Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 17:54:04 -0700 From: GLAAD Subject: GLAADAlert 01.24.97 GLAADALERT January 24, 1997 The GLAADAlert is the weekly activation tool of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Contents: 1. Here She Comes, Miss Known World (MCA-Universal Television (television production company), Renaissance Pictures (production company), Xena: Warrior Princess (television fantasy program)) 2. Stung By Cornwell's Hornet's Nest (Hornet's Nest (novel), The Putnam Berkeley Group, Inc. (publishing company)) 3. Ned Pulls Gun On Gay Admirer (Fox Broadcasting Company (television network), Ned and Stacey (television sitcom)) 4. Gay Youth Caught In Snare Net (CyberSitter (internet filtering software), NetNanny (internet filtering software)) 5. Brandon Teena Gets Dunne Wrong (The New Yorker Magazine (magazine)) 6. Are Gay Bashers Gay? (Esquire Magazine (magazine)) 7. The Washington Post's Outlook Is Really Out (The Washington Post (newspaper)) 8. Gay Consumers on "Talk of the Nation" (NPR (radio station), "Talk of the Nation" (radio program)) 1. Here She Comes, Miss Known World MCA-Universal Television's Xena: Warrior Princess features a transgender character in this week's episode. Drag superstar Karen Dior plays Miss Artiphys, a transgender contestant in the Miss Known World beauty pageant who saves Xena from certain death and goes on to win the contest. Xena goes undercover at the pageant to keep it from being sabotaged, and discovers early on that Miss Artiphys is a man in drag. She is unflinched by this discovery, and states her hope that "the best person [will] win." During her coronation ceremony, Miss Artiphys pulls Xena from the sidelines, dips her, and gives her a big kiss to gasps in the audience as Gabrielle (Xena's sidekick) looks on jealously. Xena, a cult favorite of many lesbians, celebrates drag in this episode, questions gender conventions and ideas of "feminine" beauty, and plays off the generally adverse reaction of society to same-sex kissing. In a fun way, the show gives a transgender character depth and allows him to be a hero while conveying the more serious message that many of society's assumptions about gender and sexual orientation are both groundless and absurd. Congratulate MCA-Universal and Renaissance Pictures (Xena's production company) for a fabulous and smart episode dealing with transgender issues and sexual orientation. Contact: Tom Thayer, President, MCA-Universal Television, 100 Universal City Plaza, University Plaza, CA 91608-1085, e-mail: tv@mca.com; Robert Tapert and Sam Raimi, Executive Producers, Xena: Warrior Princess, Renaissance Pictures, 100 Universal City Plaza, Bungalow 415-A, Universal City, CA 91608 2. Stung By Cornwell's Hornet's Nest In her new novel, Hornet's Nest, best-selling author Patricia Cornwell has strayed from the use of her popular character Dr. Kay Scarpetta as protagonist, and has also veered away from her usually well-balanced representations of gays and lesbians. Hornet's Nest revolves around a series of brutal murders in Charlotte, North Carolina. A serial killer slays out-of-town businessmen, shooting them in the head, spray-painting a bright orange hour-glass on their groins, and leaving them in the grass with their pants around their ankles. While another strong female character (Virginia West, Deputy Chief of Police) is the center of the story, the book is riddled with gratuitous homophobic remarks, a host of homophobic characters, and a minor gay character whose sole interest in life is an obsession with a male colleague. As if that weren't enough, Cornwell pulls out all the stops-and in the conclusion (yes, we're giving away the ending here) reveals the brutal murderer to be a "big, ugly sh'im," a transsexual pimp with bright orange dreadlocks. By relying on abhorrent stereotypes and perpetuating the myth of homicidal transsexuals which was overtly displayed in 1990's Silence of the Lambs, Cornwell offends our community and fosters hate and confusion. Readers used to the characters from her previous novels will be dismayed and disappointed by this most recent turn for the worse. Please tell Cornwell that it's a mystery why anyone would write such a hateful book, and let Putnam know that by publishing the novel, they've helped to stir up a hornet's nest of homophobia, transphobia and misinformation. Contact: Patricia Cornwell, PC Enterprises, PO Box 35486, Richmond, VA 23235; Stacy Creamer, Editor, The Putnam Berkeley Group, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10016, phone: 212.951.8400, fax: 212.951.8694 3. Ned Pulls Gun On Gay Admirer In a shocking display of anti-gay violence played for laughs, the January 20 episode of the popular Monday night Fox program Ned and Stacey has Ned pulling out a gun to threaten a gay admirer who is portrayed as a stalker. The subplot, which has the gay character admiring Ned from afar but being ignored throughout the show, takes a grim turn in the final scene. Ned is listening to messages on his answering machine. All of the messages are from the gay coworker, and begin with innocuous messages such as, "I was just thinking about you," and "My machine is broken and I just thought you might have called." The next message has him