A Few Words on Russell Tovey and Why If It Weren't for My Father, I Wouldn't Be a...

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 11:13am

I thought maybe this belonged in a new thread, so the people who just want to talk about Looking can do so.

This is a great read and it sums up a lot of what I've been trying to say.

But let's be clear that Tovey is passing judgement on effeminacy. If we look at his statement again, he isn't simply saying, as some have argued, that he is masculine and that's just the way it goes. When I read comments from people trying to make this into some kind of attack on the masculine gay men of the world, I seethe. Tovey states that he "had to toughen up," which implies that his natural state of being wasn't tough. What's more, when he says, "If I'd have been able to relax, prance around, sing in the street, I might be a different person now..." I can only read longing in that statement. Despite how much the lady doth protest, he gives himself away. He wanted to relax. He wanted to prance. He wanted to sing in the street. But because his dad -- and society -- wouldn't allow him to "go down that path," he didn't. That's not something to celebrate or be thankful for, even if it did result in "the unique quality that people think" Tovey has (which is what exactly? Not coming across as a faggot?).



A Few Words on Russell Tovey and Why If It Weren't for My Father, I Wouldn't Be a Faggot

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 11:53am

I sort of had a similar upbringing experience as Noah Michelson. I was a faggy kid, who is now a faggy adult. Not once can I remember my parents saying anything about how I was expressing myself. I forced myself to play baseball when I was a kid because I was from a baseball family. I hated every friggin' second and I agonized every year over whether I was going to sign up for a team or not. My entire family simply couldn't understand why I was in such agony. They kept saying, 'If you don't want to play, DON'T PLAY!' But what I thought baseball meant in my household (as opposed to what it really was) was what was driving me. I desperately wanted to be like my brothers, because they were exactly what I thought men should be. Even without my family insisting on certain behavior, I still managed to absorb that through my interactions with the world. Eventually, I found it in me to walk away from baseball...right around the time I discovered singing and acting. It was like finding myself.

About a week and a half ago, I sang in a Sondheim concert. I was asked to do 'I Never Do Anything Twice' which I'd argue is Sondheim's dirtiest song. My parents came to see it. I won't lie...I was quite good. Afterwards, my mom called me from their car ride home to tell me just how proud they were of me and the artist I had become. I started laughing, saying, 'THAT'S the song you've decided to complement my artistry? Sondheim's dirty old whore song?' And she said, 'Yes...because it was wonderful.'

I'm lucky. Very, very lucky. And I just kind of have to work from a place where Tovey (though FAAAAAAAAAR more successful than I) was just simply not as lucky.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 12:02pm

Noah Michelson is a great writer.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 12:05pm

My parents have come a long way and they like to rewrite history (like telling me it was ME and not them who wanted me to play flag football and teeball as a kid, or my mom denying that at seven she screamed "you're a goddamn sissy" to me), but I did not have such a positive experience. When I'd get made me fun of bullied for just being me, it was always made clear to me that if I didn't act the way I did, people would have no reason to treat me like that. It took a long time and a lot of therapy to work out my childhood.



Updated On: 3/3/15 at 12:05 PM

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 12:12pm

Even though home was quietly supportive, the outside world was hateful...starting around the 4th/5th grade. The worst thing my mother ever said to me (and I told this story just the other day) had nothing to do with my gayness and everything to do with our Catholicism. I finally made the stand of no longer going to church and my mother turned to me and said in a voice positively dripping in disdain, 'That's fine. If you don't want God, God doesn't want you.'

After feeling like I was punched, I realized I was ok with that outcome. Just putting that out there so it doesn't seem like I'm trying to canonize my mother.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 12:19pm

It's difficult. Like I said, I've forgiven my parents. I understand that it was just how they were raised and how even how different it was when we were kids. But, still, there are obviously people of my generation whose parents DIDN'T have a with their budding gay child, so there are days when I wish I could have told my parents to eff right off when I was a kid. It's like they tried so hard to prevent the inevitable, and they just made everything worse in the process.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 12:19pm

I started laughing, saying, 'THAT'S the song you've decided to complement my artistry? Sondheim's dirty old whore song?' And she said, 'Yes...because it was wonderful.'

Having met your mom, sitting right behind her during one of these concerts, I can totally see that. One of my mother's favorite roles I performed was as the Young Thing in Hello Again. She saw me singing while getting screwed from behind on stage at least four times. But as far as religion goes, I think that is where the two mothers would disagree.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 12:28pm

My mom has chilled out with the whole religion thing. I mean...of her five kids, one is a practicing Catholic. She has, in her own way, let go and let God. Another of my mother's favorite roles of mine was as a trans prostitute dying of AIDS. She's a strange bird, that woman.

