The Lesbian Cliche FAQ

[Sister Bertrille]

It looks as if that novena I said (and chicken I cut up) paid off. Let the games begin!



From news24.com (You will need to sign on.)

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24/07/2003 11:16 - (SA)



J Lo film a 'total disaster'



Los Angeles - Film critics in the US have apparently branded a new movie starring J Lo and fiance Ben Affleck a "total disaster".



They said Gigli is destined to be a box office flop after it left reviewers sniggering at the "laughable dialogue and ludicrous plot".



In the film, J Lo plays a lesbian assassin who is seduced by hitman Affleck.



The couple fell for each in real life while filming the movie, but on screen, their sexual chemistry is said to be seriously lacking, reports The Sun.



One critic reportedly says: "Affleck is just totally miscast and J Lo is just awful."



In one scene Lopez, 33, tries to seduce Affleck, 30, by laying on a bed and telling him: "It's turkey time!"



When he asks: "What?", she replies: "Come on, gobble, gobble". Another reviewer said: "It was possibly the worst line ever said in a movie."



The film has already undergone extensive reshooting after early previews showed audiences found the ending unbelievable.



According to The Sun, gay rights groups are incensed that J Lo's character starts off as a lesbian but goes straight - thanks to Affleck.

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Terrific that gay rights groups in South Africa are “incensed.” Has anyone seen anything in the gay US/UK/Oz, etc. press yet about this piece of poop?



If it talks like a turkey...



SB

[tyche]

The August issue of 'Out' has an article which completely slams 'Gigli'. They don't make their articles available online, so I can't link to it, but it's a pretty good article, so read it if you can. (Oh, and everything I've heard about the film has been bad. I can't remember this much bad advance word on a film since 'The Avengers'.)

[urnofosiris]

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In one scene Lopez, 33, tries to seduce Affleck, 30, by laying on a bed and telling him: "It's turkey time!"



When he asks: "What?", she replies: "Come on, gobble, gobble". Another reviewer said: "It was possibly the worst line ever said in a movie."

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And in another scene in the trailer A sitting in a chair opposite J tells her that "there are *always* cows and bulls in relationships. I am the bull and you are the cow."



Now honestly, what lesbian would not fall for a man like that? Isn't he just a dream come true?

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Coffee, Food, Kisses and Gay Love........Get it while you are hot

[dreadpirateemily]

(Just put this up at the litter box and then saw this thread and thought it more appropriate here... apologies to the moderators!)



Hello all!

Some of you may remember way back when we just found out about *you know.* Well, I was one of many that poured their hearts out trying to let other kittens know our feelings on *that-which-must-not-be-named.*



The rant turned into and essay on the lesbian cliche which ended up on a coolio website called http://www.scifidimensions.com, where a publisher saw it and asked me to flesh it out and they would put it in a book.



So now it's in this book and at this website:

http://www.webspotter.com/smartcookie/

Goto: "Number One Fan" and look under my name: Emily Almond.



Wanted to let the kittens know right away. It's still relevant. our voice is still being heard, if by but a few who might happen to read really small presses from Canada... *heh* Nonetheless...



Go kitten board... it's your birthday....



"My name is Dread Pirate Emily. This is my post.

Prepare to die. );{|{"

[emma peel]

Em, I was lurking about and saw you moved your post here, so I thought I'd add my reply from the litter box as well. I wrote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Woo hoo!!!!!! Way to go Emily!!!

Janice (who still thanks you about DragonCon last year).

Edited to add that I just reread your article, and it's not at all dated; it's still brilliiant.

And Tara's still dead.

Edited 'cause silly me just remembered Tara is alive and well and with Willow on Pens.

Doncha just love these Kittens?



Edited by: emma peel at: 7/25/03 6:53 pm

[xita]

Congratulations Emily. I am so happy to see the word is still getting out. And that because your piece came from real emotion they make a huge impact. It's important to verbalize what upsets us and to figure out why and this is exactly what this has been all about. Thanks!

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"The suspense is terrible. I hope it'll last."

-Willie Wonka

[WebWarlock]

Excellent work Emily, really.



Here it is a year and a half after we found out and the message is still out there. Too bad most of Hollywood is too stupid to learn.



Gilgi, or whatever, I am looking forward to seeing this one tank. If I were the studio I'd play up how bad it is and hope that people go see it for that reason alone.



But as my redneck relatives often say, you can't polish a turd.



