Ask the Flying Monkey: The Great Gay Pride In-Your-Face-Sex Debate!

Posted by

Brent Hartinger

on September 21, 2010

 

Q: Is Martha Plimpton a gay icon? I know you’re high on her new show, Raising Hope. – Eddy, Albuquerque, NM

Martha Plimpton

A: Martha Plimpton may not be well-known enough to be a full-fledged gay icon, but I think she’s definitely well on her way to icon-hood.
Why? I’d like to be able to say that it’s solely about her Cher-like career longevity and impressive talent, which has recently resulted in three consecutive Tony Award nominations, not to mention stunning TV character work on shows like Fringe and, yes, Raising Hope.
But let’s face facts: Plimpton’s gay icon-ette status also has something to do with the drama surrounding her years as a wise-beyond-her-years child actress, especially her love affair with River Phoenix, and her friendships with Keanu Reeves and the rest of the Phoenix clan.

Plimpton with River Phoenix

Then, of course, there’s her role as Stef in the camp classic, The Goonies. That’s even her in the infamous, incredibly-cheesy deleted “giant octopus” scene.
Incidentally, when we told Plimpton she had a big gay fan-base and asked her if she had any idea why, she told us, “That’s very nice! I don’t know what it could be. I hate to say that gay men have better taste than straight men, although it’s certainly true in the case of most of my friends. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a compliment, that’s for sure.
Raising Hope debuts tomorrow night on Fox.
Q: I've been a fan of gay-themed movies, books, and TV shows for about 15 years - of course I also like other non-gay stuff, too. Recently I've been asking myself: Are there any (mainstream) TV shows/movies that you "shouldn't" watch if you consider yourself a gay ally? There have been various mentions on AfterElton.com of controversial episodes of (for example) Family Guy. So what's the verdict? -- Gravity81, Germany
A: I can see two reasons why a GLBT person wouldn’t support a movie, book, or TV show: first, the work itself is homophobic. But who’s to say if something is homophobic? AfterElton.com? There’s rarely ever a complete agreement here on anything even among the staff members, much less among our readers.
And TV shows are made up of changing staffs of hundreds of people, working over many years: even if a show does do an episode that’s outright homophobic, is it fair to hold the entire show accountable?

Generally gay-supportive Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane
and a scene from the shockingly insensitve "Quagmire's Dad" episode.

Sure, there are isolated instances where most of us can agree the work is homophobic – the shows of Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura, certain rap artists, the comedian Gallagher, a lot of the work of the Wayans Brothers. But these examples are few and far between.
The second reason to boycott something is because the artist or artists involved is personally an anti-gay bigot even if their work is not, but this also strikes me as pretty problematic. It’s possible in the case of someone like author Orson Scott Card, who has taken a very public (and viciously anti-gay) stand on the subject of same-sex marriage.
But some people, for example, have said, “Don’t support anything Twilight-related, because Stephenie Meyer is Mormon, and the Mormon Church is anti-gay.”
Problem is, some Mormons are pro-gay – Marie Osmond anyone? – and since Meyer hasn’t specifically spoken out against gay rights, that strikes me as a pretty thin reed to hang a boycott on, one that spills over into outright anti-Mormon bigotry.
If you’re saying we should boycott Meyer, are you also willing to boycott the work of every practicing member of the Catholic Church? They’re at least as homophobic as the Mormon one.

Of the many reasons to avoid Twilight films, author Stephenie Meyer's
Mormon background is probably not one of them.

The point is, it’s hard to know what’s really inside someone else’s heart. As a general rule, I say: judge artists by their work, not their (supposed) political beliefs.
Bottom line? Educate yourself, sure, and vote with your dollars if your conscience tells you to. But ultimately, we all have to decide these things for ourselves.

