Anyone else watching/planning on watching this series? I tuned in late to part 1 last night.
The title is ridiculous. It seems like it was chosen for no other purpose but to deflect right-wing criticism of the series. Which is dumb, because the rabid right is going to attack it anyway.
What I saw of part one focused on older gay people. Which is great in that older gay people are pretty much ignored by everyone including younger gay people. It kind of bugged me that the refrain of the older people seemed to be variations on “we’re just like other people.” In other words, we’re just like straight people. I don’t think I’m just like other people and I don’t like the idea of a program espousing that philosophy.
I thought Koppell was rather disingenuous in including footage from pride parades showing muscle boys and dykes on bikes, then turning around and talking about how so many people think of images like those when thinking of gay people. Well gee, ted, maybe that wouldn’t be the case if the media, which is most people’s exposure to pride parades, didn’t show nothing but muscle boys and dykes on bikes. At every parade I’ve ever been to, for every bar float full of go-go boys there’ve been three or four church groups or parents groups or students groups but they don’t make for shocking TV so Ted and his colleagues don’t show them.
I truly felt Ted did a good job of trying to give a balanced interview. He confronted the couples with a couple of questions that many straight people might be wondering, such as “Why is it different for you to leave your husband because you find yourself extremely attracted to a member of your own sex than it is for me to come home to my wife and announce I am extremely attracted to a younger woman?” I felt the women answered the question very well, by the way, and even Ted seemed satisfied. He asked hard questions, and gave them the chance to respond. He highlighted the problems these couples face legally when one of them is hospitalized or dies. He presented them as “normal” couples with the exception of their choice of partner.
Overall I thought it was a very good interview. I don’t think mainstream America thinks of grandma and grandpa in the retirement home when they think of gay couples. It is important that they do see this is an actual reality. I think the focus on the gay pride parades, etc. was to show what most straight people think of when they think of the “gay lifestyle”. Both older couples mentioned they were uncomfortable with that image, and in fact, they seemed to hold conservative views. The point they were trying to make was that they are like everyone else, except in who they love. What is wrong with that message?
There was also a man who mentioned he wished he had the courage to participate in those public displays of pride. I really think Ted gave a balanced prsentation. I did not get the impression he was trying to be disingenuous.
Part Two. Screw part two. I don’t give two hoots in hell what a bunch of religious bigots think about homosexuality. Where was the MCC pastor to counterbalance the crap these so-called “men of God” were slinging? Given the revelations of the past few months, why would anyone think that a Catholic priest has any moral authority to speak on any subject relating to sex? I kept waiting for Ted to ask these nitwits to define the “homosexual lifestyle” that they keep ranting against. The whole point of the Roanoke newspaper series was to illustrate the wide variety of ways in which gay people conduct themselves, and these pointy-headed idiots just willfully ignored it. My personal favorite comment (paraphrased) was from the Methodist. We don’t let them be leaders or celebrate their unions, but other than that we welcome them with open arms. Of course there is no God, but if there were I would ask why he doesn’t send the occasional plauge of boils to afflict the nincompoops who claim to speak and act in his name.