Speaking huge steaming masses. Might I direct your attention to Allyson is Watching. This piece of cinematic goo was unearthed in 1997 and is "Not Rated", read "soft core porn". Now for soft core it is fairly expict but here is the cliché bits. I would say spoilers ahead, but really, is anyone going to be surprise by anything in this film?



Allyson (Jennifer Hammon) is our young innocent who comes to Hollywood with Big Dreams(tm). She gets a role of a prositiute in a play or a movie (does it matter?) and wouldn't you know it she finds Bridget (Caroline Ambrose) her next door nieghbor prostitute. Bridget shows Ally what's being a high class call girl in the big city is all about. After a night together guess what? Yup Bridget mysteriously disapears! Allyson mourns by sleeping with a ton of men.



Yup it is still the 21st century out there.



Warlock

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Web Warlock

The Other Side,
home of Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks: Available October 31st, 2003!

"I love kittens!" - My son

[tyche]

Oh dear. According to salon.com's gossip column, J-Lo utters the following immortal line:

"A penis is like a sea slug or a long toe."

Um, yeah, if you say so.

Meanwhile, here's another story about the film, and a review. Both contain spoilers:

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www.kansas.com/mld/kansas...382868.htm

Posted on Mon, Jul. 28, 2003

Ben-Jen try to get it straight: In `Gigli,' boy-meets-lesbian

BY JACK MATHEWS

New York Daily News



Jennifer Lopez plays a lesbian opposite real-life lover Ben Affleck in "Gigli," which opens Aug. 1.

But you'd never know it from the previews or the advertising.

And you may not know it from the new ending shot after audiences at test screenings clearly did not like the lesbian angle.

The result: Although it's the first movie starring Ben and Jen - Hollywood's hottest, most-in-love couple - the movie has what is charitably described as lousy advance word of mouth.

To judge by the trailer and advertising for "Gigli," the movie is a conventional love story about two attractive people who are thrown together professionally and - after a hurdle is cleared - fall in love - not unlike Ben and Jen themselves.

But that hurdle isn't explained. In one snippet, Affleck complains about sharing a bed with an "unattainable" beauty. On the film's Web site, she's described as "unavailable." It sounds like this woman is either overpriced or out of town.

Not gay.

The trailer plants the suggestion that all's well that ends up in bed, where we see the stars snuggling and Lopez cooing something about being the cow to his bull in their relationship.

On the other hand, people who do know the premise of "Gigli" are left to assume that the gay lady is simply overwhelmed by Affleck's charm. (How silly: He tried to straighten out a lesbian in 1997's "Chasing Amy" and she had a relapse.)

What must have seemed like serendipity when Affleck and Lopez fell in love on the set of "Gigli" must seem like a curse to the studio today. Yes, it earned scads of publicity, but will fans want to see Ben being sexually frustrated by Jen's interest in other women?

That might explain the test audiences' negative reaction to screenings of director Martin Brest's first cut, and the producers' decision to recall the stars to shoot an alternative ending.

The Manhattan screening of the second version went so well that Brest and producer Joe Roth reportedly came near blows.

Which ending we'll actually see remains a secret.

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www.miami.com/mld/miamihe...412227.htm

Posted on Tue, Jul. 29, 2003

At the Movies: 'Gigli'

CHRISTY LEMIRE

Associated Press



But Ricki is also a lesbian - "Gigli" - which spawned the phenomenon the gossip pages and celebrity magazines so lovingly refer to as "Bennifer" - is every bit as unwatchable as the deafening negative chatter would suggest.

The dialogue from writer-director Martin Brest is clunky, the film has serious tonal inconsistencies and at over two hours, it drags on way longer than it should.

Even making a little game of it, and trying to pinpoint the exact moment when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez fell in love, stops being fun after a while.

Perhaps it's when he says, in an attempt to seduce her, "I'm the bull, you're the cow."

Or when she beckons him into foreplay by lying back in bed and purring, "Gobble, gobble" - which could forever change the way you view your Thanksgiving turkey.

But as pop star vehicles go, "Gigli" isn't as insufferable as, say, last year's Madonna-Guy Ritchie debacle, "Swept Away." It's more on par with Mariah Carey's "Glitter" and Britney Spears' "Crossroads."

If this were a movie starring two B-list actors, or two complete unknowns, it probably would have gone straight to video. After curious masochists and J.Lo fans check it out the first weekend, "Gigli" probably will have a drop-off in audience that rivals "The Hulk" - 70 percent - then go to video. And with the release next spring of Kevin Smith's "Jersey Girl," in which they also co-star, we can have this little conversation all over again.