'It's like they tried so hard to prevent the inevitable, and they just made everything worse in the process.'

And herein lies the insidiousness of the reparative therapy industry. My back goes up a little when I hear of the unconditional love of parents and how being a parent is the most selfless thing you can do. Right...until you start torturing your child to behave in a way that negates everything they are. That's many things, but 'selfless' is not one of them.

[Kad]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 12:49pm

My ex, as a young child, was put into some sort of therapy by his parents at the behest of his grandmother, who saw his effeminate tendacies as a problem. He's extremely devoted to his family, particularly his (now deceased) grandmother, but it's hard not to see the repurcussions of such therapy in his life now, even though it's at least 20 years later and he certainly has now embraced effeminate parts of his character. He lacks an anchoring core of self-identity and seems desperate to find a missing part of himself.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 1:01pm

I wasn't put into therapy. I was accepted by my family, friends, etc. I did have to toughen up but not because I felt like dancing and prancing and singing in the streets. No, I had to toughen up because of the environment/neighborhood I grew up in.

I've never had any inclination to be effeminate. All I knew when I was growing up is that I was attracted to men. Pure and simple.

I have nothing against my gay brothers who are effeminate but when I first came out I was accused of trying to "act straight" or hide my homosexuality, etc. and I found it so unfair and frustrating because it is just the way I am, it's not an act and I am not hiding anything.

The message I was getting was if I didn't "sashay/chante", twirled and "carried on" then I wasn't really "gay" or that I was ashamed of my homosexuality. Which I found truly ****ed up.

So I started acting out and trying to be that way just so I wouldn't be accused of these things, but I stopped because I wasn't going to let some ignorant people tell me who or what I was based on my personality or how I naturally carried myself and I stopped making apologies for it.

It's the same thing with the "top/bottom" crap. It's just bull****.

Be who you want to be. Be true to yourself and that should have no bearing on your sexual orientation.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 2:03pm

UGH.

^That's directed at Tovey, not anyone who's shared their thoughts here.

In fact, he deserves a second one.

UGH.

Updated On: 3/3/15 at 02:03 PM

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 2:29pm

Namo posted a link to a thoughtful blog about Tovey's remarks in the Looking thread and this paragraph hit home for me. I have several feelings about it, but it just mostly makes me feel sad:

'To be sure, part of me is irritated, even angered, by Tovey’s comments. But a larger part is sad—sad that he’s clearly fallen prey to the femmephobic ideology that continues to plague gay men, and by extension, to the misogyny that drenches our society in general. Tovey is hardly the first butch queen to think that his biceps and swagger are objectively preferable to a femme queen’s snap and swish; it’s just that his enhanced upper-body strength has hoisted him to a higher platform than most enjoy. In a certain sense, his words are pitiable—he may have worked out his body in the gym, but thanks to Lamont, he is having the unenviable experience of working out his feelings about sexuality and gender expression in public. And worse, his participation in Looking—a show that many, including myself, have criticized for its investment in masc blandness over other modes of being gay—makes his statements all the more powerful. As it turns out, the show’s problem in that regard may be as much on the talent as the writer’s room.'

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 2:34pm

I think there are some people in Hollywood who are contacting him today to educate him about the Courage to Be Queeny.

And I believe there are some who are contacting the show's producers and writers as well.

Maybe something good will come of this.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 2:36pm

"...he is having the unenviable experience of working out his feelings about sexuality and gender expression in public."

That truly is unenviable. And let's face it, the discourse on gender is a rapidly shifting and relatively recent phenomenon… at least outside of academic circles. Then again, it's been 15 years since Madonna praised ex-pal Rupert Everett for not being gay-gay but butch gay. Every week new people come out and think they're the first to think or say something that others have been discussing for decades.

"If I wanted to be with a woman, I'd be with a woman."

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/3/15 at 9:26pm

Professional Effeminate Homosexual Alec Mapa is Disappointed in Russell Tovey's comments Updated On: 3/3/15 at 09:26 PM

[Scripps2]

Posted: 3/10/15 at 2:11pm

I must be particularly stupid as I've only just realised the angry-young-man of British political comment is gay. I've followed him on television and even been to hear him speak live. Anyway, further to my comment in the Looking thread...
Owen Jones on internalised homophobia

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/13/15 at 3:18pm

Then again, it's been 15 years since Madonna praised ex-pal Rupert Everett for not being gay-gay but butch gay.

I forgot about that! Of course, it's too easy to forget that anyone considered Rupert Everett butch.

[Kad]

Posted: 3/13/15 at 3:32pm

It's too easy to forget that anyone considered Rupert Everett.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 3/13/15 at 3:43pm

Who?

[darquegk]

Posted: 3/14/15 at 10:40am

The funny Guy who played Andy Dick's boss in that Disney movie.