That could be the new title of my blog, or my autobiography which I should write and keep on hand in case I get famous and someone asks for it. Because if I had to write it when famous I might be too busy having fun. I say I don't know because though they say write about what you know I think I fill more space by focusing on what I don't know.
I don't know about the word respect. Is it regard? Is it acknowledgement that a person or thing exists? Because I hear people "respect" each other many times who have not earned, say, admiration which is the main word I think respect means. I don't like to throw that word around. How can I "respect" an obstreperous A-hole and have my respect for Nelson Mandela not be devalued?
I don't know about homophobia. Who was the first to coin the term? If I'm writing a script that takes place in 1942, can a character say "homophobic"? I don't know where it comes from. I'm sure the break down has been done before. It doesn't mean fear of same, or fear of people or men fearing men. There are guys I might fear, but not because they are men. I've heard a guy called homophobic because his first fear about going to jail is being sodomized by another inmate. If a woman fears being raped I don't know if anyone would pipe up and call her heterophobic. They might regard the context - say walking alone down a dark street filled with thugs - and give her some credit. But a guy gets the third degree if he fears being raped? I don't know. I thought prejudice was unfairly painting people with a wide brush, and yet I see that go on a lot - by some gay people. Canadian playwright Brad Fraser deleted me from his Facebook because I defended Mel Gibson. When Edge of Darkness was released, Brad posted at least four status updates on his page that were slamming Mel. That's in one day, along with other random updates. I'm lucky if I update my facebook status once a day. But I understand in the case of a high profile playwright it is marketing - he must want everyone to know how brilliant his plays will be if we get around to actually seeing them. In this case, I don't know from brilliant. He didn't seem capable of engaging in reasonable debate. As far as he is concerned Mel is an alcoholic and anti-Semite and don't confuse him with the facts. And so I find Brad Fraser annoying, yet I don't fear him. So is it homoannoya? The folks who run Defamer or TMZ or Out Magazine (assuming that still exists) or even GLAAD seem very willing to disregard the rights and privacy of others, pulling celebrities out of a "closet" even if they are action stars. I don't know if Tom Cruise is gay, but in any case I still consider him cool and responsible as a businessmam. Jodie Foster was right to keep her personal life to herself all those years. It's none of her business, and she has NO obligation to show up at parades and be someone's role model. What if someone's personal kick is the secrecy if being "on the down low"? Who is to say they have a civic responsibility to pay lip service to GLAAD and or any other brand of gossip monger? Jerry Lewis attends a golf tournament in Australia and makes gay joke, so GLAAD asks him to. . .what? Recant what he said? To pretend he doesn't laugh at non-PC jokes. at fat jokes, at fart jokes, at gay jokes? And is a member of the Rat Pack really all that concerned with whether his rainbow stripes are in the right order? How many Dean Martin or Sinatra fans are supposed to give a rat's ass? Hypothetically, what would it serve a movie star with a business and a production company to run to suddenly faunt a love life that heartland America - a sizable market - has not granted equality let alone embraced? Or are they expected to make a mea culpa for all the years they dated the opposite gender? I sense that a lot of these people who claim to be all about personal freedom are quite nasty, rubbing someone's nose in shit, just loving it when Family Values icon Gibson falls off the wagon and sputters incoherent drunken rantings about his own media persecutors (in that case David Geffin and some anonymous rabi and random uninformed yahoos on Youtube). Neil Patrick Harris became cool in Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle, and frankly stayed cool after outing himself. Ellen DeGeneres is terrific. They're also not Brad Fraser. They're not annoying. But I don't know. Maybe they do the same thing he does and I just don't hear about it because I'm not paying attention. Maybe they do a variation of writing a letter to a theater who has rejected a play and trying to find out why it has been rejected. . .gradually trying to back the theater's aquisitions person into dismissing him for a non PC reason when frankly all they have to say is that his work is generally boring and pretty much peaked with the line "Honey, I'm Home - o!" 20 years ago. Now if, because of this, I am called homophobic, it will just be more laziness. It's an easy accusation because it's tough to refute. So it's over used and barely has meaning. There is a big difference between someone getting beaten up in Timmons for "being gay" and someone lingering and prancing in the health club shower hoping to cruise someone and causing some guys to wait it out frozen by the lockers until he leaves. The latter is actually a reasonable and healthy discomfort over someone being rude. As for how someone gets beaten up for being gay, I don't think that means he sand a Shania Twain song in front of the courthouse. I'm assuming it was unprovoked, and hateful prejudiced bullies descended and swarmed the poor little guy. He might have made fun of their plaid shirts or their low I.Q. (those involved in the attack, not the population of Timmons). But I don't know.
I don't know about pro-life and pro-choice on abortion. Some Family organization bought air time during the Superbown on CBS to run a carefully crafted spot promiting what was ostensibly a pro-life message, but I don't know if I get it. I had been told all along was that the pro-life position was "against abortion unless the mother's life is at risk." Notice I'm not even saying health, because that's a legal wording from back in the day. The pro-life position still put the mother's LIFE first. That's just common sense. A bird in the hand. . . But the main thrust of this Superbowl ad was that an NFL player would not have been born if his mother had listened to the doctors (plural) who told her not to go full term. And these presumably weren't abortion providers angling for a gig. So the ad throws out a significant pro-life point. What about the choice part? The mother CHOSE to ignore the doctors because it was her own life to risk. So it was a pro-choice ad, and I haven't seen anyone on the left give CBS credit for being so subversive. They helped write the ad. They were afraid of offending anyone. On the one hand you have the visual reinforcement that gestating fetuses can grow up to be mediocre football players. That has kind of a poor man's Save-Sarah-Connor-So-John-Connor-Can-Be-Born vibe, like the great pro-life movie The Terminator. But how many millions in contributions did that Family Values banner organization spend to promote the choice of the mother to ignore doctors and to under-value the pro-life message by turning ii into something other than a sane and relatable acknowledgement of gestating human beings AND their HOST organism? Was the message intended for any confused young women watching the football game that day? No, it was just for idiots to mark territory and piss off other idiots. Why? I don't know.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The Fashion of the Christ - blog updated
http://fashionofthechrist.blogspot.com/2010/03/post-production.html
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