Queer Issue: A Really Bad, No Good Idea For a Sociological Experiment on Street Harassment

Over on The Bilerico project, there is a newish post entitled "How To Cat Call Appropriately" on the issue of street harrasment that is frequently faced by women.

One of the commentators (and I might point out this is kind of a predictable response) asked (and I'm paraphrasing) "But what if I just tell her she's pretty and ask her for her number?"

Well, okay let's put the shoe on the other foot. Let's consider a sociological experiment. what if the situation were different? What if it was men who had people coming up to them, telling them they were handsome or good looking, and oh by the way, what's their number?

If women were to go around asking men for their numbers, I have honestly have no idea how it would go. It might be viewed as an impropriety but I am not sure that *most* men would react negatively. Some might be annoyed but others might like it, and at the end of the idea I really have no idea what would go on.

Now, to make this a really fun experiment, what if gay men were to go around in a public space and tell men how sexy/hot/handsome they were, and what their phone number was?

First, we would probably need to wear full body armor to have any hope of maintaining physical safety.

Second, there would be a very real chance of us being arrested for soliciting sex in public. I am not making this up. There's plenty of examples of this happening, even in recent years, of gay men being arrested for public solicitation.

Do I even need to point out that this is certainly a case of how society can enforce rules differently when it comes to minority status.

For extra fun, consider what would happen if the "hey sexy man, can I have your number" solicitor (male, female, or otherwise) fell into any of the following identity categories (or was a part of multiple categories):
-Was visibly disabled
-Was a non-passing transgender, transexual, or otherwise presented outside the gender binary
-Was a person of color
-Was fat
-Was 65 plus and asking males 20-30 years old

I bring up these identities, not because I think that these necessarily should be considered less attractive then what society conditions people into thinking what should be attractive, but because I am willing to gamble that most men, thanks to said social conditioning, would be less receptive in general to being solicited by those in the above categories. Which in turn means that they might get a better idea of why street harassment is such a horrible practice.

That said, there are plenty of men out there who would appreciate being approached by any of the above, but that still wouldn't make it right. Just because some of the mud that you fling at people sticks, does not make mud flinging at people okay.

For further reading:
PSA: Dear Street Harassers by Foz Meadows.

Calling the Poor and Unemployed "Lazy" is Lazy Rhetoric (and Wrong Too)

Sometimes I have little epiphanies about fairly broad subjects. Today, I had one about the increasing volume regarding the rhetoric that the poor and unemployed citizens are "lazy". Not worth going into details why this rhetoric is so overwhelming right now (see: recession and trying to get rid of foodstamps or something) but needless to say, it exists.

However, while I can only speak about my own experiences, I feel like pointing out that not all unemployed people are lazy (this goes without saying, right?) but that furthermore, being unemployed does not automatically mean that one is not actually a productive member of society.

Since graduating from SUNY Oneonta back in 2009, I have yet to find full time employment. So you'll excuse me while I go into Sir BragsALot mode, but I'd like to use myself as an example to start out:
-While I was a student at SUNY Oneonta, I was credited with completing 750.25 volunteer hours of community service. My volunteer work included working on the SUNY Oneonta Undergraduate Philosophy Conference, the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (which I also served on the Advisory Committee of after I graduated), and the Student Association Supreme Court, among other organizations.

-While I was still living in Oneonta, I also volunteered at a local emergency room and as an EMT for a volunteer fire department.

-Currently, while I am also doing coursework towards a possible Criminology degree at Wilkes-University, I am also doing an unpaid internship with a local law enforcement agency in Wilkes-Barre. While most of the time I am observing court cases, I have also done clerical work as well.

-For the past three years, I have been writing reviews of LGBTQ related films and now have an archive with more than 100 film reviews that I can call my own. While this arguably has little objective value, I do like to think that these reviews have added to a general understanding of queer cinema.

-On top of all of this, I also work out on regularly on a daily basis in the hopes of pursueing a career in either law enforcement or emergency medicine.

-Most recently, I am now volunteering as a researcher for the Quist, an iOS/Android LGBTQ/Queer history app.

