Goddamnit, I am not a fucking novelty object. Or, Fuck You, Bravo.

The BBQ Pit
41

What kind of remark? “If all the straight men in all the movies were to turn into flaming femme straight men, I’d stop watching movies?”

Considering how most of this thread is about how people hate seeing queens on TV, I don’t see how a remark about not caring to see butch guys on TV is out of order. I also don’t see how my taste in movies is the equivalent of gay-bashing.

Finally, if you don’t think butch is the same as straight-acting, then why are you accusing me of heterophobia for supposedly attacking butch gay men?

42

Yup.

It’s not about how people hate seeing queens on TV; they (and I) hate only seeing queens on TV. Gay people are only acceptable on TV if they are tragic yet noble AIDS sufferers; sassy snap queens; supportive, sexually neutral confidantes for straight women; or cautionary examples against promiscuity and drug use. I’d like to see gay guys on TV who are, you know, ordinary suburban guys, whose gayness is not their sole defining characteristic.

Butch isn’t the same as “straight-acting” because it isn’t acting, it’s being. I don;t have any desire to be percieved as anything other than gay, but I also lack even a pilot light, let alone a full-on flame. I’m accusing you of heterophobia because you have the attitude of the shows being criticized in this thread; to wit, that only fabulously gay men are authentic, that gay men who like sports, live in the 'burbs, and don’t flame are somehow smothering our inner queens.

I won’t allow the hets to tell me I’m not really a man because I’m gay, and I won’t allow you to tell me I’m not really gay because my wrists don’t bend. Nobody tells me how to behave or who to be, ever.

I support your right to be fabulous; you should reciprocate by supporting my right to be mundane.

43

Damn. I typed out a long reply, which was immediately wiped by my oh-so-reliable computer. I’ll keep this one shorter.

I admit that my reaction was extreme, but it was precipitated by certain things going on in my personal life right now. None of these things you would know about, of course, but they do go a long way to explain my vitriol. I did place a disproportionate amount of blame on Bravo, however, I do believe that they are promoting stereotypes, which is inherently negative, against both gay and straight people. The fact that the production staff may be composed largely of gays is irrelevant; stereotyping is stereotyping, regardless of the sexual preference of those doing it.

My complaint is that gay men are shown, in this series and others, as being successful only in a very limited range. I have gay friends going into law, political science, physics, etc., which is seldom-to-never shown.

The gay contingent on the board doesn’t have to agree with me; I’m not asking them to. I’m using the BBQ Pit for its intended purpose of stress relief.

Regardless of who has arbitrated it as being inoffensive, I am offended by the word queer. I’ve heard it used too many times as derogatory against myself and people close to me, and do not believe that it has been fully reclaimed or that it is sufficiently neutral right now to justify its usage.

44

“That’s one big-dicked cop.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Stand back and admire him.”

:smiley:

45

And I ask you again: where do you get that from what I wrote? You are imagining things, gobear. I know you’re real gay men, for fuck’s sake. I just wouldn’t like it if every gay man on television were butch. That is exactly what I said.

So what you’re saying is that I’m infringing your right to be mundane by not being particularly interested in watching a TV show about you?

46

Are there any butch gay men on TV? That’s sort of the point of this thread, is it not?

Not infringing, just not respecting.

47

Oh, I see. You know, I don’t own a TV, and I don’t watch nearly any TV anyway except Star Trek and shounen-ai anime. I suppose I’m infringing on the rights of everyone except spacemen in pajamas and gay Japanese. Have I got that right?

I do think, within the limits of my highly vague knowledge of popular culture, that you are underestimating the limits of butch gay men. When people are trying to do a “serious issue show” about a gay man, he is typically butch, or at least not femme.

Furthermore, all the femme gay men that I’m aware of on TV are clowns. Believe it or not, ‘normal, boring’ people are not entertaining. Not normal, boring butch people, not normal, boring femme people. If I wanted to get heated up about it, I suppose I could complain that being femme is not cause for comic relief, and that it would be nice to get some shows that accurately reflect femme gay men’s lives, which I have never seen, except at the queer film fest. This is the part where we discover that TV is, in general, not realistic.

