Where’s the gray in the American Crayola Box?

 culture  No Responses »
May 052011
 

I keep asking myself this question since the US media outlets began announcing that President Obama was preparing to make a special statement.  Ironically, I was watching Donald Trump start to rip Star Jones a new one on “Celebrity Apprentice” (which I never watch), and the first ticker break came through at the bottom of my television screen.  Then my boyfriend texted me saying that he was waiting for the President to speak before he went to bed.

Obama’s announcement of Bin Laden’s death came as a surprise to me.  I knew in the back of my mind that the US government still wanted to find him, but I didn’t worry about his whereabouts or what he’d been up to.  I’ve lived in New York City for almost twelve years, so the threat of a terrorist action has been part of my life here since 2001.  I don’t let it stop my day-to-day actions, but I’m aware that I choose to make my home in a city full of soft targets.  I live just a few blocks from Union Square (a major subway hub for seven trains), and then about two miles from Times Square and Ground Zero.

Sunday evening’s announcement and the subsequent celebrations broadcast by the media left me feeling more than unnerved and confused.  I watched the reports and followed some comments on Twitter.  My colleague Bryan tweeted that he was feeling uncomfortable with the scenes of celebration over Bin Laden’s death, and he retweeted some others expressing similar sentiments.  I went to bed feeling less alone about my views, yet still unsettled by the scenes of Americans celebrating someone’s death, even if it was Osama bin Laden.

Details about the killing of Bin Laden have come to light over the past two days, and those details seem to be changing moment to moment.  As I check in with various news outlets throughout the day, I can’t help but wonder why the US couldn’t get the details clear before saying anything specific.  Couldn’t the President have announced Bin Laden’s death and then shared specifics once they were verified by multiple US sources?  I was particularly upset to learn that children were present in the compound in Pakistan as the raid unfolded.  Equally disturbing is the digital sequence created by ABC News that shows a woman lunging at Navy SEALs, indicating her “reason” for being shot in the calf.

And now the country’s leaders engage in a debate over whether to release graphic pictures of Bin Laden’s corpse.  Sarah Palin tweets that Obama should stop “pussy-footing” around and release the pictures.  In a moment when a lot of people are expressing pride about being an American, I’m not feeling so proud.  Privileged to live in a democratic republic like the US, yes, but not particularly proud of how some of my fellow citizens are behaving.

CNN and The New York Times reported today about why college-aged young people led many of the public celebrations.  The Times article by Kate Zernike cites that these young people have grown up with the image of Bin Laden as the most evil person in the world.  Hence, the need to celebrate his death on Sunday evening.  However, I was also struck by the article’s mention of Neil Howe’s comment that this generation likes to see things in polarized terms (my words), meaning that evil is evil and good is good.  There’s no room for anything in between.  In other words, shades of gray are not so prevalent in the Crayola Box of Life for this young generation.  I would take this a step further and say that this sentiment is true for many Americans regardless of age.

Seeing the gray in a situation allows us to have compassion and empathy for the experiences of others.  Over the last three days, I’ve spent time thinking about how the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 might be feeling about the end of the decade-long hunt for the man who instigated the murder of their relatives. I also think about my brother-in-law, who spent a year in Iraq with the Army reserves, once the war in Iraq began.  He and countless others have invested time and energy into protecting our country from people like Osama bin Laden.

Yet I’ve also found myself thinking about what those children in that compound must have seen and heard as the helicopters came over the 13ft walls.  Or what they must have thought as the gunfire started and people were killed.  I shudder to think that it was happening in front of them, just like the fall of the Twin Towers happened in front of so many young people here in New York City.  And then I think about the woman, supposedly one of Bin Laden’s wives, who rushed the SEALs.  Really?  Really?  Was her action out of a sense of duty to a terrorist or out of a sense of love for her husband?  We won’t ever know.  But these are things I’m thinking about, the gray moments in these situations.

A friend told me that he posted an MLK quotation on his Facebook page in response to the celebrations, and someone accused him of being pro-terrorist.  I say it again: Really?  Really?

This is what I mean about gray Crayons in the Crayola Box.  There are multiple perspectives to every story and every situation.  Just because I consider these perspectives does not make me a terrorist sympathizer.  It makes me a human being committed to dialogue and understanding.  Maybe if we tried to think through actions like celebrating Bin Laden’s death with a little more sensitivity, we would avoid undoing the positive effects of the death of a terrorist who has directly or indirectly killed thousands of people.

When we publicly celebrate a death and chant things like “Osama Osama hey hey hey goodbye” I don’t feel like we’re living up to the ideals of our supposedly superior American society.  Actually, it just makes me feel embarrassed to be an American.

Six Flags Times Square = cultural dilution

 art, culture  3 Responses »
Mar 142011
 

In his March 10 article entitled “A Broadway Makeover for ‘Priscilla’ Queens,” New York Times writer Patrick Healy reports on the new musical, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and its journey to the Broadway stage.  You can read his article here: http://nyti.ms/fOqwOP.  And if you didn’t know, this musical is based on the 1994 movie, featuring two drag queens and a transsexual.

