The Girl Effect

Really powerful video that just hit my inbox. Watch below or larger here.



Wow. I just wish they made it clearer at the end what you could do to help. This is a very powerful call to action, but I was left wondering what specific actions I could take...

That's the difference...

After the California marriage decision was handed down, I bemoaned the fact that Senators Clinton and Obama weren't more excited about it. I compared their lack of enthusiasm (and their opposition to federal gay marriage) to that of John McCain.

My bad.

Here's McCain's response to the news that the anti-gay ballot initiative made it onto the CA ballot:

"I welcome the news that the people of California will have the opportunity to decide on the question of the definition of marriage, rather than having that decision made by judicial fiat as the California Supreme Court asserted in their recent ruling." -- John McCain

He "welcome[s]" it? How can you welcome discriminatory policies that essentially create a caste system based on sexual orientation? Asshole.

John Aravosis from AMERICAblog made an astute point about the whole situation:

Seeing as McCain is on his second marriage, after having dumped his first permanently disabled wife for a rich trophy bride 17 years his junior, he knows a thing or two about marriage.

Good point. I might add that example to my standard Britney-Spears-17-hour-marriage example of how heterosexuals aren't great at upholding the sanctity of the institution of marriage.

Whoa.

A new USA Today/Gallup poll with some *startling results*. Most shocking among them was that 63% of Americans believe same sex marriage should be a private matter, and that the state should not interfere. From USA Today:

Six in 10 Americans say the government should not regulate whether gays and lesbians can marry the people they choose, a survey finds.

As same-sex couples line up to get marriage licenses in California on June 17, the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found that 63% of adults say same-sex marriage is "strictly a private decision" between two people.

That the government has the right "to prohibit or allow" such marriages was stated by 33%, and 4% had no opinion.

I immediately scrolled to the bottom of the report when I saw these findings. I was expecting a big margin of error, but it's only plus or minus 3%, which is pretty standard. I'm particularly encouraged by the fact that support for gay marriage crossed region, religion, political affiliation, and age (though, admittedly, only 44% of respondents 65+ believed gay marriage should be a private decision).

Here are specific findings:

A majority of respondents at every level of education and income say same-sex marriage is "strictly private." This was true:

• In every region: East (71%), West (64%), Midwest (63%) and South (56%).

• Among all ages except "65 and older": 18 to 29 (79%), 30 to 49 (65%), 50 to 64% (62%) and 65 and older (44%).

• Among people who also say they have a favorable view of any of the three leading presidential candidates. For those holding favorable views for John McCain, 55% say marriage is a private decision; for Barack Obama, 75% say so; and for Hillary Clinton, 69% do. All three oppose same-sex marriage. Both Democrats both favor civil unions.

• Among people who say a relative, friend or co-worker personally has told them he or she was gay or lesbian (73%).

The strongest support for government regulation of same-sex marriage came from people who say they:

• Attend religious services weekly (56%).

• Are Republicans (56%).

• Are politically conservative (54%).

There's a quote in the USA Today article that I think is important in explaining the shift in opinion. As Mark Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University argues:

"After Massachusetts, the public has seen that the decision there has not affected people's lives as much as was feared," Rozell says.

[...]

[T]hese poll findings "suggest caution" to conservative activists who think this will mobilize voters, he says. "People were warned, with lots of overheated rhetoric, about the consequences of gay marriage in Massachusetts. They didn't see it affect their own lives. Now, most people have let loose a collective yawn about the issue."

Something to celebrate!

Disappointed in Hillary

I've written in this space before a little bit about my allegiances in the Democratic primary. I was an early and ardent supporter of Hillary Clinton, including a brief stint when I worked for a consulting firm that did work for the campaign. I truly believe that she would be a phenomenol President, and I'm disappointed that we won't get the opportunity to see her serve in that capacity.

Given that, I've also been aware of the reality of the situation for quite some time. Barack Obama has been the presumptive nominee for weeks, and Hillary Clinton's persistence has been difficult for the party. I was in the camp that believed she was justified to stay in the race as long as she felt was appropriate. I believed that, rather, until last night when Obama officially received enough delegates to win the nomination.

Hilary Rosen wrote a piece at Huffington Post that describes what I'm feeling perfectly:

Senator Clinton's speech last night was a justifiably proud recitation of her accomplishments over the course of this campaign, but it did not end right. She didn't do what she should have done. As hard and as painful as it might have been, she should have conceded, congratulated, endorsed and committed to Barack Obama. Therefore the next 48 hours are now as important to the future reputation of Hillary Clinton as the last year and a half have been.

