61 Frames Per Second by John Constantine Today in Nerve's videogame blog: Street Fighter. The movie. A new one. With that chick from that Superman show. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about!
The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Mad Men's January Jones struts her stuff in Vanity Fair. Plus: Damages returns, the latest Gossip Girl guest star and Donna Martin capitulates.
On Monday, May 17, the New York Post reported that a
gay man was brutally attacked after he mistakenly entered a Chelsea club
called Pure, a watering hole that he had frequented for "gay soirées,"
on "straight night." Pure, indeed. The Post's
semantics aside — apparently straights have "nights" while gays throw "soirées," something
to do with an unspoken homosexual alliance with those epicene French weasels — this
incident could be the reverse pitch for
promotion
a brand new Fox reality TV special called Seriously, Dude, I'm Gay, scheduled to air June 7th. In this new contribution
to what the Toronto Globe and Mail describes as "the burgeoning
TV subgenre of gay-themed reality shows," two straight men infiltrate
the gay community and try to pass as gay, sharing apartments with swishy
roommates
and attending, well, gay soirées. Hey, wait a minute, isn't that what homosexuals
used to do in the straight world, except not really by choice? Something
is seriously askew.
This isn't Fox's first foray
into the murky world of identity politics. A previous reality series called Playing
It Straight, in which a hard-bodied, large-breasted woman had to weed out
the gays from amongst her fourteen hunky male suitors, raised the stakes of
the gaydar games by awarding a huge sum of cash to the homosexual who could trick
her into choosing him, leaving her with neither love nor money. Those damn sneaky
fags! Both programs predictably claim in their press releases that their altruistic
aim is to dispel stereotypes about homosexuals, but what really seems to be at
work here is the assumption (hope?) that gays have specific, identifiable characteristics,
habits and mannerisms that can be either imitated or detected by astute straight
Straights really do seem to covet what was previously thought to
be the domain
of gays.
observers. (Perhaps more easily identifiable are the characteristics, habits
and mannerisms of reality TV show contestants, gay or straight: over-developed
bodies,
under-developed minds, service-industry backgrounds, and an unparalleled greed
for money and fame.) Wouldn't it be nice, though, for a change, if each and every
one of the contestants had a broad range of masculine and feminine traits and
access
to
the
full spectrum of their bisexual potential? But that would be bad television.
What may be most frightening about shows like Seriously, Dude, I'm Gay (besides the title) is that straights really do seem to covet what was previously thought to be the domain of gays — taste, promiscuity, hygiene — while the current predilection for gays is to want what straights have traditionally had — monogamy, marriage, and children. The tables have turned with a vengeance.
The real culprit here, though, may be GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which has condemned the show without having seen it, as is their habit. After having micro-managed the popular image of homosexuals in the media to the point of pure blandness and mediocrity — benevolent, kind, decorative, and maybe just a tad over-sexed — one almost welcomes the return of over-the-top sissy stereotypes, the more murderous and violent the better. After all, one has to defend oneself on straight night. — Bruce LaBrucen°
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