For now, we have Affleck starring as incompetent mob thug Larry Gigli. (That's pronounced JEE-lee, which rhymes with really, a running joke that isn't particularly funny the first time.)

Gigli is asked to kidnap Brian (Justin Bartha), the mentally disabled younger brother of a federal prosecutor who's going after a New York mobster (Al Pacino).

His boss, however, thinks he's incapable of handling the assignment alone and sends in Ricki (Lopez), another contractor, to help him. Gigli is an anti-social lout who lives in a seedy apartment. Ricki is beautiful, grounded, enlightened. She quotes Sun Tzu - who could blame Gigli for falling for her? (And whether you like her or not, Lopez does have an undeniable presence.)

so it makes absolutely no sense when she falls for him, too, although they have all the obligatory banter and alleged sexual tension required of a romantic comedy. (And it's only a romantic comedy sometimes. Other times, it aims to be an edgy action-crime movie; still other times, it aspires for gag-inducing poignancy.)

Apparently, the only force that binds them is the fact that they both feel squeamish about cutting off Brian's thumb and mailing it to his prosecutor brother. Instead, they break into a morgue and saw the thumb off a corpse using a plastic knife, while Brian - who has an unexplained penchant for old-school rap - sings Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back."

It's also incredibly misinformed to suggest that Ricki can be "converted" to heterosexuality - that a man's love is all she really needed to allay any confusion about all that silly lesbian stuff.

So what you have here is "Rain Man" meets "Chasing Amy" - which is apropos, since the latter is a 1997 Kevin Smith movie in which Affleck also starred as a guy who falls for a lesbian. Instead of counting matches and obsessing about "The People's Court" like Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man" character, Brian counts sunflower seeds and obsesses over going to "the Baywatch."

Cameos from Pacino, Christopher Walken as a detective and Lainie Kazan as Gigli's mother don't help, either.

Did they owe someone a favor? What are they doing here? Pacino won his one and only Oscar with Brest for 1992's "Scent of a Woman," but couldn't he have just thanked the director instead?

Instead, we get to see Pacino shoot someone in the head, then watch as fish in a nearby aquarium snack on splattered drops of the victim's blood.

HOO-HAH!!

"Gigli," a Columbia Pictures release, is rated R for sexual content, pervasive language and brief strong language. Running time: 124 minutes. One star out of four.

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[xita]

I am glad members of the general press see what an idiotic plot this is. I hate to say this cause I hate chasing amy, but I can see that at least that movie brings up the issues involved. bleh.

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"The suspense is terrible. I hope it'll last."

-Willie Wonka

[bandcampgrrl]

I think Bennifer have finally managed to jump the shark. There's so much idiotic press on them that it's come down to crap about how great their lifestyle is, whether they're about to break up, or whether Ben is wearing too much makeup.



I just hope the media frenzy will die down after Gigli tanks, so the press can start flogging more important artists.



Like Ammmmber Benson.

bandcampgrrl

[xita]

Entertainment Weekly this week has the boys of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on the cover.



They deal briefly with the stereotypes issue , here's a pargraph:

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''Queer Eye'' hasn't made everybody happy. Influential Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales accused the show of peddling a ''patronizing mentality,'' while the New York Post's Linda Stasi argued that the show demonstrates that Americans are ''afraid of gay men who act normal.'' Collins dismisses the rancor (''Hey, there are worse things than...having style, taste, and class, right?''), while Kyan, the grooming guru and resident hunk, charges Shales and Stasi with pinning the Fab 5 into a no-win scenario. ''If gay people decide that they can't be flamboyant and funny because straight people aren't going to like it, then what's the point? Either way, we're not allowed to be ourselves. I want to be gay on my own terms.''

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The magazine seems to be of the opinion that since



There is also a review of it later on and the woman who wrote it went all out and said that

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As mordant as Carson and the other's observations are (upon first learning Zalta's parabolic measurements, he blurts, ''Ooh, Tragikistan!''), they are also surprisingly kindhearted and tender. ''Queer Eye'' may be just more of the same televised proselytizing about better living through shopping, but after witnessing a series of helpless straight guys -- and not a single metrosexual among them -- cheerfully submit to the hands-on ministrations of five gay men, the subversiveness of it all hits you. (''Have you ever had a man undress you before?'' Carson asks Schepel, who happily goes along with the day of shopping, salon styling, home decorating, eyebrow tinting, and spray tanning before a big unveiling at his first gallery opening.) ''Queer Eye'' is a show about people who need people. It's a gay-straight version of a Michael Jackson-Paul McCartney duet. ''Queer Eye'' is glasnost

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The magazine also has a follow up article called "Super Queer," On the state of yes , "gaysploitation." Their take on Queer eye for the straight guy:

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"QEFTSG is terrific and groundbreaking because it upends the saintly stereotype: These men are flawed and fabulous. They're strong, pushy, and intolerant of those who don't listen to them. And unlike Will & Grace's Jack, they aren't the butt of jokes - indeed, they actually excel at something."

