LGBT Entertainment
Bollywood Tackles LGBT Rights
Published August 05, 2009 @ 07:10AM PT
Last month, the Delhi High Court in India threw out Section 377, a statute in India's penal codes that criminalized homosexuality. The decision was roundly celebrated by LGBT rights activists and public health activists. (And roundly criticized by opponents of LGBT rights, and conservative religious sects.)
In the wake of that decision, Bollywood has been outspoken in its support for LGBT rights, and overthrowing the statute that up until last month, criminalized homosexuality for India's roughly 70 million LGBT folks. To be sure, the status of Section 377 is still in a bit of limbo. The Supreme Court of India has asked the government to weigh in on the matter, and up until now the government has remained largely silent.
But Bollywood has not been quiet in their support. A well known Indian court drama, "Yeh Chanda Kanoon Hai," is going to feature an episode focusing on LGBT rights, and a number of high profile celebrities have come out in support of the Delhi High Court's decision, and have urged Indian authorities to enact a full repeal of Section 377 across the country. Here are a few of our favorite Bollywood quotes on Section 377:
Celina Jaitley: "It's a turning point in the history of human rights in the world's largest democracy. It's also a personal victory for me since I've been fighting for gay rights. Now they can walk with their heads held high. This is a new beginning."
Mahesh Bhatt: "This is a defining moment in the history of free India. No government has the right to tell its citizens when or whom to love. The only ‘queer’ people are those who propagate hate."
Upen Patal: "I think it's a great move forward by the government and for Indian society. Everyone should have the right to choose whom they want to be without the fear of being labeled a criminal."
And those are just a select few. To see scores more quotes from Bollywood, click here.
Assessing the State of LGBT Characters on Television
Published July 27, 2009 @ 01:28AM PT
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has released their third annual Network Responsibility Index, surveying the state of LGBT characters across the span of television. The results show that two premium cable channels certainly know how to get their gay on, while two major television networks languish far behind in the amount of LGBT representation they feature in their programs.
Home Box Office (HBO) and Showtime take the cake this year for being the most inclusive networks when it comes to spotlighting LGBT characters in their shows. For HBO, GLAAD showed that 42 percent of its total programming featured content relating to the lives of LGBT folks. Showtime also showed a respectable number - albeit far behind HBO - with 26 percent of its programming featuring LGBT content.
This all makes sense when you think about the shows on both of these premium channels. True Blood (HBO), The L Word (Showtime), Entourage (HBO), The United States of Tara (Showtime), The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (HBO), and Weeds (Showtime) all covered LGBT issues or had LGBT characters. And it makes a difference in terms of the quality of programming, at least according to Rashad Robinson, a senior media staff person at GLAAD. Here's what he told the AP: "Television shows that weave our stories into the fabric of the series present richer, more diverse representations."
NBC and CBS were on the opposite sides of the spectrum. Despite being the network that aired possibly the most popular LGBT sitcom ("Will & Grace"), GLAAD found that NBC only had about 8 percent of its programming reflect LGBT issues. CBS faired even worse, scoring a staggeringly low 5 percent. Guess it's a little hard to work in an LGBT storyline on The Unit (another ramification of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"?).
For more information, you can check out GLAAD's "TV Gayed" page on their Web site. Ironically, the AP article that we're linking to throughout this post even scooped the GLAAD Web site, so there's no link yet available for the 2009 Network Responsibility Index. Once it's updated on the GLAAD Web site, we'll put a link here.
UPDATE: Here's the release from GLAAD.
Daniel Radcliffe Loathes Homophobia
Published July 24, 2009 @ 07:20AM PT
Now if we could only hear what Robert Pattinson thinks about homophobia... :)
Seriously, though, Daniel Radcliffe is certainly getting in good with the LGBT folk. In addition to being flattered at the sexual orientation rumors that swirl around him, Radcliffe is out with an interview in Attitude magazine where he spares homophobia no pain. Take it away Radcliffe:
I just loathe homophobia. It's just disgusting and animal and stupid and it's just thick people who can't get their heads around it and are just scared.
Wow, tell us how you really feel. There's more:
I grew up around gay people entirely. I was the only child in my class who had any experience of homosexuality or anything like that.
Now if we could just get Daniel Radcliffe to wear a white knot at the Oscars this year...
For more of Radcliffe's interview, including his thoughts on the milquetoast centrism of British politicians, check out portions of the interview here.
Homophobia in Rural America
Published July 23, 2009 @ 07:37AM PT
Remember Barack Obama's famous line from the 2004 Democratic National Convention, when he first burst onto the public stage? It went a little something like this:
We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states.
And some of those gay friends in the red states (or at least the red parts of some blue states) have been busy putting together a documentary meant to shed light on the issue of LGBT rights and homophobia in rural America. That's the goal of a new film by two rural Western Pennsylvania residents, Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, called "Out in the Silence."
