The great irony: homophobic conservatives who love RENT- Page 10

Posted: 8/5/05 at 11:47am

The first season is hopefully coming out. this is from tvshowsondvd.com :

Designing Women - Sony has plans for season 1
Posted by Gord Lacey
7/14/2005


We just received a call from a Sony rep asking us to post some news to the site. The company has tentative plans to release the first season of the show in early 2006. Some of you noticed that the set was listed on the recent insert packaged with Bewitched: Season 1. The title was inadvertently added to the insert, but it got fans excited, and Sony noticed the enthusiasm.


Updated On: 8/5/05 at 11:47 AM

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 8/6/05 at 4:32pm

I don't support birds that fly. I can tolerate them, but that doesn't mean I have to support or accept them. I'm sorry, but that's just my opinion.

Updated On: 8/6/05 at 04:32 PM

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 8:18pm

Well said, BlueWizard.

Bigots/Homophobes/"RegularEverydayPeople": How would you feel if someone said that they did not "support" your EXISTENCE? That they are bothered and made uncomfortable by the fact that you are ALIVE, with hopes and dreams just like other human beings?

Now imagine that the person who is saying this to you has never even met you. They don't know you and don't care to know you.

Imagine how you would feel.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 8:51pm

I used to be some-what "homophobic" due to my up bringing, but since I heard then saw RENT, I have completely done a 180. I am all for gay marriage and gay people adopting children, and them having all the rights us heterosexuals have. Hopefully, with the movie coming out and the show still on BWAY, others will be changed as I have.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 8:54pm

spider, if you add "some of my best friends are gay", I'll be forced to smack you........

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 8:57pm

hahaha. Unfortunately, no. I do not have any gay best friends. Really, the only gay people I converse with on a some-what regular basis is some of you guys and gals

Updated On: 8/7/05 at 08:57 PM

[Elphaba]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 9:13pm

well then, you need to meet some, we're great people!

[Justice]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 10:25pm

I'm rewind back to what Calvin said on the first page (Forgive me If I'm repeating anyone, but 10 pages is a lot to read...)

The Gays are entertainers to the conservatives, the same way that blacks were in the 40's and 50's to upscale rich white racist folk. Queer Eye is the gay version of Amos N' Andy...or more so, Carson is the eqivelant to Buckwheat.
It's all exploitation...

Luckily, Rent has some positive messages...unless these conservatives are going in thinking that Angel and Collins deserved to get the disease because they were gay, the same way Roger and Mimi deserved it for being drug addicts.
In truth, to get the messages that Rent gives us about Love and life, you have to dig deeper than any conservative mind can go...and they can't go any further than what they see on stage.

[aegeusrocks]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 2:02am

Whoa. Reading the last ten pages was a whirlwind. Seriously, it felt like a hurricane was throwing bricks around my brain. At least people are now being (mostly) agreeable. I gotta say, it's a sad day when theater people feel that they can't discuss their beliefs in a logical manner. I know the following has been said before, but I feel it needs more airtime. We, and when I say we, I mean theater people, are of various backgrounds, beliefs, and lives. But we share a common love of one thing: theater. We are not different from any other group of people who share a common interest, though we tend to get more passionate about our beliefs, which seems to be the general rule for this thread. I must say this: while we can be passionate, and must feel free to be, we cannot, must not resort to name-calling, insults, or anything of the sort. We are all equal people, and must act towards each other in a manner that would show this. We must realize that people are free to hold their own beliefs, just as we hold ours. We must keep open minds in this way, realizing that some people will adhere to their beliefs like glue, because that is part of who they are. We must feel free to disagree with other beliefs because they conflict with our own; however, we should not attack that belief on that same basis, for that will lead nowhere. People will not always have open minds. That is true of both sides of the argument. Feel free to disagree with any of what I've just said. Just don't attack me for it.

This being said, I fully embrace my hypocrisy of being intolerant of intolerance. YAY!

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 2:41am

But, let's not forget why people got upset:

We gay folk do take this as sensitively as a person of color or a minority religion. And, even if you don't equate that, that doesn't change the fact that we do.

However, no one on this thread was nasty to gays, which would have warranted being called a bigot without pause.