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The article chronicle's gay men's accomplishments on tv and how it's now a trend reality tv brought on as many of the reality shows are the ones who have gay men on. They call this trend "gaysploitation:"

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Before you go all Foxy Brown on me, a bit of history. Blaxploitation films (most notably Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song and Shaft) were made by African-American filmmakers out to exploit an untapped audience, not their casts. Then genre embraced black stereotypes (virility, strenght, ass-whupping ability) and exaggerated them. (Sound familiar, Carson?) To hear executives talk, today's gay programming decisions come from a similar place."

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And what about lesbians you ask?

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Pleaste take a moment to pity the poor lesbian who has completely missed this current TV revolution. After rididng the lesbian-chic wave into the mid '90s and cresting with Ellen's coming out in 1997, she's been shoved back in the closet, longing for the days when Cidny Crawford shaved k.d. lang on the cover of Vanity Fair.)

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We're out man, , but I think they got it wrong, I think it crested when ER, Buffy, and AMC had unspoiled great lesbian main characters on the air, when everthing was new and exciting and you had choices, heck I might even metion that non lesbian, lesbian Original Cindy for good measure. I will agree it's a dry landscape right now.

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"The suspense is terrible. I hope it'll last."

-Willie Wonka

[kajo 2000]

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

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Gays run gantlet of humiliation - with a few exceptions

by Tim Goodman, tgoodman@sfchronicle.com.

Friday, August 1, 2003



Gays and lesbians may find it interesting (or humorous) that the New York Times has belatedly awakened to the fact they are on television a lot lately, but as any minority group can attest, it's not how often you appear but how you're depicted that really matters.



Years ago, when gay characters really did proliferate on sitcoms and dramas - this on the heels of Ellen DeGeneres' coming out on her series - it was a kind of validation that stoked pride. By the 1999 television season, gays had achieved a dubious distinction - so accepted as to become the wacky neighbor, who could then be ridiculed by jokes that if directed at, let's say, African Americans, would never be tolerated.



At that point, gays had become the new Italians or the new Irish, victims of cultural stereotypes so pervasive that protesting seemed useless. The oh-so- predictable decline in their prime-time numbers essentially happened last season, which makes the gay renaissance of this summer and the coming fall season all the more notable.



And next season, with real-world issues at the forefront, gays are making something of a comeback on television. This will come in the wake of today's headlines: The president thinks gays shouldn't get married, and so does the pope, and a recent poll finds that general tolerance for gays and lesbians is on the wane.



A clear sign of how gays have evolved from the "wacky neighbor" stigma came when they broke into the red-hot reality genre - they were often depicted as bitchy on "Survivor" or prone to tears on "Big Brother" - and it was only a matter of time before entire reality shows were built around them. Bravo, the cable arts channel now owned by NBC, got a lot of ink for the new makeover series "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and the gay dating series "Boy Meets Boy." Those two shows, just by chance, are a perfect example of why you should be careful what you wish for and why access is not always acceptance.



"Queer Eye," where five gay guys make straight males dress better, get cooler haircuts, learn how to choose wine, entertain, etc., is plain and simple fun - the latest in an overwhelming (and often unbearable) stream of makeover series. Although detractors may view "Queer Eye" as promoting harmful stereotypes (the cast disputed this in front of critics recently by saying, no, that would be the case only if the series had a florist), it at least shows these men for who they are and what they do. Besides, in the low-expectation world of cable, it was a hit for Bravo. Then, repurposed (and cut from 60 to 30 minutes) it did extremely well on NBC. A hit is a hit is a hit.



"Boy Meets Boy," however, is more damaging and, at its worst, cruel. A "Bachelor"-type takeoff on dating shows, "Boy Meets Boy" follows James, the gay "leading man," as he chooses among 15 prospective partners. That he doesn't know that some of them (possibly as many as half) are straight seems an unnecessary and hurtful twist, but reality shows these days are almost required to have a twist.



Say what you want about the tawdry nature of reality programming in general, "Boy Meets Boy" - which the producers gallingly call a social experiment - goes the extra step of trampling on a person's emotional vulnerability, just so people at home can get a laugh. This isn't about losing money or blindly choosing someone who's, God forbid, ugly. It's about being duped on national television and having your innermost feelings ridiculed.