Moreover, my problem is that in the broader queer culture, a hell of a lot of shit is geared to butch gay men already. The last time we went through this and you were going on about how femme boys take up so much space, I had to laugh out loud. Yea, that’s why there’s a billion Yahoo groups for guys who are into butch boys, not to mention for any fetish you’d care to mention from soldiers to priests, and exactly one that I’ve ever been able to find about femme boys. Yes. One. And it’s not there anymore.

Trying to reassure myself I wasn’t crazy, I have slaved over a hot search engine desperately trying to find any web resources for nelly boys and the boys who love them, and come up with bubkes. There’s a www.straightacting.com, but there’s no www.totalscreamingqueen.com. An online dating site gave the women the choice of “butch” and “femme” and the men the choice of “butch” and “more butch.” And that’s to say nothing of the constant ridicule that we have to put up with from our gay brothers. We’ve been through this, gobear.

So there we go. To quote one of my favourite femme boys on television (Nagisa Kaworu - I had to go all the way to Japan to find him), “You seem to be unaware of your own significance.”

And I’m still waiting for you to justify or retract your accusation of butchophobia, which I denounced above.

48

I might have mentioned shounen-ai anime; good depictions therein of non-butch gay men are usually unrealistic only in that they, as well as all the other characters, are typically rock musicians, mech pilots, or supernatural beings of some kind.

49

You’re not paying attention because I already explained my objections to your comments and my reasons for thinking you bigoted against butch guys.

If you don’t watch TV, then you have no business expressing opinions on gayness as shown on TV. Don’t post on matters you know nothing about. Second, you keep using the word "infringing,"a matter I never addressed. My emphasis is on your lack of respect, which is not synonymous with “infringing”. Look it up.

Well, you’re right that TV is not realistic, but since you have admitted you don’t watch TV, you don’t really know what you’re talking about. Femme gay men are way overrepresented not only on TV but in movies as well. And as noted, the most admirable gay man on TV is the flamingly nelly Emmett on QAF. Show me an equally admirable butch gay men on that show, or any show. Nelly gay men are the primary depiction of gayness in the media.

Bullshit. You can depict people in normal, ordinary lives and still be entertaining. Look at The Cosby Show. It was the highest rated show on TV for years, and it never once catered to black stereotypes, instead showing an ordinary, “boring” African-American family, that entertained millions with a down-to-earth humorous tone. The George Lopez show does the same for Hispanics. Why can’t gay men have a show like that, instead of the Manhattan bitchery of Will & Grace?

Bullshit. Sure, there are lots of military and uniform fetish sites on the Web, but there are femme, or at least nonmasculine, fetish sites, too, although they are fewer in number. Google “twinks” and see what you get.

I don’t want to fight with you, Matt, but you are uninformed on this issue. I’m sorry you feel that nelly guys get the short end of the stick, but, like it or not, yours is the only face shown on the media. Drag queens, snap queens, queer fashionistas like Bobby Trendy, and the style queens on the Bravo show are what straight people think all gay men are like. Regular gay guys are invisible on TV and in the movies.

50

You told me that you were offended that I thought that butch men were less gay than femme men. I have not expressed that opinion, for the very good reason that I do not hold it. A retraction is in order.

If they had been boring, they wouldn’t have been funny.

Being a twink does not make you femme - especially considering that twinks have gym bodies. The majority of femme guys I know are not twinks. Twink is a body type, not a gender aspect.

You haven’t mentioned a single kind of femme gay man who is like me. I’m not a drag queen, snap queen, queer fashionista (I intentionally don’t buy clothes with labels) or style queen (Gods know). I am a garden-variety, gender-deviant queer boy, and I am not on the web or in the culture anywhere that I can find.

Maybe we’re just working from different dictionaries here, but I’m hearing a whole lot of nothing about boys like me.

