Nana thanks a young Asian girl for “helping build the railroads” and offhandedly remarks that “when [she] was in school, they learned about presidents that owned people like [Barack Obama].” Shows likeSouth Park and Louie do a good job of using racially charged and politically incorrect humor as a way of critiquing societal and systemic norms, rather than indirectly supporting that oppression through just mindlessly regurgitating stereotypes. In contrast, nothing about Nana’s statements subverts the status quo, and the laughter only derives from the fact that Nana is saying the things we aren’t supposed to or allowed to say. She’s just being “real” and “honest,” like a second-rate Archie Bunker.
However, in the case of Bunker, the jokes were on him, as the show served as a critique of the conservative ideologies that made him racist, and Bunker’s punchlines only served to show what a xenophobic jerk he was. The New Normal doesn’t do that, and in fact, they have Bryan and Nana bond over both being Asian racist, so everyone’s racist and it’s okay. Because Murphy doesn’t know when to quit, the show’s fourth episode, “Obama Mama,” has Bryan and David then reflect on their racism — when they realize that they have no black friends. Because I guess having black friends makes you not racist, they try to get some to fix the problem. Spoiler: They don’t actually make any. However, they are nice to an interracial family for approximately two seconds, which istotally the same thing as challenging societally constructed racial biases. As Barney taught us, fleeting recognition of existence = friendship = post-racial society. Racism solved. Not only does this skirting of the issue uphold the show’s racial status quo, but it also centers on a false notion: Mel Gibson starred in four Lethal Weapons with Danny Glover and look how he turned out.
Remember hipster racism? This is that turned up to 11, like Murphy throwing a big blackface partyon TV and saying its okay because it’s “ironic.” However, the biggest problem with pointing this out is that people often don’t realize that ironic racism is still just racism. And what actually makes the show’s racism so doubly troubling is that the act of being systemically oppressed should make people more aware of the ways in which they have the ability to marginalize others, because they have experienced the same thing themselves. The New Normal is even ABOUT that marginalization, specifically the discrimination Bryan and David (or “Bravid”) face for being two men who want to raise a child. Although the show is on the surface purely entertainment, Murphy has an explicitly political agenda, one he announces at almost every turn, the same way he did when he made bullying a major storyline in Season 2 of Glee. The message in TNN is that all families are normal, which (although problematic) comes from a good place and is necessary in a political climate where even some in the LGBTQ community, like Rupert Everett, think two men can’t raise a child together.
As the gay parenting is the central subject matter of the show (rather than a supporting storyline, like in Modern Family), The New Normal is (whether I like it or not) a landmark show, and how Murphy defines “the new normal” will matter to same-gender parents everywhere. This isn’t one of Murphy’s haunted house yarns; this is people’s actual lives that Murphy is representing. As Spider-Man’s uncle once said, with that “power comes responsibility,” and like David and Bryan, same-gender parents want their children to grow up in a better, more inclusive world for all people, no matter their color or preference. In the third episode where, after being gay bashed in an outlet mall, Bryan tells David he doesn’t want to raise a child in a world where people so openly discriminate against each other. If Bravid ever have that child, I only hope that Ryan Murphy heeds that wish. Their baby deserves better.
Note: An earlier version of this post was featured on In Our Words, a Chicago-based online salon covering all things queer, and was updated to take the newest episode into account. You can find the original here.
Out Magazine Interview: NFL Stud Chris Kluwe Talks Same Sex Marriage, Gay Rights, & Football Career.
Chris Kluwe: Kick Ass
10.2.2012
BY CYD ZEIGLER
Photography by David Bowman
“Your insults can’t be the standard fuck, shit, bitch — it has to be something that sticks in people’s minds,” says Chris Kluwe, the Minnesota Vikings punter, explaining how to craft a devastating letter to someone whose views you hold reprehensible. “Generally the way you do that is to take a swear word—usually a part of someone’s anatomy — and attach it to something else that it normally wouldn’t go with. When you come up with a good one, you’ll know you have it because you’ll just start giggling to yourself.”
For example, “lustful cockmonster.”
