gam@amdahl.UUCP (Gordon A. Moffett) (11/11/84)
> = /Steve Dyer {decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer > > I think it is important to reaffirm that this ghetto, the worlds of > closets, Bette Davis, opera divas, "queens", "fairies", "queers" and > drag, or leather harnesses, baths and VD, are but a small part of the > gay community, that membership in this ghetto is *NOT* necessary as a > gay person. That these are cultural artifices come from terrible > decades of oppression and discrimination, and that every gay person is > free not to buy into their distortions and lies. *sigh* It wasn't as though it had a big banner saying: "PLEASE NOTE: this is representative of the entire gay community". If people can characterize a group so simply as that, they are already not thinking. (Already we are putting more intellectual energy into this than it deserves). > I wondered whether I was being humorless. Then I thought about the kind > of stereotypes it traded in, if not wholeheartedly embraced: we must choose, > as it were, between the swish or the slut. Indeed, though I feel the > intentions of the author and poster are well-meaning, the fact remains > thay they have presented a gay "BLKTRAN", a similarly demeaning presentation > of black people presented on the net a while ago which drew an enormous > negative response. I think you are being humorless. Perhaps you think too much. You stretch things too far by saying "we must choose ... between the swish or the slut." Damn! Nobody's asking you to choose ANYTHING! If you didn't find it funny, why subject us to such dry and faulty ``analysis'' of ``what this `joke' REALLY means.'' You didn't find it funny. So what. (I don't suppose that it would help my case to say I didn't find the BLKTRAN incident so terrible either. It was a humorous spoofing of a well-known subculture. If it was taken to be representative of all black people that's a defect of the reader not the writer). > It is sad, too, that it comes from within the gay > community. A bit of a paradox here. Should the ``Gay community'' be speaking with one monotonous voice? I thought we are all different and not characterizable in one point of view, or stereotype. ("You're all different!" "Yes, We're all different!" "(I'm not)"). -- Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,nsc}!amdahl!gam [ This is just me talking. ]
sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (dyer) (11/12/84)
Coming from wjh12 due to a head crash on bbncca...
About the only thing Gordon Moffett and I agree on is that the article has
received more attention than it can possibly be expected to bear.
However, the discussion nevertheless raises valid points, and ones
which I think Moffett simply cares to ignore. That is, his objection
is simply a "shut-up ploy" designed to defer, rather than confront,
the issues.
The BLKTRAN incident did, in fact, raise quite a stink, one sufficient
enough to remove a large organization from the net. A lot of people
didn't think BLKTRAN was funny. Moffett must be marching to a different
drummer, which is his prerogative. However, I would argue that this is
not a sufficient excuse to dismiss the opinions and feelings of
people who are sensitive to racist stereotyping.
Humor simply doesn't exist alone by itself. There are presuppositions
on the part of the writer and preconceptions and attitudes which are
brought by the audience. When I see something which deals exclusively
in stereotypes, I immediately start worrying about just what the
author is trying to say, and from what position the audience is going
to be reading.
After putting up with the likes of Arndt and Brunson for the past six
months, after reading the so-called christian fundamentalist literature
attacking gay people, after really beginning to apprehend just what
much of America thinks about gays, can we really take Moffett seriously
when he claims that the article could not be taken seriously
as representative of all gay people? Well, maybe not representative of
gay women! Frankly, I cannot afford to take the intelligence of
USENET, let alone America, for granted anymore.
To claim that any "misinterpretations" are the fault of the reader is
to miss the point. I came across an interesting quote in net.singles
a few months ago. I think it was by Bruce Israel: "You are
responsible for your own communication." That is, it is incumbent
upon anyone communicating that the message be received intact, as
intended.
For that reason, the "satire" might be considered a {harm,taste}less piece
of fluff in a paper like, say, the "Advocate", where the humor would be
clear. On the other hand, if the same appeared in, say, the "Dartmouth
Review", it would be cause for alarm. Net.motss lies somewhere in
between the two extremes, and I think it is unwise for anyone to
assume that "gay humor" will be construed here the way we assume.
___
/Steve Dyer
{decvax,ihnp4,ima,wjh12,linus}!bbncca!sdyer
sdyer@bbncca.ARPA