I am disappointed. As a long time Hillary Clinton supporter and more importantly, an admirer, I am sad that this historic effort has ended with such a narrow loss for her. There will be the appropriate "if onlys" for a long time to come. If only the staff shakeup happened earlier; if only the planning in caucus states had more focus; if only Hillary had let loose with the authentic human and connecting voice she found in the last three months of the campaign. If only. If only. I have written many times on this site about the talents of Hillary Clinton and why I thought she'd make a great President.

After last night's final primary, she was only about pledged 100 delegates behind him. Ironic that after not wanting to make the decision for so long, it was in fact, the superdelegates who made the decision. But I guess they did so for another reason. It just isn't her time. It is his time. It's a new day that offers a freshness to our party that many have longed for. We felt the rush of new voices and a new energy in the Congressional sweep of 2006 and the sweep continues. It has been an organic shift. And a healthy one.

The life's work of Bill and Hillary Clinton in partnering with so many African Americans uniting our purpose and promoting our mutual issues is as responsible for Barack Obama's success as our first African American nominee as anyone. And yet, that joy is being denied for them by themselves. It is so sad.

So, I am also so very disappointed at how she has handled this last week. I know she is exhausted and she had pledged to finish the primaries and let every state vote before any final action. But by the time she got on that podium last night, she knew it was over and that she had lost. I am sure I was not alone in privately urging the campaign over the last two weeks to use the moment to take her due, pass the torch and cement her grace. She had an opportunity to soar and unite. She had a chance to surprise her party and the nation after the day-long denials about expecting any concession and send Obama off on the campaign trail of the general election with the best possible platform. I wrote before how she had a chance for her "Al Gore moment." And if she had done so, the whole country ALL would be talking today about how great she is and give her her due.

Instead she left her supporters empty, Obama's angry, and party leaders trashing her. She said she was stepping back to think about her options. She is waiting to figure out how she would "use" her 18 million voters.

But not my vote. I will enthusiastically support Barack Obama's campaign. Because I am not a bargaining chip. I am a Democrat.

I'm proud of Hillary Clinton. Again, I wish that she had won the nomination. But I've gotten over it. There are some things more important than our pride. It's time for her to move on, too.

"Gayfacing"?

I saw Hamlet the other night at Carter Barron amphitheatre here in DC (shout out to the amazing Shakespeare Free for All program of the Shakespeare Theatre that brings Shakespeare to the public for free every summer!), and was someone put off by a choice the director had made. The play-within-a-play scene was done in a kabuki-theatre style. Fine. Weird, but fine. But the actors had all put on heavy makeup and adopted exaggerated Japanese accents. I got the point, but it reminded me of nothing more than blackface performances that most find horribly offensive. In the end, I'm not entirely sure how I felt about the performance, but coincidentally, I ran across an article this morning that addressed a similar issue.

Over at straight.com, Craig Takeuchi wrote an article asking if "gay-for-pay actors" were, as I've always assumed, really "socially progressive," or if they were instead "gayfacing" it.

Straight actors playing gay roles openly is certainly progressive in helping to remove the stigma career-wise in Hollywood.

On the other hand, there is still some ways to go.

There's always been the protest of blackface (and even yellowface) when Caucasian performers played ethnic roles.

Should there be a similar outcry when it comes to straight actors playing gay roles? When straight actors play "gayface"?

Having straight actors play gay roles takes the roles away from openly gay actors, and the development of their careers.

There are very few openly gay A-list actors. (And undoubtedly still numerous closeted ones.)

And while I'm sure many gay actors do not want to be restricted to just playing gay roles, when there are high profile, mainstream gay roles, such as Brokeback Mountain, Queer as Folk, or Will and Grace, the end result is that the income and career-boost goes to straight actors, not openly gay ones.

Ultimately, the opportunity to develop openly gay celebrities in mainstream entertainment is taken away.

Not only as role models for the community (including for closeted youth living in homophobic environments), but also in developing bankable openly gay names, which is the bottom line in Hollywood.

Takeushi is exploring a really interesting question, but I wish he'd explored it more thoroughly. He's right to note that there are too legitimate arguments that could be made in response to this issue. The first is the one I've always automatically assumed: gay characters in film and television are good, regardless of who plays them. The second argument Takeushi raises also seems compelling, however. It is difficult to see the difference between straight actors playing gay and white actors playing black.

When I began thinking about this, I reflexively assumed that the cases must not be the same. After all, 19th century blackface performances were malintentioned, while modern Hollywood portrayals of gay characters were the opposite. Weren't they? Aren't they? I'd always made that assumption, but all the examples I immediately thought of seemed to support a comparison, rather than disprove it. Is Jack McFarland of Will and Grace anything but a modern minstrel show, after all? What about the Queer Eye guys?
Or the million and one gay best friend characters? I'm not so sure...

So given that the intention behind the inclusion of gay characters might not always be entirely progressive, is it offensive for straight actors to "play gay for pay"?

My answer? I'm not sure the question should matter in the end.