Bravo, by the way, should get no points from the gay community for daring to air all (or mostly) gay programming. Jeff Gaspin, who runs Bravo, went out of his way to tell critics recently that Bravo wasn't going gay. OK, duly noted.



A fall series on ABC called "It's All Relative" is also getting noticed because it portrays two gay fathers. Before anyone thinks this is a milestone of some sort, consider that the pilot is dreadfully unfunny and laughlessly cliched, elevating the two gay fathers to new heights of stereotypical behavior (fearful of stronger straight men, impeccable dressers, their house spotlessly clean with an interior decorator's appeal, etc.). "It's All Relative" also manages, yet again, to reduce the Irish to working-class drunks and fighters, so hey, gays, welcome to the club.



Over on Fox, a series called "A Minute With Stan Hooper" features a gay married couple as secondary characters. In this series, staid enough to be on CBS, the pilot reserves judgment on their gayness and instead pokes fun at the fact that they're apparently a couple of dolts. Maybe that's progress.



But looking to network television - particularly sitcoms - as a forum for accurate depictions of gay life is a fool's game. On series where homosexuality is treated the most realistically, there's almost no hype surrounding them - a conscious choice made by the producers and respected by the networks or cable channels (which might otherwise trumpet a "gay kiss" for ratings effect). That "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" didn't make a big deal out of Willow becoming a lesbian was admirable (she was even allowed to have an active sex life).



Cable channels like HBO and Showtime are respected for their ability to create complex, emotionally resonant characters. It should be no surprise, then, that those same sensibilities are often applied to gay characters, which is why many of the best portrayals of gay life end up on cable. "Six Feet Under" on HBO has been lauded for this, as has Showtime's more daring and explicit "Queer as Folk." Next season, Showtime adds "The L Word," a drama about lesbians in Los Angeles starring, among others, Jennifer Beals and Pam Grier.



And yet, the most aggressively real and startlingly different gay characters can be found in an unlikely place - HBO's "The Wire," the best show on television two years running. Super-gritty and densely novelistic cop shows - not exactly home of the gay character on television.



In fact, there's never been a character like the openly gay, ruthless African American gang member Omar, played with intensity by Michael K. Williams. It's so shockingly different that every time he pops up - killing someone or engaging in pre-sex kissing - you can't help but sit before your televison, stunned.



Then there's Detective Shakima Greggs, played by Sonja Sohn, who not only holds her own on the narcotics team but often illustrates why she's smarter than most of her male counterparts. After getting shot at the end of Season 1, her scenes with her live-in lover were some of the best-acted in the series.



Not only has "The Wire" been ignored by Emmy voters, it also hasn't received the accolades it deserves for such well-written, distinctive homosexual characters.



For gays, "The Wire" ought to be the litmus test for great roles and certainly a better benchmark than, say, becoming a gigantic cliche on ABC or a reality show victim on Bravo.

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"I want to be Byron... because I want to date young boys." Amber Benson

[sprhrgrl]

Xita quoted:

Before you go all Foxy Brown on me, a bit of history. Blaxploitation films (most notably Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song and Shaft) were made by African-American filmmakers out to exploit an untapped audience, not their casts. Then genre embraced black stereotypes (virility, strenght, ass-whupping ability) and exaggerated them. (Sound familiar, Carson?) To hear executives talk, today's gay programming decisions come from a similar place.

However, when it comes to the queer community, said stereotypes are not of things like stregnth, virility and ability to ass-whup (stereotypes which, I'll remind, come from the white slaveowner's fear of black men that they could seduce their women and take over the world based on these factors). Instead, gay men get the all-powerful stereotype of cattiness and superficiality. w00. Nobody's taking over the world by being a queeny bitch.



Another point to notice is that (to my knowledge) these shows? Not made by queer producers. Not setting out to exploit the (stereotypical) straight viewers. Because really, look at the straight viewers who would watch them - BMB would be watched by homophobes who want to see the (inherently stupid) gay man get set up with a straight man (who is naturally going to literally set him straight). What stereotypical straight man is going to sit down and watch Queer Eye? The thing about the latter show is that it's upright embarassing to all parties involved - it's showing such a stupid stereotype of gay men, but is also painting straight men as slobs who need the help of the same queeny bitches.



And I thought I had no opinion on these shows. Maybe it was just an excuse to say 'queeny bitch' thrice.