On September 7, you could sense the howls of laughter reverberating across the Internet after Kluwe’sexcoriating letter to Maryland state delegate Emmett C. Burns Jr. was published on the sports fansite Deadspin and quickly went viral. A week earlier, in a letter brimming with self-importance, Burns had told the Baltimore Ravens to “order” linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo to cease advocating for same-sex marriage. Kluwe’s response was a master class in how to take down a pompous and wrong-headed ass.
“I find it inconceivable that you are an elected official of Maryland’s state government,” Kluwe’s letter started, reasonably enough. “Your vitriolic hatred and bigotry make me ashamed and disgusted to think that you are in any way responsible for shaping policy at any level.” Kluwe then went on to dismantle Burns’s position, point by point, culminating in a crescendo of wit and impishness — and that now-fabled coinage. It’s worth running the penultimate paragraph in full, if only because it does such a good job of clarifying the issues:
“I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won’t come into your house and steal your children. They won’t magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They won’t even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population — rights like Social Security benefits, child care tax credits, Family and Medical Leave to take care of loved ones, and COBRA healthcare for spouses and children. You know what having these rights will make gays? Full-fledged American citizens just like everyone else, with the freedom to pursue happiness and all that entails. Do the civil-rights struggles of the past 200 years mean absolutely nothing to you?”
Oh, he also called Burns a “narcissistic fromunda stain” — which is just showing off.
With all the attention on Kluwe’s letter, it’s easy to forget that he was, in turn, inspired by another football player, the Ravens’s Ayanbadejo, busy fighting his own corner in Baltimore. In November, voters in both Minnesota and Maryland will be faced with marriage-equality ballot initiatives, so the high-profile stance of Kluwe and Ayanbadejo could have real and profound consequences. The positions of both men not only reflect how quickly opinion is shifting, but also spotlight the need to check our own preconceptions of the sports world as inherently intolerant and homophobic.
“I’ve always relished breaking that stereotype of the dumb jock athlete because while I enjoyed athletics growing up, I also enjoyed reading and video games, and athletic sport is not what defines me as a person,” says Kluwe. “I think as more and more generations start rising through the NFL, a lot of these kids see that it’s OK to be something other than an athlete.”
ESPN radio sportscaster, Jared Max, who came out in 2011, agrees, pointing out that the lifespan of an NFL player is much shorter than most other sports, generating faster turnover. “I strongly believe that goodness is contagious and that others will jump on board as the younger generation begins to populate the NFL,” he says, with some justification given a recent poll by Outsports.com, which identified 28 current NFL players who’ve expressed support for gay rights. For Max, players like Kluwe and Ayanbadejo deserve comparison to earlier taboo-busters like Branch Rickey, who broke through Major League Baseball’s color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers in 1945.
But for Kluwe, taking a stand on gay rights is as instinctual as planting his foot into a ball. “It’s all about the Golden Rule,” he says. “Treat other people as you want to be treated. It’s that simple. It’s something that needs to be spoken about, and it’s something I can do while fulfilling my job as a football player.”
Growing up in Los Alamitos, Calif., 20 miles south of Los Angeles, Kluwe’s parents preached to their son a mantra of tolerance with a profanity-free lexicon. Neither stuck at the time. As a tween, gay slurs peppered his speech with the same heedlessness as his peers. “Unfortunately, as kids, sometimes you don’t understand what your words can mean because you’re not emotionally mature enough yet,” he says. “As you grow up and start learning about the world, you realize, Hey, some of this stuff is hurtful; I would not want to be treated that way. That’s part of maturing.”
Kluwe’s voracious appetite for reading was also instrumental. He displays an old-fashioned ability to quote Voltaire or Ralph Waldo Emerson and reads so much sci-fi and fantasy that he jokes that Barnes & Noble can’t keep up. On his active Twitter account, he’ll solicit suggestions for his book list. A recent post reads, “This Vonnegut guy, I like the cut of his jib.” A few hours later, he’d already updated it: “Damn. Slaughterhouse 5 makes me want to simultaneously punch and hug the entire human race. The same stupid cycle over and over.”
It’s easy to trace Kluwe, the outspoken gay rights advocate, through his childhood obsessions with gaming and sci-fi. The thrust and parry of video-game discussion boards, he says, helped to hone his debating skills; his love of books expanded his vocabulary. At the same time, his immersion into the worlds of Terry Pratchett and Iain M. Banks — two of his favorite writers — has merely served to accentuate the flaws and injustices of the real world.