And I am not a fucking heterophobe.

51

Considering the topic, thought I might just jump in…

Let’s see - My favorite bar is the local Gay bear bar - The Lone Star in San Francisco - and I fit in there pretty well -

When I meet people, I get told " Gee, I never thought YOU were Gay - you don’t act Gay" constantly - which always drives me crazy, cuz I’m not sure what “acting Gay” is supposed to mean… and usually when I ask, the person doesn’t have a clue either…

And I’m somewhere in the middle on the whole Gay representation on TV thing… I HATED Will and Grace when it first came out, but eventually started to love it… I have many more issues with the Will character than the Jack character… At least Jack has some pride in being Gay… Queeny or otherwise, I could respect him for being himself… Will is totally useless as a Gay character in my mind…

As far as Queer as Folk… I think most of the characters are the most cardboard I have ever seen… The only character who has been consistently OK is Emmett… He might be effeminate, but he asks for and demands respect… and gets it most of the time…

They don’t show me - Not exactly a plethora of Bears on TV - and yet in a way they do… As a teacher, I have had MANY conversations with kids in my classes because of what they saw the night before on Will and Grace…

I’d rather have 100 self-respecting flaming Gays on TV programs than 1 self-centred, self-hating Brian Kinney any day…

I’ll reserve comments on Queer Eye til I see it…

Survivor

52

I find it annoying and insulting and I’m a heterosexual female.

Isn’t this show to air on Fox? The same network that takes black people and makes “Amos and Andy” buffoons of them?

When I saw the ad for the “Queer eye” show, I thought the same thing as I’ve thought about Fox’s sitcoms starring African-Americans for years. And that is that I’d be INSULTED if that’s how my race (sexual orientation) was being portrayed.

I’m also surprised that Hollyweird, with it’s generally more tolerent, embracing attitude (as opposed to mainstream America) toward homosexuality is being so obtuse in their treatment here.

53

It’s no wonder the Homosexual Agenda ™ is in such disarray.

There I was, having broken up with the same woman twice in 24 hours (a new personal record) thinking that maybe it was time to just stick with guys. It seemed like a good idea at the time. No more of those emotional conversations that are the equivalent of me stepping into the ring with Lennox Lewis, an understanding that “Have you seen my shirt” was just an inquiry about the location of a piece of clothing rather than a deeply revealing insight into my take on the nature of the relationship, that sort of thing. Maybe my relationships with guys have been atypical, but if you can answer “What are you thinking?” with “Beer run” and have it be an acceptible answer if not the one they were looking for it makes up for a lot. The other benefits, I’m sure, you’re already aware of.

Then I run across this thread and realize that it wouldn’t be any easier, it’d just add a different set of problems.

No toasters for you.

54

Whoa, I just parsed that last post, and if there’s anybody out there I didn’t offend, annoy, or generally piss off, let me know.

I plead a light hearted intent, vodka and tonic, and an emotional hangover.

Ah well, if anyone pays attention to it at least I’ll be able to admire the artistry of the flaming.

Now that last line looks like a bad pun.

The ability to underthink and overthink at the same time is one that I treasure.

55

Mark Slackmeyer, Doonesbury, and his partner. Not to mention Andy, who died of AIDS.

56

I apologize for snapping at you but your remarks really annoyed me. I’m sorry for misapprehending them. and offending you.

57

You mean all those groups devoted to twinks aren’t Rainbow Brite fans?

58

My coworker is not offended, just confused. She’s wondering why I could get so visably and audibly amused just writing code.

59

I appreciate it, Gobear.

60

Heh. I understand Emmett is the equivalent of Vince in the real ( :wink: ) QAF. If so, I can relate (I was crushed out on Vince anyway.)

He wasn’t a giant queen in the British version - more a femme geekboy, like yours truly (“I’m always Kate Winslet!”), and though he had self-esteem issues he was the nicest and most human one.

(Really, that whole show only served to reinforce my Britboy fetish, with predictable results.)