ETA - Randomly, my girl found the article with kd lang and Cindy Crawford today. . . It's online here. . . Hit 'continue' to see the article.

sprhrgrl.com

she's my everything

Sweetie, I'm a fag. I been there. - Tara

The truth shall set you free, but first it will piss you off. - Gloria Steinem

Edited by: sprhrgrl  at: 8/5/03 3:53 pm

[sam7777]

I'm pleased that gay fans of the show are doing what most gay rags are not: questioning the portrayal of gays in the media. The Kitten's and others protested the lesbian death and other hurtful cliches on Buffy. AMC fans are questioning the new storyline for Bianca. Complaints about Bravo's line up and ABC's new show are coming more from viewers than the press.

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The president thinks gays shouldn't get married, and so does the pope, and a recent poll finds that general tolerance for gays and lesbians is on the wane.

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Yes and I think we can partly thank the cliched portrayal of gays on TV for this sad development. Why should we have gay marriage when TV shows us that comitted gay couples end in death and/or tradgedy? Why should we have a gay episcopal bishop when TV shows us that gay folks are all sex fiends who bed the first thing that they find? Why should the public at large support gay marriage or adoption when TV shows them that gays are jokes or evil or dead or all of the above? Why? Because it's the right and just thing to do regardless of the cliches on TV. Gay people deserve the same right to marry and adopt that others have. Gay magazines as part of their "activism" should consider what the media tells the public who may never have met a gay person about gay people and decide if this isn't a factor in the decrease in tolerance instead of just cheering any gay portrayal as "ground breaking" or "glasnost" simply because there is a gay character and ignoring cliched portrayals. The only thing that I can do about it personally is simply to refuse to support shows that I see as "gaysploitation" with my eyeballs.



ETA: Increasingly, it seems to me that the press is more interested in staying on the good side of the media comglomerates than in serving their public by critically examining the media. Only grass roots campaigns by regular folks uniting via the internet are making any in roads into actual crititicsm of the media IMHO. More often than not the press is slow to pick up the story until people make it an issue as we did with the Lesbian Cliche and others did with Bravo and AMC. This is one reason why I don't think that we can afford to be silent with our dissent.

_____________________

I see dead lesbian cliches

Edited by: sam7777  at: 8/5/03 12:06 pm

[tyche]

Here's an interesting article, which deals with both 'Boy Meets Boy' and 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy'.

[DaffyQDuck]

AN OFFER YOU CAN REFUSE: Boston radio station WBCN is offering free "I survived Gigli" T-shirts to anyone who can sit through the entire film when it's screened for the last time at a local theater Thursday. Throw in a bag of baked Doritos, an ice-cold diet raspberry Snapple and $60,000 in cash and maybe you can count me in. Maybe. ..per TVGuide.com

It wasn't our world anymore, they made it theirs and they had fun - Willow

[LostWithoutTara]

From the Entertainment Weekly article:

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''If gay people decide that they can't be flamboyant and funny because straight people aren't going to like it, then what's the point? Either way, we're not allowed to be ourselves. I want to be gay on my own terms.''

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This quote bugs me. I have no problem with the QEFTSG guys being themselves, and if being flamboyant or whatever is who they are, then fine. But being flamboyant is not the same as being gay and these shows are pushing that it is by making the two terms synonymous.



For example, you can be gay and have blue eyes, you can be gay and have brown eyes or green eyes or grey eyes. One factor does not inform the other. I know it's a bit of a stupid comparison, but does anyone see what I'm getting at?

Every time you walk away, I pretend that I'm okay

[xita]

Yeah the speaker there is saying that the most gay thing people can be is flamboyant. And well that is just not the case. The funniest thing is that 2 of the guys , I have noticed are really not very flamboyant but of course they don't get as much of the screen time.



I don't know if anyone has been watching Boy Meets Boy. It's really interesting, especially the way some of the "straight guys" have been queening it up thinking that will make them pass better notice the two guys on the edge in the front.



Also annoying is the producers view of gay life. So at a recent show they have them do kareoke. First song, "I will survive." And I am sure to their chagrin the guys didn't really know the lyrics to this disco classic. Then one of the contestants says, "I really wanted to do the show so I could show people that gay men can be so many things and break the stereotypes." First he looks like a weho clone, then the second he stops speaking then they have them dancing together singing it's raining men. I don't think this guy's wish is getting out there.

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"The suspense is terrible. I hope it'll last."

-Willie Wonka

[Repost Moderator]

Originally posted by cattwoman98111

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Mods if this doesn't work here please move.