[roquat]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 2:24pm

I am so tired of people slamming programs like "Queer Eye" and "Will and Grace" for "pandering to stereotypes." Very few of us don't live up to a few stereotypes--I'd say there are more than a few "showtune queens" who contribute to this board regularly, and probably several of them are good cooks and snappy dressers. Are we supposed to throw out the good with the bad? The portraits of gayness found in "Queer Eye" and "Will and Grace" are infinitely preferable to those found on well-intentioned Lifetime TV-style message movies, where the "message" is that gay people can be as boring and dreary as everyone else.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 3:33pm

roquat, you're right: poor representation is better than no representation at all. What we have now -- shows with gay men and women as central characters -- is certainly better than the gay-best-friend phenomenon of the mid-90s. However, my main gripe with shows like WILL & GRACE and QUEER EYE is that they are essentially portraying castrated gays: gay men and women whose sexual identity is purely defined by their urbane taste, lowbrow humour and loose wrist, rather than the simple fact that they date and shag people of the same sex.

The two shows are also oddly apolitical: for a young gay lawyer living in Manhattan, you'd think Will would be concerned about gay marriage, no? Of course, politics is what did ELLEN in, but surely these gay characters on TV can occasionally acknowledge that their country is treating them like second-class citizens. Oh, the irony of having the QUEER EYE designers pretty up some thankless, hillbilly wedding groom, when they themselves aren't allowed to marry.

And my main gripe with QUEER AS FOLK is its terrible, cringe-inducing writing. (It's also a bit shameful that it's trying to pass off Toronto's vibrant gay village as ho-drum Pittsburgh.) Has anyone seen the British version? Now THAT'S quality entertainment!

[CurtainUp]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 3:39pm

BlueWizard, I understand and agree with a lot of your poitns, but perhaps these shows are apolitical for a reason. Maybe they don't want homophobes to think "There's only a gay man on this show to lecture us...". If ANY show gets too political it could sound like nagging and almost lsoe the entertainment factor. I wouldnt want people to think it's just the writer's way of lecturing. Did that make sense?

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 4:04pm

Yes, and I completely understand. After all, ELLEN got "too political," and then the show's ratings fell and the show got cancelled.

I just wished TV had more three-dimensional gay characters, with real fears, aspirations and personalities. David from SIX FEET UNDER remains the most realistic gay character on TV. But I guess asking for dimensionality from television is a bit too much.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 11:52pm

Tonite I had to walk out of WEDDING CRASHERS. Deeply offensive (and boring).

Posted: 8/8/05 at 11:54pm

Those guys(the two leads) are such A-list darlings right now, they can get any crap they want made. It's a shame because they are both talented.
Updated On: 8/8/05 at 11:54 PM

[roquat]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 1:30pm

BlueWizard, do you really prefer the afterschool special/Lifetime Network/"sensitive" coming-out movie approach to homosexual material? Weepy melodramatic speeches from no-dimensional characters who are defined solely by their sexuality? That's a far shallower approach than the "Will and Grace" one, where the characters are living their lives, cracking jokes, and existing with their sexuality, rather than treating it as a constant burden.

[Magdalene]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 1:41pm

Kind of funny---I loved Rent, I'm a registered Republican, and I've never been homophobic a day in my life---does that make me strange?

Updated On: 8/9/05 at 01:41 PM

[Justice]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 1:43pm

Actually, "The Truth About Jane" was a great film with Superb acting from both Ellen Muth and Stockard Channing. Anyone who is gay can relate to this film. That was a Lifetime movie that brought me to tears...and there was nothing stereotyp[ical about it...Unlike Queer As Folk, which makes the straight community think that we are all about sex and drugs and HIV...
It's sad how these shows define us.

[Pinguin]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 1:43pm

HAHA, I don't think so Magdalene...while some people (I dont' necessarily mean the people on this board, of course) would like you to think that being Republican makes you evil and incapable of liking a show with homosexuals in it, that's not true :0)

Updated On: 8/9/05 at 01:43 PM

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/10/05 at 1:09am

The problem is that we have become a nation that automatically groups

Republican/Conservative/Christian

and

Democratic/Liberal/Atheist or non-Christian

when in reality there are combinations of every kind of the above.

You CAN be conservative and gay or Christian and gay or Christian and liberal, etc etc etc.

[aegeusrocks]

Posted: 8/10/05 at 1:41am

jrb - I agree with you completely on that taking it as sensitively as the other groups, as I do as well (I'm gay too). I was just trying to look at it from an objective standpoint, which never really worked too well for me. Again with me embracing hypocrisy. Yippee!

[aegeusrocks]

Posted: 8/10/05 at 2:43am

Sorry for the double post:

Edit: I felt that an objective standpoint had become a necessary point to absolve the repetitive arguments that had been getting us nowhere.