homophobia

The Other Guys

admin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:22:00 +0000

Adam McKay is one of a million: a writer and director who can put together a great trailer. Too bad the feature presentation of The Other Guys is so long and boring that it chokes on its own machismo.

The underwhelming tragedy of The Other Guys is that Saturday Night Live veteran McKay is the same fellow behind the hilarious Funny or Die short The Landlord and Anchorman. Then again, he’s also the guy behind other Will Ferrell flops like Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. Clearly, the McKay and Ferrell duo is destined to be hit-or-miss.

The Other Guys starts off promising. Two over-the-top cop heroes (Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson) barrel through New York City chasing teenagers who are in possession of a negligible amount of marijuana. They destroy millions of dollars of property and endanger dozens of lives, but they do it to the soundtrack of their own gunfire and acerbic quips. These two men get the glory—and of course, the trophy sex-with-women that goes along with it. The other dozen New York Police Department detectives—they get the paperwork.

This film is the story of two NYPD “other guys.” Desk-ridden detective partners Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) and Allen Gamble (Ferrell) don’t get out from behind their computers much, because one accidentally shot someone and the other craves safety. These two uncover a fishy financial deal, but for reasons completely unexplained (there’s no corruption involved) the police chief and district attorney thwart Hoitz and Gamble’s every move to investigate.

What follows is 107 minutes that will seem like an eternity of you’re-like-a-woman-and-that’s-bad jokes. Because, you see, there are apparently no women in this film’s NYPD (aside from a counselor), and the men basically only insult each other about being effeminate. What defines ladylike in The Other Guys? The way one’s urine sounds hitting a urinal, talking about shooting someone without bragging, and driving a Prius (bonus points for equating environmentalism with emasculation). And what defines manhood? Learning to dance just to make fun of homos, lamenting the fact that your son is bisexual or saying the word bitch ad nauseam. And the thing is, you don’t particularly care if Gamble and Hoitz catch the bad guy (Steve Coogan), because Gamble is an accountant at heart, and Hoitz is just an unrelenting asshole. The bad guy is much more entertaining.

But even if you were following the plot, the barrage of woman-hating language and themes in this film is hugely distracting, although frankly there’s not much to distract from. Aside from the language, there’s the classic (and somehow never not endearing in the world of film) side plot about a girlfriend who went from restraining order to marriage vows in about fifteen minutes since, really, stalking is flattering in romantic courtship.

And then there’s the whole Gamble’s ugly wife jokes. The twist here is that his wife (Eva Mendes) is objectively hot, if you’re into the whole American-beauty-standards ideal. Ferrell’s character spends the whole film lamenting, to her and to others, that she’s an ugly duckling and sucks at cooking. The ways he seems dissatisfied are the things that are traditionally valued in women—beauty and domestic aptitude. Hoitz and the audience wonder throughout the film: What’s the reason for Gamble’s odd point of view? Well, Gamble later confesses that he doesn’t feel he deserves such a wonderful, beautiful wife so he understates her attributes (to say the least) to keep her from leaving him. How sweet, and how unlike real-life domestic violence.

Hands down, the best part of this dud is the credits, which graphically show how a Ponzi scheme works. (I guess all of a sudden this film considers itself to mostly be about finance?) These credits will cool you down from being pissed that you heard the best jokes a month ago when you saw the trailer before Inception. You’ll realize while watching the credits that the inexplicable narration voice you were trying to place is Law & Order’s Ice-T. You’ll also realize you should have lobbied harder to see The Kids Are All Right earlier that evening.

Please, stay away from this drivel. Even the above examples don’t fully capture the constant onslaught of absurd fodder this film gives even the most casual feminist (or person who thinks that women are full humans). Let’s wrap this piece of crap up with a few words of wisdom, courtesy of The Other Guys: “She overreacted… she’s a woman.”

Written by: Hannah Moulton Belec, August 17th 2010

Homophobias: Lust and Loathing Across Time and Space

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Edited by David A. B. Murray

Duke University Press

Homosexuality seems to always be a topic of interest for researchers, at least in this day and age. Perhaps it is most interesting because sexuality is one of the most private aspects of a person’s life, and nothing seems to generate interest in quite the way that something so mysterious and private can. Homophobia, like homosexuality, varies in degrees of presence, and is often intertwined with the complexities of the cultural, economic, and political workings of the environment it finds itself situated. In Homophobias, edited by David A. B. Murray, the topic of homophobia and its prevalence is examined across cultures and time.