“It’s definitely influenced the way I think,” he admits. “You look at all the sci-fi utopias, and, pretty much in every single one, the basic underlying philosophy is that people treat each other the way they want to be treated and there’s freedom to be who you are. What brings these utopias crashing down is the fact that one group tries to take control of another, and I think that’s very applicable to any sort of human or civil rights campaign.”
It’s no surprise that Kluwe is an avid fan of the role-playing game World of Warcraft (his avatar is a troll called Loate), so much so that his Twitter handle is @ChrisWarcraft. Among the things he loves most about such games are the parallels they offer to our culture’s battle over freedom. In World of Warcraft, he becomes a champion against evil oppressive forces. Losing isn’t an option.
While World of Warcraft forums don’t allow much space for dissecting Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Kluwe carved a space for himself by learning how to push the right buttons to get into other gamers’ heads. “I’ve found one of the most devastating ways to get a point across was to mix factual information with clever insults,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of training on how to get people riled up.”
Days of Our Lives Gay Scenes: Lucas Struggles To Accept His Son Will’s Gay Relationship With Sonny.
On Days of Our Lives Facebook page, some fans of the American soap are furious about the gay storyline. One woman said she turns off the television set whenever Will and Sonny kiss. Another person said she doesn’t believe the gay storyline should be on television since Days of Our Lives is on during the afternoon. After I read the negative comments, I realize this gay storyline is important if one person can become more open minded about homosexuality after seeing Days of Our Lives this is progress.
I believe this gay romance between Sonny and Will is very progressive. I was concerned that Days of Our Lives producers would not allow the gay romance to have any passion. In this clip, Will’s father Lucas is struggling to accept his son’s homosexuality. Lucas argues with Sonny’s mother Adrienne about their boys dating. Lucas claims to be open minded but he is freaked out that Sonny and Will kiss passionately in public at the Horton Square.
Some fans believe the Days of Our Lives writers are throwing Lucas under the bus because he initially said he was accepting of Will’s homosexuality. Another important point to consider is, although Lucas did say he is okay with Will being gay now he has seen his son kiss another man. Lucas is finally realizing that Will is sexually attracted to other men and he wants to express his sexuality. Lucas is confused, upset, and hurt that Will is gay. I think Days of Our Lives needs some scenes with Lucas talking to Sonny’s father Justin since he is accepting of Will and Sonny’s gay relationship. I think Lucas needs to talk to another man about his feelings about Will’s homosexuality.
I believe this clip touches on the theme of masculinity. What does it mean to be a man? What is a real man? Some heterosexual men believe gay men relinquish our masculinity because we are gay. Lucas seems to think his son Will is less of a man because he is openly gay.
A few years ago, Lucas moved to Hong Kong, he might feel he is responsible for Will being gay because he lacked a male role model in his life. Lucas is not a homophobe, but he is clearly uncomfortable with his son being openly gay.
I also think Will is being a bit cruel to Lucas. It took Will a long time to accept his homosexuality so he should give his father some time to come to terms with him being gay.
I understand Will is heartbroken that Lucas does not accept him yet but his father needs time to adjust.
I think this clip is very realistic, it seems everyone in Salem accepts Will and Sonny’s homosexuality. However, we all know in the real world there is homophobia. Some people claim to be accepting of gay men on the surface. Meanwhile, when gay men express our homosexual desires then all hell breaks loose.
I hope Lucas eventually accepts Will’s homosexuality and they can go back to having a good father and son relationship.
Days Of Our Lives Gay Storyline: Sonny & Will Finally Have Their First Real Passionate Kiss!!!
Last month, Sonny kissed Will but Will was still terrified because he wasn’t sure if he had feelings for his best friend. On tomorrow’s episode, Days Of Our Lives fans are finally going to see the first real passionate kiss between Sonny and Will.
Some fans have wondered do Freddie Smith and Chandler Massey have the chemistry to prove to the audience their characters are in love?
In previous kissing scenes, some fans have complained that Chandler Massey is awkward regardless of whether he is kissing a woman or a man.