Girlfriends mag had this to say,





And while were at it, we need to forgive Joss Whedon, too



When Buffy killed off Willow's lesbian lover Tara, lesbians were justifiably disappointed. Co-producer Joss Whedon and his writers brought an end to the most long-lasting lesbian affair on on TV. Less justifiable, though, was our postmortem political campaign against the producers' alleged homophobia. When Whedon defended himself by saying it would have been homophobic not to kill off Tara, he meant that in Buffy's fictional world, to spare a character because she's gay would be to treat her differently from her peers, all of whom risk their necks-and cheerleading practice-to defend the world from marauding bloodsuckers. Like Eminem's detractors, Buffy's spurned lesbian fans need to take things a little less literally.



By Heather Findlay







Hmmm, anyone else here disagree?





Catt



I want it. Give it to me. I love it. 7 Year Bitch

[urnofosiris]

Quote:

---

When Buffy killed off Willow's lesbian lover Tara, lesbians were justifiably disappointed. Co-producer Joss Whedon and his writers brought an end to the most long-lasting lesbian affair on on TV. Less justifiable, though, was our postmortem political campaign against the producers' alleged homophobia.

---

Disappointed? That is one way of putting it. Can someone point me to "our" political campaign against the producers' homophobia? Speak for yourself lady, because of people like her we have to keep bending over backwards and yell that 'no we do not think ME are a bunch of raging homophobes', in fact according to Drew Greenberg it is quite the opposite, but that is ok for him to say. Bleh, I will come back later for more.

-------------------------


Coffee, Food, Kisses and Gay Love........Get it while you are hot

[maudmac]

Hard not to take post-sex blood spatter literally. Hard not to take the vanishing of the one long-term lesbian relationship on broadcast TV literally. Hard not to take Joss' snarky and dismissive attitude about the whole thing literally.



Who ever said Joss was homophobic? No one but people who heard about all this second- or third- or fourth-hand and never bothered to actually find out what we were really saying. It is not homophobic to raise the issue that television and movies have a shameful history of linking lesbian sex with the death (or insanity or evil or whatever) of one or both of those lesbians.



I think Girlfriends needs to brush up on their facts.



Don't even let me get started on that Eminem stuff. What the fuck is that about?



Here's one more magazine I'll never support again. It's such a shame to have the magazines and advocacy groups who are supposed to be in your corner spewing such bullshit. It's like we have no one at all on our side. Except ourselves.

---

Walking in space we find the purpose of peace. The beauty of life you can no longer hide.
Our eyes are open, our eyes are open. Our eyes are open, our eyes are open wide, wide, wide. -- Walking In Space

[cattwoman98111]

The Eminem stuff was also printed in the same mag. They say we need to forgive him 2. i dont feel like typing that part up,its long, maybe later this week since im only working 56 hrs instead of 64. grrr. anyway. I bought the mag for the article on Tomb Raider and Mz. Jolie. This was included in the section devoted to the " 28 Men We Love" they felt while they were doing that, they might as well include the men we should forgive.

I must say this is was the first and last time i buy this mag.









I want it. Give it to me. I love it. 7 Year Bitch

[WebWarlock]

It will be a cold, cold day in hell before I forgive that asshole.



Did they forget such gems as "the gay thing is so passe" or "girls are stupid"?



Hmmm...

Maybe we should remind them.

www.gfriends.com/contact.html



Call 1-800-475-3763

editorial@girlfriendsmag.com

staff@girlfriendsmag.com



Jen Phillips

Assistant Editor

415-648-9464

jen@girlfriendsmag.com



Letters to the Editor

3415 Cesar Chavez

Suite 101

San Francisco, CA 94110

phone: 415-648-9464

fax: 415-648-4705



FORGET Whedon, I'll do that. Forgive? Never.



Warlock

-----

Web Warlock

The Other Side,
home of Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks: Available October 31st, 2003!

"And she never had dreams, so they never came true.
My fade away angel, angel in blue." - Angel in Blue

[helpful information perha]

What the @#%^! is wrong with the freaken gay media???!!!



Forgive whedon? Why exactly?



If this is the attitude of a major lesbian mag's editot then the editor should be canned



yah WW time to start the fax/email thing up again



@#$%^*! ass kissing press

[Warduke]

Forgive Joss? Sure, I'll do that the second Hell freezes over.



And the homophobia thing. I am so damn tired of reading that. If these people who write this crap would actually get off their ass and check out a few facts before posting their inane dribble, they'd see what the truth is.

Quote:

---

Here's one more magazine I'll never support again. It's such a shame to have the magazines and advocacy groups who are supposed to be in your corner spewing such bullshit. It's like we have no one at all on our side. Except ourselves.

