GAY = SIN from Matthew Brown on Vimeo.
Matthew Brown has made a video which he shares on Vimeo, looking at how some people are so thoroughly opposed to the ‘gay lifestyle’ – which I interpret simply as opposition to the fact that gay people exist – that they feel compelled to share their distain for others in a as public a forum as is possible. He overlays critical audio over images captured of friends sharing special times together. The sounds so awfully contrast with the clement, benign and thoroughly gregarious nature of the images portrayed – pictures that could not be further from the audio that accompanies them. The result is artistic and thought provoking, as well as not just a little bit beautiful.
Check out the video link for an High Definition version which, through its clarity, renders the images yet more poignant and meaningfull.
I am a fourth year Politics student, and I’ve just returned from the NUS Annual Conference. I’ve been involved behind the scenes in LUU LGBT events since my first year, helping plan events and considering strategy. This past term I ran for election to the Union Exec because I want to promote OUR issues and highlight that we are still not truly liberated.
We have too many friends who are silent about the discrimination we face daily, and we have too many friends for whom ‘gay’ is a term for ‘weird’. We must campaign for our rights and ensure that our visibility on campuses across the country is a force for improvement. We must continually compel Student Union Officers to represent STUDENT ISSUES BEFORE ALL ELSE, not political concerns thousands of miles away.
It is easy to be distracted by irrelevant agendas. We weaken our cause by directionless rants about issues not within our mandate. The NUS system takes some work to understand but can be made to work in our favour. I will aid our delegates in casting INFORMED votes and help them understand how to make the system support our positions.
* I strongly oppose and am continually offended by the ban on gay male blood donors.
* I prefer ‘marriage’ to ‘civil partnership’. How can it be acceptable that LGBT citizens are denied the same institutional unions as everybody else?
* FIGHT to encourage the acknowledgement of LGBT issues by the student body. We can and must be more ambitious than we are. When LGBT allies and non-activist friends show their support we CAN BE A FORCE OF STRENGTH AND PROGRESS.
I think Margaret Cho’s piece during her hosting of Outfest (a show) on Wisecrack (a standup comedy series) on LOGO (a tv network) was hilarious. She manages to describe and define the issues about which she’s joking in a way that no other contemporary comedians around seem capable. The video is definitely worth watching, unless you are a huge fan of the Pope’s dresses. In that case you might find this a little bit on the offensive side. I don’t think Cho’s a huge fan of the Pope’s input on social matters. In case you’re in that offended camp, you may want some boules Quiès.
It’s funny how you read, so often, about the gay culture of youth. We’re, apparently, consumed with the concept of staying young forever with cremes and pills and gyms and every single type of tonic you could ever hope for. The image, I presume, comes from all those pumped up bodies you see in gay magazines. I bought one today, they’re there. There is a culture of youth. Some people clearly believe it. But it’s ironic for me to point to that link because it’s a gay guy saying how gays are youth obsessed.
I come to this topic through a rather roundabout route. Gayclic, a wonderful french gay-themed ‘news’ video blog linked to GLAAD’s media campaign titled ‘Be an Ally & a Friend‘. It was promoting the idea of being an ally to people coming out on National Coming Out Day (October 11th). Be supportive by being respectful. That’s all. On their website there are a couple other video links which I decided to check out, one of which led to David Mixner, an LGBT activist, speaking at the Empire State Pride Agenda 2007 annual dinner. It’s a New York gay-rights charity.
He recounts, tragically, how as a result of the AIDS epidemic sweeping through his community, killing all his friends, he gave 90 eulogies
“We thought that freedom was very close at hand… and then came AIDS… But you gotta remember what it was like. I lost 296 friends. I gave 90 eulogies in two years. And I lost the man that I loved most in my life, for 12 years. We were not treated by dentists, nurses wouldn’t touch us, homecare workers wouldn’t come to our homes, doctors wouldn’t treat us, insurance companies told us we had brought this upon ourselves.”
It makes me stop and think. Perhaps, yes, gay culture is youth-obsessed. But perhaps that’s really only because almost all of the older generation were killed off by AIDS. Those who are still alive, those who lived through 1982 and onwards as out gay men and women are the lucky ones. The fact that they survived is enormously lucky, and in the same breath perhaps terrifying in how many of their nearest friends and loved ones died around them. So we are like a culture culled of all its patrimoine. How can you ever have an awareness of heritage without any elders. What other society has ever so publicly lost so much of a generation? Wars kill men but often leave their wives and lovers back home. This destruction, the destruction of an gay AIDS pandemic took homes and ruined neighbourhoods just like a war. It’s a certain way to create a ghost town, to tell people that by behaving as they had been behaving will lead to almost certain death. Nobody’s going to go to that bar. It takes homes because, as David Mixner says, sufferers had to sell them for their health care treatments, because it was fundamentally their own fault. But then also, there are no lovers or wives left behind because those lovers were the victims buried in the last funeral you attended or the last hospital visit you went on.
But today, this is interesting because Mixner spoke at a dinner that made me think that perhaps as a culture we’re not so gratuitous in our obsession with youth. We know nothing better. It’s those in their early 40s now who might be the first not to know the AIDS epidemic. They are the bearer of a culture’s heritage because there is nobody else to do it.
Part one of his speech is above. Youtube has the rest.