However, I think fans of Days of Our Lives have the answer Freddie Smith and Chandler Massey have incredible chemistry they play off of each other.
Technically, this is Sonny & Will’s second kiss but this time there is desire and passion behind this kiss. Freddie Smith and Chandler Massey are both straight in real life but their acting in this scene is superb. Both Smith and Massey have no hesitation and really nail this kissing scene. I also liked that the guys both closed their eyes and Massey’s grabs the back of Smith’s neck as they lean in to kiss. The kissing scene is hot!
Interesting Article Is the world ready for a gay male athlete?
DICKINSON, N.D. – The moment Jamie Kuntz was dismissed from the North Dakota State College of Science football team, the double standard that exists in the world of sports became all too clear.By: Dustin Monke / Forum Communications, INFORUM
DICKINSON, N.D. – The moment Jamie Kuntz was dismissed from the North Dakota State College of Science football team, the double standard that exists in the world of sports became all too clear.
Gay women can play.
Gay men cannot.
As a sports reporter, I’ve covered several lesbian athletes throughout my career. All of them are fine, normal people and their teams accept them no questions asked.
We rarely hear about controversial lesbians in sports anymore. That barrier was broken long ago and largely brushed aside.
The same isn’t true for gay men in sports.
There has never been an American athlete in any of the four major sports – football, basketball, baseball and hockey – to come out of the closet while still competing. Those players who are gay waited until after their retirement to come out.
That’s why Kuntz’s story presents a new twist for gay athletes.
Kuntz, an 18-year-old Dickinson High School graduate, was dismissed from the NDSCS football team on Sept. 3 for conduct detrimental to the team after admitting he lied to Wildcats head coach Chuck Parsons.
It happened two days after he admitted to the coach he was gay after being spotted kissing his 65-year-old boyfriend while filming NDSCS’s football game against Snow College in the press box of a Pueblo, Colo., football stadium.
The story is now national news.
Kuntz has spoken with countless reporters since Tuesday morning and said that he has been contacted by ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” about a segment.
The story is everywhere.
So what do we take from this and the debate that it has sparked?
Could it be that, despite all of the openly gay female athletes in this country, we’re still not that close to seeing an openly gay male athlete in a major sport?
Kuntz’s story has gained a considerable amount of publicity and traction.
Yet, we have to remember that he was an obscure freshman college football player at a small junior college in North Dakota.
Imagine if he would have been playing for an NCAA Division I university? What if an NFL player would have been cut from his team after coming out?
How big would the story be then? And what closeted gay athlete would be willing to come out publicly and subject himself to the wringer that Kuntz has been put through the past two days.
Dan Savage, the gay rights activist and writer for the Seattle Stranger who broke the story about Kuntz, said he is intrigued by the amount of coverage the story has received and praised Kuntz for the courage to come out in such a public manner.
Savage said Kuntz’s story is inspiring to the gay community, but added Kuntz could have perhaps even become a symbol for young, closeted gay athletes had his boyfriend been closer to his own age.
Nonetheless, Savage believes one day there will be an openly gay pro athlete in a major sport. But, he also said it could be a while if players like Kuntz aren’t accepted after coming out to their coaches.
“This feeds into that whole narrative because there will never be an openly gay player in the NFL if gay kids are thrown out of high school or college football programs,” Savage said.
Kuntz, who was a Class 3A, all-West Region linebacker for the Midgets as a senior in 2011, said he wants to find a place to play football. He never got a chance to suit up for NDSCS after suffering a concussion during a preseason practice.
Wednesday, Kuntz posted on Twitter that he had spoken to a representative of the Florida Atlantic University football program.
Though he wants to stay in the Midwest, Kuntz said he would listen to any type of offer Florida Atlantic – an NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision team in Boca Raton, Fla. – would make to him regarding a spot on its football team.
“My main focus right now is finding a school where I can go play,” Kuntz said on Tuesday.
Regardless of one’s personal feelings regarding homosexuality, Kuntz’s actions or his boyfriend’s age, we should all be able to admit that Kuntz is in a difficult situation.
If he can find a team that accepts him for who he is, then it may be a step toward seeing openly gay male athletes in professional sports.
If he cannot, the world may have to keep waiting.
Gayblackcanada 