---

Really brings to life that old saying…With Friends Like This, Who Needs Enemies?

---

Lil' Trevor : Always the life of the party.

[xita]

Forgive? Shouldn't one apologize before one does that?



I am tired of this attitude. They've done well comparing Joss and eminem. I think we all know what I think about Joss, so I am not going to elaborate on this.



After watching Totally Gay I am even more wary of some heterosexual celebrities playing nice with us for prestige and sales.



I can see how that went down, manager telling eminem he'll lose tons of money if he alienates gay folks, if only he'd play nice, they be buying his records after all he's always with his shirt off. And eminem not really having changed his mind about gay folks, agrees. And then one of our own sings and song with him and we're all supposed to be happy and forgiving. I don't think so.

- - - - - - - - - - -
"The suspense is terrible. I hope it'll last."

-Willie Wonka

[sam7777]

So this is Girlfriends magazine's follow up message to all the fans who wrote in to them praising their article and how fairly they presented the Tara controversy? Once again legitimate concerns over poor gay portrayal as evidenced in the lesbian cliche are dismissed as an evil conspiracy calling poor little Joss homophobe. Not one person who sent in a letter called Joss a homophobe and none of the fine essays on the matter, But why confuse the matter with facts? The real conspiracy here is that of the gay press to dismiss all criticism of gay portrayal on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and in the media in general.

_____________________

I see dead lesbian cliches

Edited by: sam7777  at: 8/20/03 1:49 pm

[Sheridan]

Hmm, we accused Joss of stupidity in pissing off a section of his audience, a charge proven by the ratings nose dive from the end of S6. We accused him and the rest of ME of insensitivity over their remarks after Tara's death, and I defy anyone to read those comments and not come to that conclusion. We also accused him of creative bankruptcy in reaching for a tired cliche to create a ludicrous season finale. Nowhere in all of that did we accuse him of homophobia, in fact I would say this magzine is practicing a form of homophobia in its implication that only gay and lesbina people cared about Willow and Tara and what was done to the characters. As for their talk of forgiving Joss well when I see one of these mags actually criticize him then maybe they would have something to ask forgiveness for.

Willow: ...I have to tell you....

Tara: No, I understand you have to be with the person you l-love

Willow: I am

[kpmuse]

Quote:

---

It's like we have no one at all on our side.

---

I feel this way everyday Maudmac about what we went through, and these horrifying, misguided, morally bereft advocacy groups and magazines always flame this feeling.



But then I remember that Amber is on our side, and that always calms me down & gives me hope because she and those like her are the future, not those of the gay mags or GLAAD. Nobody is really listening to Scott Semen anyway, are they. Ask All My Children. His call to action? Pfft! NOT WORKING SCOTT!



The country is deciding right now that they DON'T support gay marriage. So how successful really is the gay media in shaping our culture. They are failing IMO, and they are becoming IRRELEVANT for alot more GLBT and straight folks. I know that because of the folks at this board.



Please feel free to talk that up among friends, and anyone who supports GLAAD, Girlfriend magazine, AfterEllen, etc. They are becoming irrelevant, out dated and clueless! Let them know by cancelling subscriptions, withholding donations. At least until they GET. THE. FREAKING. MESSAGE!



I predict that Amber and Chris Golden, and people like them will be extremely important in the future. So I take heart.



Edited because I can't seem to spell!

Edited by: kpmuse at: 8/20/03 1:23 pm

[Garner]

I've always felt that a minorities worst enemies are themselves. Just look at the stupidity of the statment being made and the lack of research or committment to the truth that is shown. Why would anyone want to buy/support/or listen to such a source? Shouldn't the gay press be a beacon for getting the gay community's concerns, fears, and hopes out to the public? How things like this happen are just beyond me? Are only the most vocal idiots allowed to be the spokesmen/women for the group? I am so sick of the line that we were accusing Joss of homophobia. It always puts us on the defensive and takes away from the point that what Joss did reinforced a negative cliche and deprived a lot of potentially desperate people of the one ray of hope on TV. And don't get me started on the artistic freedom vs. social responsibility issue either.



I just hope that whichever kittens go to DragonCon that they are prepared like Willow would be. Printouts of Joss statements, printouts of what we have said. Ready to knock down the homophobia crap and the artistic freedom BS and address the real issue, which is what was shown on the ep., and what was done the next season (or what wasn't done as the case is.)



Garner

Edited by: Warduke at: 10/15/03 8:22 pm