Of particular interest to me has always been the weaving together of racism and homophobia, which is discussed in the article by Brian Riedel titled, “Stolen Kisses: Homophobias as ‘Racism’ in Contemporary Urban Greece.” Ratsismós, which is the Greek word for racism, encompasses much more than the North American conceptualization of “race,” as stated in this article, in that racism is not restricted to a form of discrimination based on phenotype. In the context of the North American concept of racism and its history, relating racism to homophobia would be and is often vehemently protested by people of color. The argument lies in the views of many who are victims of racism that a person can more or less hide sexuality, while one cannot hide his or her skin color. However, with the linguistic structure of the aforementioned word and its encompassing of not only a race but also a nation or tribe—as opposed to a specific group of people based on phenotype—one would be forced to contemplate how one relates to the other.

In the essay, “The Emergence of Political Homophobia in Indonesia” by Tom Boellstorff, an examination of masculinity and national belonging takes place. Boellstorff defines political homophobia as a “cultural logic that links emotion, sexuality, and political violence,” and states that homophobia is often specific to geography and history. He writes that this definition was exemplified in an anti-American newspaper in Indonesia that gave former President Bush a makeover in the form of lipstick, earrings, and a leather jacket, equating him to an emotional transvestite. This was to signify the failed masculinity Bush displayed in seeking allies to attack Afghanistan, as opposed to a one-on-one duel with Osama Bin Laden; thus, by those standards, Bush was operating as a non-normative male.

Suzanne LaFont’s “Not Quite Redemption Song: LGBT-Hate in Jamaica” captures how firmly heterosexism is institutionalized in Jamaica, in that prejudice and discrimination against LGBT people are tolerated and supported partly by police and politicians. She states that there is a moral superiority held by Jamaica over Western liberal sexual ideology. The institutionalized discrimination of gays also evidenced by the outspokenness of Jamaica’s music artists attests to this held superiority and is reinforced with the continued support of artists that speak out so strongly through their music, even promoting murder against gays.

Homophobias is a well-edited collection of how homophobia is captured across cultures, time, and space. It also questions how homophobia—an exclusive prejudice against homosexuals—can exist as a universal form of discrimination, and how that discrimination can exist in various forms from political emasculation to violent attacks. Homophobias serves as an important collection of works with which to move past preconceived ideas of what one thinks constitutes homophobia.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, March 24th 2010

Anachronism and Its Others: Sexuality, Race, Temporality

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Valerie Rohy

SUNY Press

Valerie Rohy’s exploration of the efforts to define both queer and Black identities and their subsequent intersections is as interesting as it is illuminating, as presented in Anachronism and Its Others, whether it is a discussion of the temporal implications of Frederick Douglass’ thought presented in his autobiography or demystifying the nebulous concepts of "queer time." Anachronism and Its Others also investigates how the modern field of sexology has recently made a connection between homosexuality and blackness, often for the negative purpose of justifying homophobic and/or racist socioeconomic worldviews.

One of Rohy’s strongest observations in Anachronism and Its Others is the split between "queer" and "straight time" as she notes within the initial chapters of the book. The idea of straight time as a historical metanarrative told through the evolution of American culture as defined by the goals of majoritarian interests is revelatory. As Rohy states, straight time is "promoted as the best form of progress and the only 'real temporality.'" The author illustrates an important connection to scientific racism as it forms the grounding of those seeking to connect homosexuality and Blackness with threats to the White family, to its perceived superior vitality, fecundity, and ability to function as the carriage of the national society. Rohy’s weaving of modern constructions of ethnic and sexual identity, the connection of contemporary sexology with scientific racism and the attempt to negate any alternatives to a Caucasian heteronormative national paradigm are brilliant.

Such connections and observations lead one to an important question: How does one combat attempts to frame progress and time itself as concepts in opposition to the existential utility of sexual and ethnic minorities within a particular society? As threats to the forward movement of that society? Rohy’s argument against the idea of "straight time" and other justifications of a narrowly defined national culture and destiny are made through the intellectual dismantling of its philosophical buttresses: contemporary sexology and its cousin scientific racism appear to be one large step toward answering such a daunting challenge.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, February 12th 2010

Dairy Queen

admin — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:15:00 +0000

By Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Houghton Mifflin

The word “charming” is too vague, and it makes me think of smarmy real estate descriptions, but…I…can’t…stop…myself. Dairy Queen is just so darn charming that I am forced to momentarily succumb. Catherine Gilbert Murdock has taken a traditional coming-of-age story about a tomboy in a small town and wrung some feisty new life out of it. Her character, DJ Schwenk, is a fifteen year old girl living on a dairy farm and learning about boys, football and family ties.

