Mirror, Mirror

[eggwards]

A bit of follow up to this morning's post, which I will have to respond to a lot of great comments (thanks for the criticism - I need that.

This actually comes from a response to Randy's (lostncove) post this afternoon, where he questioned how much gays in media represented him, and more often, didn't. He says we don't need stereotypes, we need stories and myths about people, period (and did it more succinctly than I ever could).


So my response, slightly edited:

I have been casting a more critical eye on how the Gay Community is portrayed, looking for my place in it. I think the bears became a bit of a home do to the acceptance for my body type, mentality and interests. There's elements of "you can't be a Bear if..." that I dislike, just as much as I dislike the exclusion of others on so many other communities , gay and straight.

Have I been guilty of dismissing someone due to their looks, yep. I'm only human. I fall into some of the same traps as so many others.

Otherwise, I watched Jeffery the other night, and I thought it was a museum piece. It was a moment captured and that moment was back in 1990. The issues presented there had changed, or didn't seem to apply in quite the same way (not to say we're out of the AIDS crisis, it's just different). I didn't identify with the characters, and some of the whimsical moments just seemed more thrown in, without reason, than anything else. Are these the people I can identify with? Probably not. Is it yet another interpretation of a portion of the expansive gay community? Sure.

I guess the question is, am I really bothered by the portrayed of gays in media because I'm looking for me? Or you? I don't necessarily identify with all of the straight characters in media either, but i enjoy movies and TV and books that feature them.

Randy's conclusion is sound...we need people, gay and straight, to be people...once we reach that then we have truly met acceptance.

Comments

[paladincub21.livejournal.com]

Hmm, being Latino I deal with this on another front as well. I constantly saw latino characters that did not represent me. Not being a gangbanger, drug dealer or steamy lover (not then anyway), i never connected. All over the television, movies and everywhere, latinos were being represented and none of them fit me.

But they all fit a conception of me. Some wide part of the population invested enough into these images and that led me to believe that either they wanted me to be this person, or they believed that it was the only way to represent me.

This happens alot when people create representatives of things they don't understand. Its like drawing an elephant without ever seeing one, just hearing it described. Preconceptions are formed and magnified through the prism of convention and become something very different than me. But, somewhere in all this perception is a kernel of truth, a truth of how this creator viewed this one person. It made it work but left me wanting and needing more.

This happened when more latinos watched and were a part of the process. They had seen and touched and for a while, had been the elephant and thus the drawing of it was more true and authentic, even if the prism remained. I think thats happening now with Gays, as we became more visible and more varied in look and forms, the experience of us grows, and there is more info and stuff to use when creating a drawing of us. Some prisms distort more than others, but its the starting material thats important.