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31 Oct 2011
I don't know comedian Oliver Callan and have only heard a few bits of the Green Tea radio satire show he's part of so I don't really have a particular opinion on whether his portrayals of various celebrities are homophobic or not - as he's been accused of. (Though I can't find who accused him of it, or where. Anyone know?) However, I have heard a little of the show and I do remember being idly... aware... that every joke being made at David Norris' expense was a gay joke, and rolling my eyes. But to be honest I didn't give it much thought as the radio was only on in the background.
However, the one thing I will say is this: just because you are gay does not mean you can't be a homophobe. You come across it all the time! There are lots of self-hating gays out there. The ones who whinge about the Pride parade, or the ones who hate the camp gays, or the ones who hate the dykes, or the ones who describe themselves on Gaydar as "normal" and "regular" but really mean "not like those awful gays who make me uncomfortable by being everything I fear I am". So as I said I don't know this guy or his work and he may be dead right. Or not. But either way, his sexuality is not a get-out-of-jail-free card.
tv
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gays
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homophobia
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32
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12 Oct 2011
Last week a few people sent me this gruesome and awful clip of an African man being beaten to death and burned by a mob, supposedly because he was gay. I warn you, it is really disturbing. To be honest I couldn't watch more than a tiny bit of it.
However, the details were difficult to pin down - it's on various sites and they don't all agree on where it is, or why the man was murdered so horribly. Many say he was murdered for being gay, but some others say he was accused of being a thief. Even where the video was shot is not very clear, with some saying it's Uganda, though most saying it's Nigeria. (You would imagine that should be relatively easy to clear up by the language being spoken). And even after a week, there seems to be no greater clarity.
However I am bringing it to your attention because, as I said, most sites are claiming it is another example of the terrible anti-gay witch hunts taking place across Africa. Hopefully it will become clearer in time.
Regardless of the reason, it's shocking and terrifying that something like this can even happen at all.
But be warned - the video is horrible so proceed with caution.
world
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crime
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homophobia
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6
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19 Aug 2011
Watching Friends one day, video editor Tijana Mamula was struck by a drawn out homophobic joke and thereafter she was constantly struck by the undelying homophobia, and overt gender policing of the show. So she began a project collecting all the homophobic jokes in the show's ten seasons, and the result is this 50 minute film (edited down from over 90 minutes of material).
Of course Friends is a comedy and some will argue that all the characters and their relationships were fodder for jokes, but it's the unrelenting quality of the gay jokes that's remarkable. Being gay was never presented as anything other than a joke.
Anyway, cosidering how all pervasive that show was for a period in the 90's it's certainly food for thought.
Bitch Magazine has a longer piece about the video and it's creator and her motivation. Here's some of it:
There's Ross berating his ex-wife's new girlfriend (at one point Susan literally saying "We're getting married" cues the laugh track), Steve Zahn's character "coming out" as straight (clearly hilarious because things are hard for teh straightz), and approximately one gazillion "no homo" moments between Chandler and Joey. And it's not just homophobia, there's the transphobia played for laughs when Chandler learns his father has been living as a woman for some time, and lots of gender policing-often from Ross. "I'm just not that comfortable with a guy as sensitive as you," Ross says to Sandy, a straight male nanny (played by Freddie Prinze Jr.), firing him for basically threatening Ross's masculinity. "That's fair," responds Sandy, a typical response from the queer, or perceived-as-queer characters of Friends, who are written to rarely react defiantly, or insulted, or taken aback at the blatant ignorance hurled their way.
Mamula's aim wasn't to bring attention to Friends' wealth of lazy jokes, but their sheer pervasiveness of the show's epic run. "Homophobic Friends [is not an] attempt to ridicule the underlying homophobia, but rather strives to bring this attitude to the viewer's attention in all of its apparent normality."
Mamula found that the homophobic and transphobic jokes in Friends tend "to avoid provoking either aversion or anger, and instead prompts the viewer to be swept away by the hilarity of the situations." Seeing theses moments altogether, one after another, you can see how the audience was presumed to just chuckle and move on."
tv
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homophobia
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10
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20 Apr 2011
Premiership footballer Graham Le Saux was always the target of homophobic abuse. Famously, he was known as a "Guardian reader" and this was ridiculously used as evidence of his homosexuality. I am not, as you well know, a football fan, but even I was aware of the "accusations" of homosexuality leveled at Le Saux, and vaguely assumed he was indeed gay. After all, if everyone said it all the time...
This excerpt from his 2007 autobiography where he describes how the abuse started and what it was like to have to constantly deal with it is both fascinating and entirely depressing.
After that game, the chanting became a regular event. The pressure I was under was immense. I would go on to the pitch knowing that I was going to get a torrent of abuse before I even kicked a ball. If there was a lull in the game, I was the fallback option and the taunting would start. If the home team's fans got bored, they would start singing about me. I tried hard to prevent it. I stood up for myself and got angry with those who pushed it too far, but it went crazy. It became an urban myth and was talked about as if it was fact.
Everything I did was used as evidence that I was gay. The way I dressed, the music I listened to, the fact that I went to art galleries, the newspaper I read, turned into more clues about my sexuality. The variety of insults aimed at gay people became my specialist subject.
The worst thing was when I would go to get the ball for a corner or throw-in and there would be somebody a couple of feet away from me in the front row. Their faces would be contorted with aggression and they would be screaming homophobic abuse, vicious stuff. When it was that close and one-on-one, it was shocking.
Pretty soon, opposition players were winding me up about it. I was in my second spell at Chelsea when the real problems began. From the time the rumours first surfaced, I got plenty of comments from other players about being a "faggot" or a "queer". Robbie Savage seemed to get a particular thrill out of it, but I guess that will not surprise anybody.
Read the rest.
(via @DamienMulley)
sport
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homophobia
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people
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1
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21 May 2010
Recently out Welsh rugby star Gareth Thomas fronts this investigation for ITV's Tonight programme.
Part 1 below, and here's part 2.
people
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tv
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documentary
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homophobia
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coming out
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0
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23 Apr 2010
The gay youth group BeLonGTo have been getting a lot of well deserved attention here recently, and this great video is the result of a Canadian school project on homophobia and young people.
homophobia
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youth
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