Perhaps this is the height of arrogance, but I would like to think that thanks to my history of volunteering and educational pursuits, that I am not only the opposite of lazy, but that I just might be able to call myself a productive member of society. I just happen to not have been able to turn my productivity into a steady paycheck, yet. I cannot imagine that I am the only person who is unemployed and has spent many hours volunteering in an effort to make the kinds of connections that will lead to a paid position.

Of course there is the possibility that I am some kind of special case and the ranks of the unemployed are filled to the brimming with the lazy and unmotivated. Perhaps, but consider the fact that historically speaking, military veterans have generally faced unemployment rates much higher than the non-veteran population.

Call me perverse, but I look forward to the day when the same politicians who argue that the unemployed are the unmotivated scourge of society, go on national TV and argue that members of the U.S. Military have a poor work ethic.

This is all before we get into how privilege and minority status affects how readily one can find employment. One of the most frustrating aspects of an economics class I took this summer, was the circular reasoning that was taken by one of the required texts regarding this phenomenon. People of color are more like to be unemployed because they are less "productive" workers and the reason they are less productive is because they are less educated then white folks. Do I need to point out the not so minor issue with that argument, even if we accept as true? Like oh I dunno, that racism just might create a barrier to higher education for people of color?

Then there was the argument from the same text about the reason a pay gap exists between men and women. Which is apparently because women are also less productive. Now one reason for the productivity disparity was because women are less likely to pursue higher paying careers in traditionally male dominated fields. The possibility that women were less likely to pursue careers in male dominated fields because of sexist social conditioning never crossed the authors minds. They also attempted to use the "mommie factor" (that is women taking time off of work to raise kids) as another reason women are less productive than men. I will simply point out that this is a sexist argument in of itself, as it immediately dismisses the bearing and raising of kids as not being a form of productivity.

Continueing in this vain but did you know that sending out a "gay resume" means you're less likely to get called by an interested employer? Oddly enough, the same holds true for resumes with "African-American sounding" names. If this is true, we must assume then that your name or sexual orientation must be a reliable indicator to an employer of ones work ethic. Because otherwise things like racism and homophobia actually exist and admitting they exist is so very, very hard.

I do not wish to promote the idea here that one's ultimate worth as a human being is somehow tied up in ones employment status or any such nonsense. I just want to say that ultimately, what's really truly lazy is painting an entire population with the same brush. There is no effort required when it comes to promoting stereotypes.

Further Reading:
National Statistics on Transgender Unemployment - Transgender Workplace Diversity
My Name Is Jason, I’m A 35-Yr-Old White Male Combat Veteran…And I’m On Food Stamps
Homeless Veterans, By The Numbers - Thinkprogress

Queer Issue: Alan Turing Was a Genius Who Had a Lady Friend

I came across this article on Movie Scope today onThe Imitation Game about the life of Alan Turing, the openly gay man who cracked NAZI codes, saved thousands of lives, shortened WWII, on his way to becoming the father of computer science.

I have no idea how the movie intends to portray Turing (and frankly do not have the time to do the research) but there were a few details that jumped out at me. For starters the article points out that Kiera Knightly will play Alan Turing's "lady friend". That's nice, given that Turing was GAY, I'm sure there are plenty of ladies out there who enjoyed coordinating accessories with him. I mean, that is what gay men and ladies do together, right? Certainly, they could not just be co-workers and Knightly is simply Turing's friend (why does the term 'lady' even need to be there?) This is a movie after all, certainly the male lead is just absolutely, going to have to have fall in love with his lady friend, right?

Oh wait, Turing was GAY? But the article does not mention that at all, just that he was a victim or something of a close minded government.

I mean honestly, if someone did not know Turing was gay, they might very easily come away with impression that Turing is going to hook up with his lady friend from this article.

Queer Issue: Sex Evil! Violence Good!

Alright, it's no secret that violence is practically worshiped in our culture, while anything related to sex or sexuality is shunned.

However, a thousand bucks for the person who can find a more extreme example of this, than the poster I came across today while doing research for an article an transgender serial killers:

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde Poster at Wikipedia

Note how "...victim after victim dies horribly in throat cutting orgy" is an unambiguous selling point, while the idea of seeing someone transform between genders is presented as a warning label.

Actually, it is still a selling point in it's own reverse psychology sort of fashion, but I should point out that the message here still revolves around the idea that changing one's physical sex is somehow shocking and grotesque, as opposed to, I dunno, a medical procedure with no more sociological significance than having one's tonsils or wisdom teeth removed.