inviting Ned to a play, and then one of him calling from the theater saying, "How could you stand me up like this?" In the last message, he announces that he is in Ned's apartment hiding in the bedroom wearing nothing but a thong. As the end credits roll, Ned pulls out a gun and heads for the bedroom In addition to perpetuating the hateful stereotype of gay men as predators, particularly in the pursuit of straight men, the episode sends a clear message that it is acceptable for men to respond to unwanted admiration by gay men with violence. Considering the very recent murder of Scott Amedure by Jonathan Schmitz supposedly due to "unwanted attention," the scene is in more than just poor taste. It is irresponsible, malicious and dangerous. Demand that Fox apologize for the scene, and that the program counter this horrible episode with more inclusive, respectful and accurate representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Contact: Chase Carey, Chairperson/CEO, Fox Broadcasting Company, P.O. Box 900, Beverly Hills, CA 90123, fax: 310.369.1433, e-mail: askfox@foxinc.com 4. Gay Youth Caught in Snare Net As the free speech on the Internet debate continues, more and more Internet "filtering" (i.e. censoring) software is being manufactured, putting young gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in jeopardy. CyberSitter searches for "keywords" such as "gay," "lesbian," and "homosexual" and blocks all related Web sites, blatantly discriminating against gay men and lesbians. The software is designed to give greater parental control over what children might view on the Internet. However, CyberSitter and NetNanny also possess an auditing feature that makes surfing the Net extremely dangerous for gay youth who have turned to the Internet for information. This feature allows parents to check what sites their children try to access in their absence. While this may sound fairly harmless, this kind of digital paper trail can lead to the accidental disclosure of a young person's sexual orientation before she or he is ready, potentially causing tension and isolation within a family. Please write these companies and let them know that if their mission is to help protect children, they are doing a lousy job at protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth. Contact: CyberSitter, c/o Solid Oak Software, Inc., P.O. Box 6826, Santa Barbara, CA 93160, fax: 805. 967.1614 , e-mail : info@solidoak.com; NetNanny, 770-666 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC V6C2X8 Canada, fax: 604.683.9294, e-mail: netnanny@netnanny.com 5. Brandon Teena Gets Dunne Wrong In the January 13 New Yorker, crime writer John Gregory Dunne wrote "The Humboldt Murders," which examined the 1993 Nebraska murder of Brandon Teena and his two friends. Dunne does not understand Brandon's transgender identity, and describes him as a stereotypical "predatory" butch lesbian. The author insists on referring to Brandon as "her" for most of the piece. "That Teena Brandon (Brandon's birth name) had been able to pass herself off as a man to the officers was not that surprising," Dunne writes. "She was known as Brandon, and as Brandon, she, as he, had declared his love for and slept with a number of women in Falls City and Humboldt." Dunne also seems to point to Brandon's male-identification as "confusion," and "gender disorientation," though by all appearances, it was anything but confused. "She [Brandon] was undereducated, her ambition was limited, and, most important, she was without positive identity." Dunne also tries to speculate as to the source of Brandon's transgender identity: "Then there were stories about how she had been sexually molested by a male relative. It was as if somewhere in this litany of gender uncertainty, rejections by men and furtive molestation there might be an early clue, a first cause, a reason that would make Teena's subsequent ventures across the gender divide easier to accommodate." Dunne refers to many of the women Brandon pursued and dated as "nymphets," and despite the fact that Brandon always vehemently denied he was a lesbian, Dunne refers to him several times as "the butch." Because Brandon Teena lived in a world where his access to support services and transgender discussions were essentially nonexistent, he was isolated as a transsexual. He repeatedly asserted that he was not a lesbian, which is disregarded. Dunne's labeling of Brandon's constant desire for women and his self-identification as a man a "sexual ambiguity," is nothing more than a rationalization for Dunne's own belief that Brandon was simply a butch lesbian who couldn't accept her sexual orientation. Additionally troublesome is the portrayal of Brandon as a smooth cassanova, a seducer who lured women to his bed and deceived them. This portrait is a hackneyed old stereotype of "predatory" butch lesbians who prey on "feminine" women. Write to the New Yorker and correct the many layers of ignorance that Dunne has displayed in his understanding of sexual orientation and identity. Contact: "In The Mail," The New Yorker, 20 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036 6. Are Gay Bashers Gay? In the February Esquire, Michael Segell's article, "Homophobia Doesn't Lie," looks into the meaning of