Straight actors playing gay (even when the portrayals were not always entirely appropriate or inclusive), have paved the way for the inclusion of more gay characters on television and in film. More characters in general have made it possible for those characters to be more well-rounded, better representations of the LGBT community as a whole. So while the Jack McFarland character might not have been a progressive windfall, he certainly made it possible for Showtime's Queer as Folk. QAF helped ease the introduction of The L Word.

Those all-gay-all-the-time programs showed networks and advertisers that it could be profitable to take a risk, and in recent television seasons we've had realistic, complex, and beautifully written LGBT characters like Kevin from Brothers and Sisters

and Carmelita on Dirty Sexy Money.

So while I find Takeushi's piece compelling, in the end I need to conclude that it doesn't particularly matter to me who's playing the LGBT characters on TV and in movies. I just want more of them.

UPDATE:

I did a little more thinking about this and started to wonder about how LGBT audiences respond to LGBT actors playing LGBT roles versus straight actors playing LGBT roles. I'm not entirely sure how to evaluate such a questions, but one example jumps out at me.

The L Word has been many things for the lesbian community. While it is somewhat appropriately mocked on occasion, it is also the most prominent and wide reaching pop culture depiction of lesbians today (except for Ellen, but she's not fictional...). It has also been the vehicle that has made stars out of a lesbian actress: Leisha Hailey.

As the only out actress on the show Leisha has, unquestionably, been embraced most enthusiastically by the lesbian audience of The L Word. AfterEllen.com's Hot 100 list is only one metric that demonstrates this. Leisha's band's, Uh Huh Her's, ability to sell out venues during a two month tour before its first album dropped is another. So maybe I was a little hasty to say it makes no difference whether LGBT characters are played by gay or straight actors... My entirely anecdotal evidence shows that it seems to matter to audiences.

"Feminist" Marc Rudov believes "most American women are as shallow" as Sex in the City characters

I'm a longtime fan of the progressive media watchdog group Media Matters, and I'd recommend anyone who doesn't know about it to check it out.

But anyway, I got an email from someone at MM yesterday evening about something pretty disgusting that was said yesterday on the O'Reilly Factor. Now, my disdain for Bill O'Reilly is well-known, so I wasn't entirely surprised when I saw that his show was the subject of the MM email. But like the last time I mentioned him, however, BillO surprised me. MM's item was actually about a guest of the Factor, Marc Rudov, whose comments about women were so disparaging and misogynistic that even O'Reilly wouldn't agree with him.

From MM:

Marc Rudov said men should boycott the Sex and the City movie and would not see it because "paying to hear women whine is as stupid as paying for cobwebs, because you can get them both at home for free." When Bill O'Reilly asked Margaret Hoover whether she believed "that most American women are as shallow as" the four main characters in the movie, Rudov interrupted: "I do."

This is just wrong on so many levels, and *shockingly*, it's nothing new for Rudov. The MM report continues:

As Media Matters for America noted, on the April 10 edition of Your World, Rudov referred to this country as a "gynocracy" and said of Sen. Hillary Clinton: "The woman is not called a B-word because she's assertive and aggressive; she's called a B-word because she acts like one." On the April 10 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, Rudov stated that one reason "the beauty pageant industry is failing" is because "the contestants are supposed to be good girls, and there aren't good girls," later adding: "Girls just love to expose themselves." On the March 26 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, Rudov stated: "You know, you started talking about female happiness before, would women be happier and why our men are depressed. Men are depressed, and it's their own fault, because men are allowing women to take over the world. You know, female happiness is an oxymoron." During the March 10 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, when O'Reilly asked about the "downside" of a woman president, Rudov responded: "You mean besides the PMS and the mood swings, right?" On the January 4 edition of Your World, Rudov said: "When Barack Obama speaks, men hear, 'Take off for the future.' And when Hillary Clinton speaks, men hear, 'Take out the garbage.' "

Disgusting.

Depressing...

I'm pretty depressed about this, so I'm just going to bring it to you via Queerty:

We were really hoping not to have to report this, but we’re powerless. Sorry.

California’s Secretary of State Debra Bowen yesterday approved four measures for this November’s ballot, including a reversal of last month’s gay marriage ruling:

California voters will have a chance to overturn the recent state Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage just five months from now, as the secretary of state certified a measure to define marriage as “between a man and a woman” for the November ballot.

Proponents of the measure submitted more than 1.1 million signatures to qualify for the general election ballot. A random sampling by the secretary of state’s office determined they had collected more than the 694,354 valid signatures needed.

Gay rights activists have already started revving up for a battle to the finish. For now, gay folk can still marry between June 17 and the November election. Unless, of course, the Supreme Court stays its decision, in which case we’ll be back where we began.

Since they'd handed in almost twice the necessary number of signatures, this was an expected development. But still. Sad face.