As you might imagine from the title, Mr. Healy spends a significant amount of space in the article highlighting the many changes made by Broadway producers (including Bette Midler) “for the highly competitive market of commercial Broadway.”  Throughout the article, Healy uses words and phrases that repeatedly illustrate the underlying intention of the producers: to sell more tickets by making the play more palatable for middle American audience members who travel great distances to “Six Flags Times Square” to “ride” the newest thrill musical.

Here are some examples of his language and the language of his interviewees, named as such when necessary, along with my response in italics:

“…a musical about two drag queens and a transsexual on a road trip didn’t need extra raciness or profanity” – a paraphrase of Bette Midler  (JS: I wonder what Bette’s friend Barry Manilow thinks about this.)

“…it’s not quite as down and dirty, not as in your face so much that you might pull back.” – Bette Midler (JS: Since when did Bette Midler care about something being too down and dirty?)

“But this is also an era when Broadway productions with gay themes are packaged as family shows, so much so that the casual observer might not have realized that the main characters…were gay lovers.”  (JS: I don’t even know how to respond to this statement.)

“At the same time much of the main advertising has been as comely as possible, featuring the beautiful women—actual women—who play the divas, supporting characters who deliver some of the songs.  Mr. Phillips [the show’s director] said he opted against extensive marketing with images of the three male leads in drag because ‘drag is incredibly difficult to photograph.’”  (JS: Since when is drag difficult to photograph?  The marketing for Hairspray featured images of Edna Turnblad. Such a cop out here.)

“’The most ridiculous [safe change] was the insistence that Tick look like an American-style leading man, a romantic lead, masculine, less gay, in order to get more bums in the seats.’” – Tim Chappel, costume designer for the show  (JS: Amen.  Well…)

“…accommodations did not stem from prudishness.” – paraphrase of Garry McQuinn, a lead producer  (JS: The lady doth protest too much, methinks.)

“We’re responding to a certain sensibility in New York that if you do X, you’ll sell more tickets.” – Garry McQuinn  (JS: a very heteronormative sensibility that perpetuates the idea that a group of people should be “tolerated.”)

“…a major payoff of the current version is its impact on heterosexual men in the audience, who have been known to shed some tears as Tick and Benji sing ‘You Were Always on My Mind’ to each other in the finale.”  –paraphrase of Allan Scott, co-writer of the script  (JS: Is this meant to make me feel better?  How is making straight men cry a “major payoff”?)

“All along we’ve wanted the audience to go away with a greater appreciation for tolerance and a greater appreciation for family.” – Allan Scott

As I read this article, these were the statements that got me a little worked up.  I particularly have trouble being “tolerated” as a gay man.  I appreciate not getting the crap kicked out of me, but being “tolerated” automatically implies a “less than” status that I refuse to be assigned.

I have not seen this new show yet, but Mr. Healy’s article makes me less inclined to rush out and buy a ticket.  It’s fantastic that a show is about to open on Broadway with all of these sexual identities and gender expressions represented, and I appreciate that the producers and creators want audiences to see a family at the heart of the show’s plot.  However, it sounds like they’ve messed with the very DNA of the story in order to sell seats.  It’s the age-old struggle to make back the investment and subsequently turn a profit.  I just wish that people would stop diluting culture to make a buck.  Or if they do dilute it, don’t proclaim that nothing’s lost and that the Kool Aide’s at full strength.  I’m tired of being watered down.

Do you think they cut the ping pong ball moment?

Tolerance: not a one-way street

 culture  1 Response »
Mar 022011
 

As much as the anti-homosexual, “un-Christian” message of Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church sickens me, I agree with the Supreme Court’s decision today to uphold the free-speech rights of the church to stage protests at events like funerals.  Protesting at a funeral has got to be one of the most inhumane and uncivilized actions that anyone can participate in, but then again, many believe that a romantic/physical relationship between two people of the same sex is inhumane and uncivilized.  Of course, I don’t agree with that, but tolerance (I dislike that word) needs to go both ways.  Freedom is not only guaranteed to those that we agree with, and the same goes for the protection provided by the Constitution.

One of the more interesting dynamics of this case has to do with the military funeral backdrop of the protest in question.  Westboro Baptist Church protested Matthew Shepherd’s funeral on October 17, 1998, and a description of the community’s response to that picketing was captured by the Tectonic Theater Project’s play The Laramie Project.  I’m no legal scholar, so I’d be curious to know if any lawsuits have emerged against Westboro Baptist Church for picketing the funerals of openly-gay individuals.  Westboro claims to picket the funerals of deceased soldiers because they believe that God is striking them down for defending a country that condones homosexuality.  This philosophical belief fascinates me in the worst way possible.  It feels like the most un-Jesus like belief imaginable, and those kinds of contradictions pique my interest.  Phelps apparently believes that the Christian god is hateful.  That’s certainly not what I learned in CCD class.  But what does a gay, lapsed Catholic know?  (smile, wink)