#1
Posted: 12/8/04 at 11:52am
This topic is older than the hills, but this snippet from Salon.com got me thinking...does WILL AND GRACE need to step up and start being a little more political (a la Norman Lear in his heyday)in it's approach? It never portrays gay relationships realistically, no one ever says "I love you" or kisses or anything like that, whenever homophobia is presented it's presented quaintly. Where are the balls of WILL AND GRACE??....what are your thoughts?
Here's the bit:
When Mayor Gavin Newsom sanctioned more than 4,000 same-sex unions at San Francisco City Hall in February and put the gay-marriage issue on the election-year marquee in neon pink and purple, cautious progressives and conservative Democrats expressed deep worry that it was just "too much too fast," and could cause a damaging backlash.
Was it all a bunch of excessive hand-wringing? According to a New York Times report this week examining how advertising strategies played out in the presidential campaign, America is now full of Republicans who would say some of their best friends are gay.
Or, at least, their best friends from TV land.
One of the shows most popular with Republicans, especially Republican women ages 18 to 34, turned out to be 'Will & Grace,' the sitcom about gay life in New York," the Times reported. "As a result, while Mr. Bush was shoring up his conservative credentials by supporting a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, his advertising team was buying time on a program that celebrates gay culture."
But if Team Bush was happy to go both ways on the issue, blogger Andrew Sullivan says he's neither surprised nor impressed by the data revealed in the Times' report. "The gay characters on 'Will and Grace' are either mainstream and sex-less, like Will, or the gay version of 'Step'n'fetchit', from an actor who refuses to say publicly that he's gay. That's exactly how many Republicans like their homosexuals. Just don't ask to be treated like an equal human being."
Whether shameless prime-time pandering or not, the advent of "Will & Grace" doesn't have the denizens of Free Republic too concerned, now that America's future has been born again with Bush's reelection.
"All of this in-your-face stuff which is being hurled at us has indeed awakened a sleeping giant," wrote one poster last week. "The pro family values movement, I believe, is for real and will have a lasting effect on our culture. Finally, the silent majority is fighting back: witness the anti-ACLU and anti-UN movements, the increase in reparative therapy programs to 'un-do' homosexuality, the pro-marriage ballot initiatives, etc. And, don't discount the possibility that the [U.S. Supreme Court] will make a sharp right turn in the next few years, which will, in itself, slow down, and perhaps even reverse, the left-wing lunacy."
That was a tame response compared with the anti-gay nastiness unleashed by the Freepers last year against Massachusetts' Supreme Court "fudgepackers" and the Rick Santorum-esque bestial wickedness the justices had officially let loose at the altar of civil unions.
But while some on the far right may have toned down the volume a notch in the glow of election-year victory, some Evangelical Christians are cranking up the anti-gay rhetoric as they look to cash in on their efforts to put Bush back in office.
Here's the bit:
When Mayor Gavin Newsom sanctioned more than 4,000 same-sex unions at San Francisco City Hall in February and put the gay-marriage issue on the election-year marquee in neon pink and purple, cautious progressives and conservative Democrats expressed deep worry that it was just "too much too fast," and could cause a damaging backlash.
Was it all a bunch of excessive hand-wringing? According to a New York Times report this week examining how advertising strategies played out in the presidential campaign, America is now full of Republicans who would say some of their best friends are gay.
Or, at least, their best friends from TV land.
One of the shows most popular with Republicans, especially Republican women ages 18 to 34, turned out to be 'Will & Grace,' the sitcom about gay life in New York," the Times reported. "As a result, while Mr. Bush was shoring up his conservative credentials by supporting a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, his advertising team was buying time on a program that celebrates gay culture."
But if Team Bush was happy to go both ways on the issue, blogger Andrew Sullivan says he's neither surprised nor impressed by the data revealed in the Times' report. "The gay characters on 'Will and Grace' are either mainstream and sex-less, like Will, or the gay version of 'Step'n'fetchit', from an actor who refuses to say publicly that he's gay. That's exactly how many Republicans like their homosexuals. Just don't ask to be treated like an equal human being."
Whether shameless prime-time pandering or not, the advent of "Will & Grace" doesn't have the denizens of Free Republic too concerned, now that America's future has been born again with Bush's reelection.
"All of this in-your-face stuff which is being hurled at us has indeed awakened a sleeping giant," wrote one poster last week. "The pro family values movement, I believe, is for real and will have a lasting effect on our culture. Finally, the silent majority is fighting back: witness the anti-ACLU and anti-UN movements, the increase in reparative therapy programs to 'un-do' homosexuality, the pro-marriage ballot initiatives, etc. And, don't discount the possibility that the [U.S. Supreme Court] will make a sharp right turn in the next few years, which will, in itself, slow down, and perhaps even reverse, the left-wing lunacy."
That was a tame response compared with the anti-gay nastiness unleashed by the Freepers last year against Massachusetts' Supreme Court "fudgepackers" and the Rick Santorum-esque bestial wickedness the justices had officially let loose at the altar of civil unions.
But while some on the far right may have toned down the volume a notch in the glow of election-year victory, some Evangelical Christians are cranking up the anti-gay rhetoric as they look to cash in on their efforts to put Bush back in office.
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
~ Muhammad Ali