a recent study that found homophobic men to be more likely to be aroused by gay male erotica than non-homophobic men. Discussing the University of Georgia study from last year, he notes that "80 percent of the participants characterized as homophobic showed moderate to definite tumescence with viewing the [gay male] video, compared with only a third of the non-homophobic men. Curiously, the homophobes' own appraisals of their arousal were low; they didn't think, or at least admit, that they had been aroused." He notes that Henry Adams, the leader of the study, says that this confirms what many gay people have suspected anecdotally for years: men who are most upset by gay men are quite often repressed gay men themselves. "In an enlightened climate," Segell says, "gay bashing would be a form of self-outing. And to a homophobic man, that could prove to be the ultimate deterrent to violence." Please commend Esquire for this thoughtful discussion of one of the causes of homophobic violence. Contact: Edward Kosner, Editor-In-Chief, Esquire, 250 W. 55th Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10019, fax: 212.977-3158 7. The Washington Post's Outlook Is Really Out The January 19 edition of "Outlook," the Washington Post's Sunday op-ed section, featured two gay columnists (of three total) discussing the state of America on the eve of President Clinton's inauguration. An essay by Peter J. Gomes, an openly gay professor of Christian morals at Harvard University and author of The Good Book: Reading the Bible With Mind and Heart, discusses the ritual of Inauguration Day, and solemnly discusses how it reminds us of how fragile our system of democracy is, and how our ability to recommit ourselves to it every four years is both commendable and worthy of inspiring a greater sense of civic duty among us. Playwright Tony Kushner, on the other hand, writes a humorous piece on how things would be different if he were president. Among a host of other issues, Kushner says, he would see "AIDS care expanded and safe sex taught in every classroom, condom and clean needle distribution; and gazillions [of dollars spent] to stop the global AIDS pandemic....Karen Finley is taking over the National Endowment for the Arts and Dr. Cornell West the National Endowment for the Humanities. Public television gets a big raise, too, which I know will be great news to Henry Louis Gates and the folks at Dyke TV who will be taking over operations." Finally, he notes, "Thanks to my boyfriend, Michael, our new first lady. He and I will be burning the Defense of Marriage Act on the front steps of the Capitol. Join us!" Please thank the Washington Post for showing just how diverse the visions of two gay men can be, and for appreciating that, because it is the content that matters, the Post still retains a sense of balance even though two of the three columnists are gay. Contact: Leonard Downie, Editor-in-Chief, The Washington Post, 1150 15th Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 20071, e-mail: webnews@washpost.com 8. Gay Consumers on "Talk of the Nation" On the January 22 edition of National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation," several lesbian and gay scholars discussed the evolving concept of the "gay market," as well as the politics of marketing to lesbian and gay consumers. During the enlightened discussion it was noted several times that lesbians and gay men come from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. As Grant Lukenbill, author of Untold Millions: Positioning Youth Business for the Gay and Lesbian Consumer Revolution, noted, "There's been a lot of misinformation, much of it presented by right-wing extremists to paint the gay and lesbian consumers as all having more money than everybody else. Gays and lesbians as a whole mirror the heterosexual population in many ways." Lesbians and gay men are frequently made invisible by advertisers and in the media. In the face of this fact, the program explained that lesbians and gay men consider visibility to be of the utmost importance. Additionally, it emphasized that marketing to our community is a profitable move, because it creates loyal consumers. Finally, everyone agreed that there are few potentials for substantial economic backlash against major corporations that choose to market to lesbians and gay men. Please thank NPR for this spirited and myth-shattering discussion. Contact: National Public Radio, 635 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 2001-3753, fax: 202.414.3040, e-mail: rsuarez@npr.org The GLAADAlert is the weekly activation tool of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. GLAAD is the lesbian and gay news bureau and the only national lesbian and gay multimedia watchdog organization. GLAAD promotes fair, accurate and inclusive representation as a means of challenging all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity. Copies of articles referred to in the GLAADAlert are available to our members by contacting GLAAD. Contact GLAAD by e-mail at glaad@glaad.org or by phone at 213.658.6775 (Los Angeles), 212.807.1700 (New York), 413.586.8928 (Northampton), 202.986.1360 (Washington, DC) or 415.861.2244 (San Francisco). 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