What's the story of Wilson and Hamer? Well, the couple traveled to Canada a few years ago to tie the knot. Upon returning to the U.S., the couple placed their wedding announcement in two Western Pennsylvania newspaper, the Oil City Derrick and the News-Herald. (Turns out Western Pennsylvania was where one of the grooms grew up.)
Seeing two men list a wedding announcement in rural Pennsylvania papers was enough to send some rabid anti-LGBT folks over the edge. Hate mail ensued, including one local resident who used the wedding announcement as a call to arms for a federal marraige amendment.
After seeing the direction that even our community might be going, I know how imperative it is for the Federal Marriage Amendment to be passed. All Christians need to stand up for what they know is right in God’s eyes, and stop this atrocity. The Bible was written as a set of rules for us to follow, not a set of general ideas for us to interpret however we want to fit our own lifestyles.
Homophobic diatribes like this one continued to pour in. But so did supportive letters, as well as letters asking Wilson and Hamer for help. One of those letters came from the parent of a gay teenager, who had been forced to drop out of school because of anti-LGBT bullying. It's this story which makes up the premise of "Out in the Silence."
Hamer and Wilson take their cameras and travel back to Western Pennsylvania, documenting the trials and tribulations that one family - a mother and her gay son - face in trying to combat homophobia both within their rural community and within the public school system.
The film is going to be telecast throughout Pennsylvania PBS stations in 2009, and will eventually hit TVs nationwide in 2010. The filmmakers are also touring the country right now, with stops coming up in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. Below is a trailer for the film.
On a personal note, sometimes living in the bluest of blue states causes me to forget the struggles that queer people face in areas of the country where George W. Bush is a revered figure and where schools still close on the first day of hunting season. Concidentally, I grew up 45 minutes from where this film takes place, and can remember the controversy first stirred when local papers started covering same-sex weddings and started listing same-sex personal ads. Needless to say, the letters that poured into local papers were anything but tolerant.
That's why it's really special to see Hamer and Wilson take the homophobic sentiments that their wedding announcement stirred, and turn them into a film that has the power to change minds and hearts on the issue of LGBT rights. Bravo.
Remembering Walter Cronkite and LGBT Rights
Published July 20, 2009 @ 01:17PM PT
It must say something about a person when at your death, people who weren't even born during they heyday of your career feel remorse at having lost someone trustworthy. Such is the case with Walter Cronkite, who passed away last week at the age of 92. A number of touching tributes have come in for the man who ended each newscast with a "And that's the way it is."
One of the coolest we've seen is over at Philebrity, where Philadelphia Gay News publisher Mark Segal weighs in with his first interaction with Walter Cronkite, and how it perhaps changed the way that CBS News covered the issue of LGBT rights from the mid-1970s onward. In the years immediately following Stonewall, Segal was a part of an LGBT rights group that practiced a lot of direct action, staging demonstrations and public confrontations on everything from the Mike Douglas Show to the Tonight Show.
As Segal notes, one of his direct action moments in the spotlight occurred on the CBS Evening News in 1973. Here's Segal's story:
Segal was the leader of an activist group called the Gay Raiders, who, during that year, staged disruptions designed to draw attention to the cause of gay rights on The Today Show, The Tonight Show, The Mike Douglas Show and perhaps most notably, the CBS Evening News....In the case of Cronkite’s CBS broadcast, the gambit worked; within a week, Cronkite was doing stories on gay rights legislation nationwide.
We didn't think of this before reading Segal's story, but now that it's mentioned, does anyone remember the archive news footage from the movie "Milk," which covers the epidemic of Anita Bryant ballot initiatives throughout the country in the late 1970s? It's a Walter Cronkite story they flashback to in the movie. Would that story have been covered by Cronkite if it weren't for the direct action of groups like the Gay Raiders? It's tough to say.
Segal notes that in Cronkite's later years, well after his retirement from the news business, the former anchor came out in favor of repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," of funding HIV/AIDS initiatives, and for marrriage equality. Cronkite even wanted to reflect the importance of LGBT rights in his memoirs, according to Segal, who noted that Cronkite showed a clip of the Gay Raiders disruption to show how the news affected one particular community.
Given Segal's piece, and a really excellent reflection from Karen Ocamb over at The Bilerico Project, it's pretty clear that Cronkite wore two hats: that of a journalist reporting news, and that of a humanitarian, concerned about the dignity and self-worth of the people he reported on. Which may be one reason why everyone seems sad that he's passed: there's just too few characters in the news media today that do a good enough job melding the mind with the heart.
It's Going to Be a Gay, Gay, Gay, Gay Emmy Telecast
Published July 18, 2009 @ 07:13AM PT
So it's not the same as having a cabinet-level appointment in the Obama administration, but it's still pretty cool nonetheless: this year's Emmy Telecast is going to be one of the gayest, if not the gayest, in history. Why?