That is, one is supposed to find the idea of changing one's sex extremely revolting and shocking, and since that is the reason for seeing most horror films, it becomes the main selling point,

I should probably also point out that this attitude was also shown during the scenes if The Christine Jorgensen Story so was certainly not uncommon during this time, although that goes without saying.

On Human Nature Through Film

So tonight was the first night of my Human Nature Through Film class that I am now taking at Wilkes University. Since this is the first philosophy class that I have taken since I graduated from SUNY Oneonta, I am a little bit excited about it.

One little bit of irony though. On the list of films we would be watching, there was only one that I was not familiar with. Of those that I did recognize, none were LGBTQ related, which kind of irritated me a little. However as it turns out, the one film that I was not familiar with (Keep the River on Your Left) turned out to be a documentary about a gay anthropologist.

I'm a bit embarrassed of course. I've spent all this time trying to become an expert on queer cinema and naturally, the one film I've never heard of on this list would be the queer film.

Queer Issue: When Bigotry is Addressed in Fiction, It's All or Nothing

Last night, while watching the Buffy spinoff Angel episode "Are Now or Have You Ever Been"on Netflix streaming, during a flashback set in the 1950's I noticed a brief moment where a black family was being turned away from a hotel while the hotel manager went on and on about the "Vacancy" sign out front was "a mistake". For those with a smidgen of knowledge of history will recognize this as a nod to the horrible practice of hotels and other businesses would outright refuse crucial services to people of color. The point of course, was to make it next to impossible for people of color to travel or engage in certain kinds of business.

For a little while into the Angel episode I thought that this would be it, that this would be an isolated moment in the story. Well, it turned out I was wrong. While giving away the relevant plot details would be rather spoilerish of me, I will say that the episode ended up addressing racism in a rather significant fashion.

Of course, during the time where I found myself assuming that the episode was not going to substantially address racism, I got to thinking. It seems to me that whenever a story/novel/movie/tv show episode, wants to address racism/homophobia/transphobia/biphobia/ableism/sexism** it almost always does so in a Very Big Way. Maybe not a Very Special Episode Way, but usually it will come close. There is almost never a passing reference to a minor example of bigotry or an example of a micro-aggression regularly faced by a minority group, unless it is worked into a narrative that is specifically intended to focus on one of the aforementioned *isms.

This in of itself, is not a bad thing. Obviously given my hobby of reviewing queer films, I think that more films (and other works of fiction) need to do more towards presenting the experiences of the LGBTQ population and other minorities as well.

However, wouldn't it be nice if more writers and other producers of fiction, were willing and able to include references to micro-aggressions as well passing nods to the bigotry faced by minority groups regularly as part of narratives that are not intended to focus primarily on some form of bigotry?

It does become something of an issue, me thinks, for works of fiction to only address "big issues", as it means that there is little focus on the daily lived experiences of most minorities. Focusing on "minor issues in passing" could go a long way towards changing that. Not of course as a substitute for "Big Issue" narratives, but in addition to.

Just some food for thought.

**I list these as those are all of the *isms that I can recall off the top of my head as having been addressed in some significant fashion by a major work of fiction. Obviously there is a small fortune of isms' that aren't being addressed at all or in a significant fashion.

Queer Issue: A Queer Film Critic Responds to the GLAAD "Vitto Russo Test".

My short response: NO!

Slightly expanded response: NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! DIE, MOMMIE, RUSSO TEST! DIE!

Okay, I expect someone out there will want some of those pesky little things called "reasons" from me.

First, here is what GLAAD has put forth as the Vitto Russo Test:

The Vito Russo Test criteria:

1) The film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender (LGBT).

2) That character must not be solely or predominantly defined by their sexual orientation or gender identity (i.e. the character is made up of the same sort of unique character traits commonly used to differentiate straight characters from one another).

3) The LGBT character must be tied into the plot in such a way that their removal would have a significant effect. Meaning they are not there to simply provide colorful commentary, paint urban authenticity, or (perhaps most commonly) set up a punchline; the character should matter.