The first few pages of Dairy Queen are a little disconcerting. DJ speaks in the first person with a simple style and slangy dialogue, and she definitely sounds like a fifteen year old from Wisconsin. Once I settled into her voice, though, I was hooked. DJ is disarmingly honest, naïve, observant and witty - Gilbert Murdock’s voice is spot on. DJ’s mixed feelings toward her family are a realistic combination of humor, angst and love, but they aren’t overdone or corny.

Gilbert Murdock also skillfully addresses some of the issues female athletes face. DJ gets called a “dyke” on the football field, but what upsets her more is that the opposing player pinches her butt as he says it. DJ describes herself as “big” and “strong,” but she has no more than an occasional pang of jealousy for the thin “girly girls.” She may not be free from insecurity, but she is comfortable in her skin. I found DJ’s healthy body image and appetite to be a refreshing departure from teen weight and popularity obsession. More importantly, DJ’s focus on training and competition rings true to anyone who has ever loved to play. When that focus begins to clash with a budding summer romance, DJ is forced to make decisions she has been putting off all summer. By that point I was praying for a sequel as charming as the debut.

Written by: Jennifer Wedemeier, July 10th 2007

Broken World

admin — Fri, 25 May 2007 13:40:00 +0000

By Joseph Lease

Coffee House Press

Don’t be fooled by the title of Joseph Lease’s collection of poems, though the world may be “broken,” the collection spends its time rebuilding, rationalizing and living despite it. Repetition fuels the elegy, “Broken World (for James Assatly),” a poem built in sections, a poem that works to remember a friend and writer who died of AIDS. The poem’s repetition is representative of how the collection operates: poems announce what things are not, only to reconstruct the world with its pieces. So, in the elegy, Lease repeats what things “won’t be”:

won’t be stronger. won’t be water. / won’t be dancing or floating berries. / won’t be a year. Won’t be a song. / Won’t be taller. Won’t be accounted / a flame. Won’t be a boy. Won’t be / any relation to the famous rebel.

The repetition - such as the repetition in Gertrude Stein’s pieces in Tender Buttons - creates a plain where things will be, where the poem allows for things to be stronger, a song, and taller. The other statement Lease repeats is “and I shatter / everyone who hates you.” The poem shatters not only homophobia, not only the loss of another person to AIDS, but shatters Assatly’s anonymity. In the back of the book, it’s stated that Assatly’s novel Hejira remains unpublished; these poems provide a space to praise Assatly.

The last poem of the collection exists in sections, each titled, “Free Again.” Through the use of space play and his use of the dash, Lease allows the reader to link associations, and to continue the thought. In this poem, Lease is offering a freedom of language and a freedom to make associations. Again, his use of negation offers the reverse. He may write, “... – there are no symbols, no spells –...” but the poetry collection is full of symbols and links of image, statement, and sound. The collection ends with the lines: “I can remember my secret book – / I was a ghost, you were the only one / who could hear me –.” By ending the book with not only the second person address to the reader, but with the dash, extends the conversation past the confines of the page. Lease’s space play, elliptical poems and second person address causes the reader to engage and read in a new way.

Written by: Lisa Bower, May 25th 2007

A Simple Distance

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:14:00 +0000

By K. E. Silva

Akashic Books

"All this speaking for others had me losing my own voice," states Jean, the conflicted lesbian attorney with mommy issues in A Simple Distance, K. E. Silva's luscious, tropical/San Francisco novel. In less than 200 rich and delicious pages, Silva layers a bold and romantic tale of family betrayal, lust, politics and the ever-poignant quest for a place one can call home.

Cracked like a coconut, Jean is hard and coarse on the outside, wrapped snugly in her thick skin. Though hidden inside, her sweetness and urge for lasting love and social justice push through her rough exterior. A civil-rights lawyer in San Francisco (are there really any other kind of lawyers in San Francisco?), she is obligated to sacrifice her own beliefs in order to defend her client. Her work life bleeds into her personal life as she finds herself holding her tongue in almost every situation - except when it's dancing in the mouth of a spunky female doctor on the homophobic West Indian island where her family's name is currency. Her secretly illicit love affair, when exposed, shakes the palm trees of the island and challenges her conservative, traditional family to cling to their history or confront the present. Jean's relationship to her mother, to her race, to her job and to her lover are thrust to the forefront as she is forced to not only stay afloat, but navigate through the tumultuous waters of her history.

The novel brings to the surface that triplet of issues: race, class and gender though Silva's deeply drawn characters give a unique voice that screams louder than the politics. Though there are a few moments of cliché, in the end Silva doesn't let anyone off the hook so easily. Her sharp yet ravishing language caresses her story and conjures glorious yet flawed characters swimming in contradictions as they splash through love, prejudice, pride and revenge in their journey to find that place called home.

Written by: Dana Edell, March 22nd 2007