Tuesday, April 18. 2006
A friend from Amsterdam who used to run an online gaming magazine sent me this tip about a queer video game called Queerland by Molleindustria. Queerland is described as a place where "inhabitants don't have fixed sexual orientations and roles".
The start-up screen tells players that "Queerland inhabitants fornicate following highly changeable desires" and to "forget what you learned at school about the two genders and enjoy a trip in this odd world!" Odd World? Sounds like plain old vanilla bisex to me. Come to think of it one could argue that gender queerness is no more odd than those gamers spending hours in front of a screen. Oh wait, I spend hours in front of the screen too, hmmm.
Continue reading "Queer Power in Queerland"
Thursday, April 6. 2006
Having lived in Brooklyn during the short life and death of Electroclash, I thought I had heard enough eighties influenced synth-pop to last me another twenty years. Lately, that sound has subsided for a more guitar heavy indie sound that I have embraced with open ears. This is why I was surprised to slip Shitting Glitter's Free Alongside Ship into my player and realize that the eighties haven't gone anywhere and it isn't a bad thing. Shitting Glitter, an L.A. based trio (Amy Crosby, Devin Tait and Brandon Glen), constructs undeniably queer pop with its playfull synthesizer beats, evocative lyrics and striking vocals.
Continue reading "Shitting Glitter is Shitting Gold"
Monday, March 6. 2006
Oh my god! Ang Lee reads my posts on Big Queer! Okay, probably not. But in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, it was nice to hear that after the conspiracy of silence regarding Brokeback Mountain and all things queer at the Globes, Mr. Lee actually referenced gay men and women in his Oscar acceptance speech. Of course I don't take back anything I said - the greatest allies of queer people in America's current political climate are and will be out, thinking, and active queer people - but it is still nice to be acknowledged. Besides, Ang Lee and the rest of the Brokeback crew whatever their sexualities were on the gay end of the prejudice stick last night. Not recognizing Brokeback Mountain as Best Picture was without question the result of homophobia, and while queers felt that sharp, sharp pain deep in our hearts in ways that perhaps they could not, I'm sure Ang & co. felt it to some degree, too. So thank you, Mr. Lee for the movie and your words from one small voice (with one big mouth) in cyberspace.
Saturday, March 4. 2006
Did they really fuck bareback? Did Mr. (Almost) Idol really ask for quarter turns so he could feel every inch of Mr. Starfucker's fuck tunnel? Did it come as close to being rape as it sounds? Or is Mr. Sf playing the victim because Mr. (A)I wouldn't return his calls? And how did Mr. Sf know Mr. (A)I was back online later looking for more action unless he was online doing the same? Oh, wait...I forgot: I don't give a good goddamn! The cult of celebrity is a dangerous and fickle thing, as I've shared my thoughts on before. And somehow I don't think that - even after Brokeback Mountain's 8 Oscar nominations - people are looking at Clay and re-imagining him as a latter-day Ennis Del Mar or at "innocent"-country-boy-cum-"dirty"-pornstar John Paulus and re-imagining him as 2006's put upon Jack Twist. No, national enquirers, all they see are a couple of self-hating faggots talking trash, screaming publicly about private sexual "perversions," and rattling around a celebrity closet. Because if those gays are good for anything, it's dirty, sexy, trashy entertainment about how they're all prostitutes, molesters, and rapists! Our straight haters love that stuff! And, look at us: serving it up to them by the cumload!
Continue reading "Dirty Dirty Cum Rag: John Paulus, Clay Aiken, and Why All Queers Should Feel Like They've Been Shoved in a Safety Deposit Box as Dried and Crusty DNA Evidence"
Monday, January 23. 2006
Because this post is in large part a reaction to this Times article (like the real Times in the UK), read this first: Golden Globe winners spark righteous anger So first let's talk irresponsible journalism, shall we? In the article, Chris Ayres makes a direct link between the "leftist" agenda of the current crop of films and the decline in Hollywood box office. Anybody who has had their flip-flop peel off on a sticky megaplex floor, has discovered Netflix, has figured out that it costs $16 to buy a DVD if you get it the week it's released, or just likes their homestyle $1 bag of popcorn more than the $6 movie theatre heart attack knows that this is just not the case. Take a look at this article from the New York Times (Summer Fading, Hollywood Sees Fizzle) and this one on the ABC News site that originally appeared in the Christian Science Monitor (No Happy Ending in 2005 for Hollywood). Movie ticket sales have been on a three to five year decline (depending who you ask and how they're interpreting the increase in ticket costs) and it has nothing to do with queer content. Mr. Ayres decision to reductively blame this industry wide phenomenon on Brokeback Mountain, Capote, TransAmerica, and The Hollywood Foreign Press Association belies one of two things: 1) he's a lazy hack or 2) he's a loser homophobe. Do you want to ask him which one it is? If so, send a letter asking the Times: letters@thetimes.co.uk.