Nothing could be a bigger insult to Vitto Russo's legacy then to have his name attached to such a simplistic set of standards. You know what films meet this standard? Some of the most homophobic and transphobic crap ever to grace the silver screen like Silence of the Lambs. After all, Buffalo Bill is explicitely trans, important to the plot, and is not solely defined by the fact that he cross dresses. What doesn't meet the criteria? A small fortune of films that I consider to be some of the most pro-queer films around. ParaNorman's Mitch, is not all that important to the plot and his sexuality, while important thematically, is set up as a punchline. Does that mean that his is no longer significant for being the first explicitly out gay character in a mainstream film aimed at children?

For those who do not know who Vitto Russo is, you should be deeply, deeply ashamed of yourselves... I mean, you should know that he is the earliest and most prominent queer film critic who wrote The Celluloid Closet. For those who are both ignorant and lazy, you can easily correct your ignorance by watching the documentary, The Celluloid Closet which was based on his work.

In his book, Russo analyzed hundreds of depictions of LGBTQ characters throughout the history of cinema. The breadth and depth of his work is extraordinary, and while I do not always agree with his conclusions, the significance of his contributions to the field of queer film criticism is undeniable.

In short, the major problem with the Vitto Russo Test that GLAAD is proposing is that it is way too simplistic to bear the name Vitto Russo. Not to mention that it is too culturally and historically ignorant to be allowed to live.

Yes, I do want more LGBTQ characters in films obviously. And yes, I would like them to be more explicit as opposed to subtextually queer. And yes, it would be nice for them to matter in some fashion.

But there is an entire breadth of films that fall outside GLAAD's criteria that I find interesting and noteworthy. Does the fact that Little Horse serve no function to the plot of Little Big Man mean that the film fails, even though the character is used to highlight the films' anti-war themes? What of the The Great Gatsby where there is not a single explicit LGBTQ character, but reading the narrator as being romantically and sexually attracted to Mr. Gatsby adds layers of depth to both the characters motivation and thematic content? Are they failures of cinema because they don't meet every point on GLAAD's litmus test?

When I review queer films, I do have a set of criteria, yes, that I think about in regards to the film. If I were to write it down, it might go a little as follows:

1) Are the characters explicit or are there any that can be read as subtextually LGBTQ?

2) What is the cultural setting in which this film is being made? Who is the film being made for? (Straight, General, LGBTQ or some segment therein?) How do the queer characters fit into it all?

3) What are these characters importance to the plot or thematic elements?

4) Are the LGBTQ characters intended to positive or otherwise sympathetic? Are they complex and well developed or do they simply rely on caricatures and stereotypes?

With the exception of #4, none of these are really pass/fail. Nor are they they only ones that I ask, these are just the most common. Another example would be if the characters die or kill themselves, what is the reason for doing so and how does it serve the story?

It is also important to emphasize that Vitto Russo understood that it is not worth analyzing singular films without considering the importance of historical trends. There is arguably not a whole lot wrong with a single film that portrays a transgender person as a serial killer. There is enormous harm done to the trans* community though when there is enough films with transgender serial killers that they become their own sub-genre. There is nothing wrong with a film having a gay or lesbian character committing suicide or otherwise getting killed off. There is a whole lot wrong when death becomes the predominant fate of gay and lesbian character. There is nothing wrong with presenting a bisexual character who cheats or is other-wise non-monogamous. It becomes very wrong though, when every bisexual character tries to have sex with every other character in a given story.

Ultimately, there are a lot of things we need more of regarding queer cinema and GLAAD's proposal does not address them. Hollywood should not forget that people of color are also LGBTQ. That there are disabled queers. That there have been and continue to be people dealing with HIV and AIDS. That people from every background, class, gender, and profession can also be gender and sexual minorities. That historical figures should not be straitened out to fit what is a political narrative that erases the contributions of LGBTQ individuals to society.

In short, the Vitto Russo Test is too small, too narrow, and too straight to be queer. No matter what our parents say, we should never stop being vampire slayers or mutants. Where is the acknowledgment in this test for intersex monarchs or the asexual cannibals who ate Raoul? Where are those who were born in flames or poverty? Should we not want to see them on screen as well? Ultimately, we are too big, too diverse to have any room in our birdcage for for this test.

So whether we be pariahs or watermelon women who live on Gun Hill Road or Brokeback Mountain, we should reject every every angry inch (or 20 centimeters) of the Vitto Russo Test.