OK, I admit I watched the last episode of Dancing With The bloody Stars out of sheer curiosity, I banned the show from my household 2 years ago because really, who has this much time to spare? Yay, Jennifer Gray won, just as Jimmy Kimmel predicted from the beginning. Now Bristol can go on to her next career, modelling mom jeans, I've seen enough of this show in my life to know that contestants always lose weight! Sorry, couldn't resist!
The more important television moment of the week was on Glee; this weeks episode with Finn's mom marrying Kurt's dad was a real tear jerker. The wedding part was already great for those that love that kind of stuff, I know you're out there, but the real moment was when Finn asked Kurt, the gay character, to dance and said something about being his brother, I don't remember exactly, I was tearing up a little. In the storyline we see that Kurt is having a hard time being harassed by a closeted super beefy Football player, even suffering death threats, turns out the other male Glee members all tried fighting this character in the locker room while Finn backed away. Finn of course feels guilty and thus we get to the scene at the wedding where he accepts Kurt as his step brother and brother in a wider context as well as a big sorry for not defending you, aided by song and dance of course. Wow, Liberal Media at it's best!
For me this is important because it is suggesting that society is getting over homophobia, or at least putting the idea out there on one of the most popular shows on television. It's a big moment as I firmly believe art reflects life, it's never life reflecting art unless you are Madonna or Andy Warhol. Are things really changing for the younger generation?
When I was a teen, before the internet but in the age of the Walkman, it felt a little scary to be gay. Looking back I suppose nothing really violent ever happened to me but the threat was always there. I did not have the accepting parents the fictional Kurt on Glee does, my parents thought gays were all waiters and flight attendants and used words like "fruit" or "fag", even sometimes to me. High School was not really an escape, it was something one had to go thru until you could go live an actual life after grade 12. My gym locker got broken into once, all my stuff stolen and something with the word "faggot" scrawled all over the front. I got my dad to write me a bogus excuse note after that and then I just never showed up for PhysEd the next 2 months till the end of the year and nothing happened, the instructor passed me and luckily we didn't have to take PhysEd after Grade 10. Those school days were hard, people were going to notice that you had no interest in sports, no girlfriends and/or never talked about sex at all, I was more interested in music and fashion. There were likely whisper campaigns by the preppy girls, I would have torn one to shreds if it weren't for the fact that no one could tell one apart from the other, they all wore bobbed hair, up-turned collar shirts and pearls, which one of them started it, who the hell knows!?!? There was also the threat of violence at times, I remember my friends forming a semi-circle around me while I crouched down so some insane jock who was intent on beating me up at an off campus dance didn't see me, we all made it to the safety of some parents car somehow. It wasn't all bad though, the AIDS crisis was making people aware of the gays and in a sympathetic way. The modern way of thinking was to accept people, being a racist homophobe was not considered cool amongst a growing few. Although Jack Tripper was just pretending to be gay on Three's Company, network TV had the first gay character in its history on Dallas, and Boy George was telling Barbara Walters he was "bisexual", times were slowly changing.
By the time I was in my 30's we won most of the legal battles in Canada including the right to marry although it became a huge issue for our American friends, who are still trying even to just get into the military. Somehow Canadians followed a logical course of social change and law while the Ultra-Conservatives in the U.S. made it a wedge issue in their country. Isn't it just so funny that we found out recently Bush's campaign manager for the 2004 election came out as gay? Ken Mehlman was the inventor of using the gay-marriage issue to scare middle America into voting for Republicans, because they had to defend traditional marriage or the country would be destroyed by the gays. Reminds me of when I see former High School bullies in my local gay bar or at Pride Parades, it's happened a time or two.
So, for me this weeks Glee was a real milestone, I hope gay teens everywhere are feeling encouraged.
Which brings me to, how the hell does FOX Network coincide in the same universe as FOX News?!? The FOX News that constantly beats the drum of "Liberal" and "Mainstream Media" destroying America. I'm going to guess Bill O'Reilly would call the creators of Glee "pinheads" and not "patriots" and then there's Glenn Beck who thinks everyone is a puppet of the evil liberal George Soros. It is true Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation owns both FOX Network and FOX News, so they create the "Liberal Media" that all the personalities on FOX News constantly harp about? FOX is responsible for The Simpsons, American Idol, House, Glee, American Dad and Family Guy, some of the most popular shows in television and also some of the most subversive to mainstream culture, certainly subversive to the right wing rhetoric of people like Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin, especially Glenn Beck! So tell me how it is Murdoch gets it both ways? Somebody get Glenn Beck on the phone because this looks like the biggest conspiracy of all!
I'll be writing a thank you card to Rupert Murdoch for supporting gay rights and representation in his shows, from Homer turning gay once, to making Adam Lambert a superstar and the gay-positive story lines on Glee, thanks old man! You sure have done a lot for us over the years!
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