Continue reading "I've Got a Secret"
Wednesday, January 18. 2006
What do you say? Apparently, nothing specific. Just a lot of highly general things about generalness being generally heart-warming and universal for the general population in a kind of general way. Generally, speaking. To preface, I actually liked Brokeback Mountain a whole lot, a lot more than I thought I would (as you can read here). But when all the awards hype was starting - Golden Globe this! Oscar that! - I had some misgivings about the "favor" straight Hollywood was doing for queers (as you can read here). So while I am, on the one hand, happy as a pig in shit scoping out all the farmyard cocks at the four Globes Brokeback took home, I'm also a little peeved by the conspiracy of silence that seemed to envelope the Beverly Hilton. Was it completely and utterly impossible for a single person in that room to talk directly about Brokeback Mountain and use the word "gay?" The film was called everything from universal to controversial to a Western - all of which it of course is. But it is also gay. Not exclusively gay, not even primarily gay necessarily, but gay nonetheless. And considering the amount of straight animal husbandry shown in the montage clips and the amount of queer shenanigans that were well...not, the word, the subject, the very issues the movie was supposed to be bringing down were being held up onstage by Ang Lee, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry, Gustavo Santaolalla, Bernie Taupin, and Steve Carrell's wife Nancy (just kidding).
Continue reading "The Golden Globes: When I say "Brokeback," you say..."
Wednesday, December 28. 2005
" TransAmerica" is a road movie with a twist, a kind of psycho-sexual picaresque about sexuality and gender identity in the early twenty-first century United States.
I must admit I was a bit skeptical of the idea of a female playing a transsexual woman, particularly Felicity Huffman, who I think is a very good actor, but when I heard she was playing the lead role, I wondered if they picked her because of the "Desperate Housewives" fame -- and oddly enough, her character in the film is named 'Bree' (though not surnamed 'Vandekamp'), even though of course she plays Lynette in "Housewives".
But I was really impressed by this film, written and directed by Duncan Tucker. Huffman is really convincing (if that's the right word here) as a male-to-female transsexual (MTF TS). My only reservation is that the film is a little too 'medical model of transsexuality' for me -- with an implicit GID (Gender Identity Disorder) pathologizing of the "I feel like a woman trapped in a man's body" kind. Having said that, "TransAmerica" is, in my view, one of the best feature films I've seen with a transgender theme; perhaps not quite as powerful as "Boys Don't Cry", but unlike that film, the central character is not a victim, but rather an ordinary transgendered woman feeling her way toward self-empowerment.
Continue reading "'TransAmerica': some thoughts from a trans American"
Friday, December 9. 2005
At the end of Joel Siegel's piece Geishas and Gay Cowboys Bring Controversy on Good Morning America, Mr. Siegel predicted that Brokeback Mountain would be the most-nominated Oscar movie of the season and even named Heath Ledger as his vote to win Best Actor. That kind of talk makes me wonder whether the Hollywood It-ness of all things queer has finally propelled gayness to that lofty place formerly reserved for the mentally ill. Remember the '80's, '90's, and even the early '00's and Hollywood's efforts in awakening empathy for the mentally ill, reshaping the "drooling crazy" into Dustin Hoffman looking cuddly in pajamas? Actors took on everything from Rain Man to Radio in the hopes of being proclaimed Master Thespians and getting Oscar gold. "I am Sam," proclaimed Sean Penn as Jodie "Nell" Foster waved like a "tay" in the "win'" and Billy Bob Thornton slung his blade. Oh yeah, and remember how we all thought Leonardo DiCaprio would be the next Brando because he was so good at playing autistic Arnie Grape to Jonny Depp's Gilbert?
Continue reading "Are Fags the New 'Tards?"
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