Well, it's all in the nominations. As She Wired points out, there are a number of LGBT-friendly nominations, celebrating a year's worth of television that celebrated openly LGBT actors and actresses, as well as programs that celebrated the diversity and dignity of LGBT folks. Here's a quick rundown of some of the more LGBT-centric Emmy nods:
- Openly lesbian actress Cherry Jones was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in 24 (where she played the President of the United States!);
- Prayers for Bobby, about a homophobic woman who has an awakening when her gay son commits suicide, was nominated for best TV movie;
- Sigourney Weaver, who played the lead character in Prayers for Bobby (said homophobic woman who has a change of heart after her son commits suicide) in nominated for Best Actress in a TV movie;
- Sir Ian McKellan, long out of the celluloid closet, was nominated for his performance in King Lear;
- Big Love, which was created by an openly gay couple, was nominated for Best Drama;
Oh, and then there's the host: Neil Patrick Harris, also openly gay.
Yes, this may seem like a bit of a soft piece of news. But at the same time, it's great to see Emmy Nominations that reflect the role of LGBT actors in shaping pop culture, and the role of LGBT programs and series in creating the best of the best of television.
The Verdict on Bruno?
Published July 13, 2009 @ 06:46AM PT
It was opening weekend for Sacha Baron Cohen's much-publicized "Bruno," the new movie that features Cohen flaunting a larger than life gay persona and pranking his way up and down the entire country. Before the film was released, many folks were on one hand worried that "Bruno" would reinforce negative stereotypes about LGBT people, and on the other hand hopeful that Cohen's ability to poke fun at homophobia and bigotry would advance LGBT rights and point out just how silly those who oppose gay rights are. So, now that the film is out, where does "Bruno" fall?
Well, if box office numbers have anything to do with it, people seemed to like it. "Bruno" made more than $30 million this weekend, placing it at number one on Hollywood's charts. But the film certainly saw it's share of detractors, from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), to bloggers and critics alike. So, here's a question for you: After it's first weekend, did "Bruno" help or hurt (or have absolutely nothing to do with) the larger LGBT rights movement?
Here are a few responses from around the web. We'll start with the Good (2), then head to the bad (2), and then head to the ugly (just 1!).
1. The Bilerico Project (DC): "Homophobes aren't going to venture anywhere near a theater where Brüno is playing. And if they do, they'll walk out before the going gets really good. Meanwhile, those straight folk who choose to pad Brüno's box office this weekend are likely already in our court. They're wise to the joke, acutely aware that the sexual antics performed early on by Brüno and his boytoy are way beyond absurd. No one in their right mind will think gays stick champagne bottles up their butts. At least, not on a regular basis. Just special occasions."
2. Slate.com: "Borat and Brüno are comedies of difference, documentaries of bigotry, and they more or less require the viewer to pick a side. Baron Cohen doesn't play nice, but there's real value to the aggression of his literally confrontational method. How many political entertainments can match the satisfaction of watching Borat trash an antique store full of Confederate kitsch or Brüno compliment an ex-gay preacher/deprogrammer's "amazing blow-job lips"? For the climax of Brüno, which echoes the rodeo scene in Borat, Baron Cohen, disguised as a tough-guy wrestler, starts making out with another man mid-cage match, sending the drunken mob into a horrified frenzy. Leave it to a movie with a talking penis to come up with a brilliant tactic against homophobia: the gay-panic offense."
3. GLAAD: "The makers of the film "Bruno," Sacha Baron Cohen's just-released follow-up to "Borat," have said that they intend to satirize and expose homophobia. But even when filmmakers have the best of intentions, there can be a disconnect between the concept and the execution. In "Bruno," the satire often loses sight of the way gay people are treated in real life....We live in a world where far too many still mistreat and abuse gay people, deny us the ability to take care of the ones we love and exclude us from fully participating in the life of our communities. For a major studio film with a massive cultural footprint to pile even more stereotypes and discomfort onto an already hostile climate -- despite what are inarguably the best of intentions -- doesn't make the work of changing and overcoming it any easier."
4. Socialist Worker Online: "The first thing that strikes you is that this is a grotesquely homophobic film, a compendium of everything that a particularly bigoted 12 year old boy might think he knows about gay people....Sacha Baron Cohen is clearly an intelligent and creative person. He could presumably produce a film worth remembering in some way. But Bruno deserves to be forgotten about as quickly as possible."
5. Carlos in DC: "The worst thing about this movie it makes gay people look really bad, as if we all are sex addicts and dildo-obsessed drag queens, with a thirst for money and fame so extreme that we would do anything to get them. To be that way, one doesn't need to be gay. And of course the film is racist as it can be. Mexican men are used as chairs and furniture, and a Black kid is used as a toy, an Asian gay man is portrayed as a submissive sex slave."
So what's your opinion? Let us know!