This year's Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade

Q: Recently, as I watched all of us celebrating at various Gay Pride events around the globe, I had the opportunity to see how we celebrated from many different perspectives. As a people defined by our sexuality, we often display ourselves in a very sexual way to the world. No offence (and keeping in mind that I thoroughly enjoyed it), but why is it that we, as a people, do this? I am completely sure that Pride has served us well, and will continue to do so in the future, but as we as a community move forward – and as we become more varied in our presentations of ourselves to the world, will Pride as a highly sexualized event becomes less and less so? Will it be necessary? What will be the future of our faces to the world? -- Maharajah, West Palm Beach, FL
A: It’s funny that you bring up this old debate, because I haven’t heard it in a while. For one thing, even now, Pride seems so much less sexualized than it used to be.
Has Pride served us well? I think it completely depends on what you think its purpose was.
If the point was to persuade skeptical people to support our causes and our issues, well, I think it’s been a spectacular failure – maybe even counter-productive. I can’t count the number of times that straight people have said to me, “I support gay rights, but what the hell is going on at those gay pride parades? Do you guys realize how much damage that does?”
Some of the imagery – especially the sexual stuff – seems designed specifically to provoke and offend. Let’s face it: the whole point of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is to mock and deride the Catholic Church. Is it any wonder that a lot of Catholics take offense?

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence stage a "hunky Jesus" competition.

A big part of this is the media, which always feature the most outrageous participants in their coverage. Then again, the whole point of being outrageous is to draw attention to yourself, so can we really be surprised and upset when the media do just that?
But here’s where all the confusion and frustrating you’re talking about comes in: I don’t think Pride was about political persuasion. I think it’s mostly been about personal empowerment.
In other words, Pride hasn’t existed for straight people, to persuade them to our cause. It’s been for gay people and our allies, to celebrate together, and to publicly declare our “pride” and our solidarity with other each.
Part of that is reclaiming and celebrating a part of ourselves that the majority culture has long insisted we completely deny: our sexuality.
And yeah, I also think a big part of it was a big, counter-productive middle-finger to the rest of society. But while that may not be the smartest political move, I can’t say I’m too surprised. They’re the ones that excluded us, remember – is it any wonder that pisses a lot of us off?
And the Catholic Church has been outrageously homophobic – and frequently openly illogical and stunningly hypocritical. Is anyone really surprised that plenty of GLBT people want to mock and deride that?
As personal empowerment goes, I think Pride has been a lot more successful. In my experience, it’s hard not to be affected by the passion, the energy, and the incredible diversity of most Pride events (and it’s worth noting that the experience of being there “live,” surrounded by all that diversity, is completely different than the experience of experiencing it through the media, which tend to focus on those most stereotypical elements).
The problem before was the closet. If everyone was (mostly) closeted 364 days out of the year, then Pride events really did become the “face” of the GLBT community, just like you said – and that’s where the controversy came in, both in our community and in the larger culture. Did we really want that to be our face?
But this is simply not an issue anymore, not in most cities, not as more and more of us come out. Even most homophobes now understand that Pride is just one very small part of who we are. And something happened I don’t think anyone anticipated: gay men and women people are increasingly raising families with young children. I think all the families – and the fact that we’re just not as marginalized and angry as we used to be – has made the emphasis on “public,” in-your-face sexuality less and less prominent with each passing year.
I think Pride will always exist in some form, but these days, it’s anything but the “face” of the GLBT community. These days, the “face” is each of us: people’s friends and family and neighbors – our actual faces. And that’s exactly the way it should be.

Q: I have been watching old Hell’s Kitchen episodes recently and noticed how cute Jean-Philippe Susilovic is. I heard he won’t be going back to Hell’s Kitchen for season 8. Is this true? – John, Auckland

Jean-Philippe Susilovic

A: Jean-Philippe isn’t on the eighth season, but it’s not because he was “fired” or anything: he was merely overseas helping to open a new Gordon Ramsay restaurant.
As to whether or not he’s gay, the network didn’t know – and I was unable to track him down to ask.
Q: I recently saw a promo for a new romantic drama show called Lonestar, about an obviously egocentric man with two wives and two separate lives. This reminds me of a show that Sean Hayes was reportedly working on called Bicoastal featuring a similar plot, except the main character had a boyfriend instead of a second wife. What happened to it, and are the two shows related? -- Connor, Gig Harbor

A: It’s an interesting coincidence, but they’re not related in any way. In fact, Lonestar isn’t really even about one man juggling two different households. At the beginning of the pilot, he’s a con artist with two “fake” marriages … but let’s just say that that doesn’t last very long.
I will say this: the star, James Wolk, is insanely handsome – and frequently shirtless.

Lonestar's James Wolk

Hayes did work on Bicoastal for Showtime (with Swingtown creator Mike Kelley). But the show did not get picked up, and as far as I know, a pilot didn’t even get filmed.