Coming Out 2010
Apr. 2nd, 2010 01:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fingertroubleSome of the responses to the responses (how very meta!) of the Ricky Martin coming out are interesting - more interesting than they should be, for someone of fairly light pop stature. One from paladincub21 from I think a latin perspective, and another from book_of_daniel.
Now as one of the people who went DUH about it I took notice...pause for thought because I hadn't thought much about the latin community response other to frown and hope it goes well at the time...I didn't also know there aren't many unloaded words for gay in Spanish :-D
I think the response was a fair one though - yes it's a big thing for HIM as it is for anyone coming out...but yes it doesn't have the shock factor anymore (in the communities I know of, sure it's a bigger thing in other communities) and no-one was saying 'ooh you shouldn't have come out!' or degrading it as an act...just some obvious eye-rolling...as we all know, the last person to know they aren't 100% straight is usually the person themselves.
No what I found odd about it was the similar and much more emphatic expressions of more than eye-rolling outside the community. Like with Randi coming out, there were non-gay-identified people saying 'it shouldn't be news' 'who cares?' 'haven't we moved on?' 'I don't want to know' 'it's not important' etc. So via twitter and Facebook and in the case of James Randi his JREF blog I and a few other people growled back.
Yes it shouldn't be important, yes it shouldn't be news, but it IS. Until everyone, and I mean everyone - feels safe enough to come out; or the next step to just be and not need to declare it at all and live a honest life from day one - then it is an issue. From gay teens in Ohio to Iran...weird that in this post-metrosexual world there are bored Statler & Waldorf types declaring that coming out is so 'over' and not needed. BULL. SHIT.
From the community I can understand some disappointment when someone comes out late, especially when they could have made a difference. I doubt I'd have held Ricky as a hero (Randi - yes!) but this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/01/ricky-martin-gay-pop-stars reminds me why it was hard coming out in the mid 90's.
Very few gay expressions of love. Frantically searching for pronouns - and the ones flirting with it turned out to be disappointingly actually straight (doing a Bowie) or just way too coy (Morissey).
We needed out pop stars then...shame Ricky and a few others bottled it.
Also I was disappointed to hear in the podcast where James Randi came out that he was a few blocks away from Stonewall and did not do anything because 'he wasn't a gay activist' - well neither were they. You cannot have it both ways - claim honesty and moral high-ground and the fight for truth and light and then walk away because actually you feared the backlash (or didn't 'belong' to a category, a silly excuse).
I love James Randi, but that disappointed me because I expected better, at least not claiming that you're coming out for gay rights at 81 furthers the cause...it sort of does, but it also doesn't because you have to accept you were previously living a lie - even by omission - and that not being out had an effect on how people saw you. The whole 'I would have said if someone asked' chestnut doesn't fly either...although that wasn't Ricky's problem (I do think people were rather rude about that, and he had a right to privacy). It's like claiming you do a lot for charity, but only mailing off the form last week. At least Ian McKellen and co. had the decency not to pull that one (Tatchell does which is why I always call him out on his 'invisible' GLF activity - if he was so politically active in gay rights how did he get 'outed' in 83?).
Anyway, I hope this means that coming out is actually not a big deal anymore - but when WE decide that...not a majority telling us it's so '1987'. That's the worry, a wave of MEH drowning out the importance for the smaller communities.
Now as one of the people who went DUH about it I took notice...pause for thought because I hadn't thought much about the latin community response other to frown and hope it goes well at the time...I didn't also know there aren't many unloaded words for gay in Spanish :-D
I think the response was a fair one though - yes it's a big thing for HIM as it is for anyone coming out...but yes it doesn't have the shock factor anymore (in the communities I know of, sure it's a bigger thing in other communities) and no-one was saying 'ooh you shouldn't have come out!' or degrading it as an act...just some obvious eye-rolling...as we all know, the last person to know they aren't 100% straight is usually the person themselves.
No what I found odd about it was the similar and much more emphatic expressions of more than eye-rolling outside the community. Like with Randi coming out, there were non-gay-identified people saying 'it shouldn't be news' 'who cares?' 'haven't we moved on?' 'I don't want to know' 'it's not important' etc. So via twitter and Facebook and in the case of James Randi his JREF blog I and a few other people growled back.
Yes it shouldn't be important, yes it shouldn't be news, but it IS. Until everyone, and I mean everyone - feels safe enough to come out; or the next step to just be and not need to declare it at all and live a honest life from day one - then it is an issue. From gay teens in Ohio to Iran...weird that in this post-metrosexual world there are bored Statler & Waldorf types declaring that coming out is so 'over' and not needed. BULL. SHIT.
From the community I can understand some disappointment when someone comes out late, especially when they could have made a difference. I doubt I'd have held Ricky as a hero (Randi - yes!) but this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/ap
Very few gay expressions of love. Frantically searching for pronouns - and the ones flirting with it turned out to be disappointingly actually straight (doing a Bowie) or just way too coy (Morissey).
We needed out pop stars then...shame Ricky and a few others bottled it.
Also I was disappointed to hear in the podcast where James Randi came out that he was a few blocks away from Stonewall and did not do anything because 'he wasn't a gay activist' - well neither were they. You cannot have it both ways - claim honesty and moral high-ground and the fight for truth and light and then walk away because actually you feared the backlash (or didn't 'belong' to a category, a silly excuse).
I love James Randi, but that disappointed me because I expected better, at least not claiming that you're coming out for gay rights at 81 furthers the cause...it sort of does, but it also doesn't because you have to accept you were previously living a lie - even by omission - and that not being out had an effect on how people saw you. The whole 'I would have said if someone asked' chestnut doesn't fly either...although that wasn't Ricky's problem (I do think people were rather rude about that, and he had a right to privacy). It's like claiming you do a lot for charity, but only mailing off the form last week. At least Ian McKellen and co. had the decency not to pull that one (Tatchell does which is why I always call him out on his 'invisible' GLF activity - if he was so politically active in gay rights how did he get 'outed' in 83?).
Anyway, I hope this means that coming out is actually not a big deal anymore - but when WE decide that...not a majority telling us it's so '1987'. That's the worry, a wave of MEH drowning out the importance for the smaller communities.
THIS.
Date: 2010-04-03 02:23 am (UTC)