Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters: Aug 7, 2009

Friday, August 07, 2009

Know your lgbt history - In Living Color

In Living Color was a groundbreaking sketch comedy show that appeared on Fox in the late 1980s. It was the first of its kind because it was an urban show focusing on the African-American community.

Nowadays, it's remembered as the show that launched the careers of actor Jim Carrey and the Wayans family (Shawn, Keenan, Marlon, Kim, and Damon).

It's probably also remembered for its sketch comedy characters such as Homey the Clown and the Men on . . . series.

The Men on . . . series featured two extremely flamboyantly gay black men espousing their opinions on various subjects while making sure to lace their conversation with sexual double entendres.

I will be honest with you. The first sketch segment of the Men On . . . series (Men on Films - seen in the first clip) left me laughing so hard that tears were running down my eyes. Of course I was a freshman in college and years away from admitting my true sexual orientation:

However, like with all sketch comedy shows, when segments become popular, they continue to be shown to the point of being beaten to death. That was a huge problem with the Homey the Clown segment. Yes we know that he is a militant black man forced to debase himself as a clown for "The Man." It was funny the first and second time.

But the tenth time, it got annoying. And so did the Men On . . . series. Especially considering that the show made the two characters so damned broadly stereotypical that they began to be seen as insults to the lgbt community, as this Men on Football segment demonstrates:

Anti-gay One News Now freaks out over pro-gay news, ENDA support, and other Friday midday news briefs.

Harry Reid "wholeheartedly supports" ENDA - He had better and he had better not be the only one.

AFA vs. AAA: The former is certainly earning its 'F' - What if you announced a boycott and got folks laughing at you because of it?

Ballot prospects for anti-gay rights measure dim - Don't celebrate yet. But keep your fingers crossed.

Texas alcohol board reports violations in gay bar raid - The police are in trooouble.

Signs that the religious right has lost it's mind - Apparently, recent pro-gay news is making One News Now scramble and scramble badly. Read the following three articles. They are so bad I was almost tempted not to write in a comment. Please note I said "almost:"
APA 'ignoring the science' on homosexual reparative therapy - The most comically inane article that One News Now has ever published.

New ENDA bill 'turns private sin into a public right' - Because as we all know, the United States is a theocracy. LOL

ABA meddles in marriage issue, members exit - A suitable completion of One News Now's trio of trash.

And to make it worse, One News Now has yet to announce that Sonia Sotomayor was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Maybe they are still in shock.

Proposition 8 protests vs. Town Hall tyranny - right wing hypocrisy on display

The news about people acting like they have no home training at these health care town hall meetings across the country will backfire against the Republican party. But regardless, I hope no one gets seriously hurt.

To me however, it does show the blatant hypocrisy of the right wing.

Remember in November of last year when Proposition 8 was passed? Remember how angry we lgbts got? Remember how we protested across the country?

While some of us went too far in our anger, the point is that it was a genuine outcry of rage. It was a genuine protest from a group of people who had been stepped on for too long.

Unlike this mess happening now in which the majority are white folks who are programmed by right wing groups with "talking points" or bombthrowers like Glenn Beck or Michelle Malkin (the proverbial child playing matches). And their guilliblity is made easy because they are too afraid to realize that their anger is not with the health care but with their inability to admit that they just don't like "THAT NEEEGROOOO" as president.

Think about it. When they shout and cry at meetings about "how they want their country back," they aren't referring to health care costs or single payer options.

And speaking of Malkin, remember how she wept and cried with pseudo disgust over us "gay bullies" who supposedly attacked people via protests and boycotts? Remember how Mike Huckabee told only one side to the Phyllis Burgess incident (i.e. the anti-gay protester who was pushed and her stryofoam cross taken from her after she elbowed her way through crowd of anti-Proposition 8 protestors so that she could get on camera). Remember how the religious right portrayed the lgbt community on the whole as thugs who were allegedly threatening people, vandalizing churches, and shouting people down?

Well either I am in the Twilight Zone or there has been a shift. Malkin now approves of shouting people down and religious right groups are encouraging folks to show up at these town hall forums.

While Malkin specifically was quick to shine a very bright light on the excesses of the Proposition 8 protests, she is trying to downplay just how nasty these "tea bag" protestors are acting at these health care forums.

Apparently protesting in anger is only wrong when gay folks do it. When lemmings do it at health care forums, it's "democracy in action."

Yet another way us lgbts are looked at as second class citizens.