For proof all you have to do is manage to watch an episode of "Dancing With The Stars." I was able to do just that the other night. After sitting through an entire evening with the show, I understand why it has become so popular. It is very glitzy. The female outfits are tiny and growing tinier. There is always the chance that a stray nipple or two will pop out, thereby fueling two or three days of media blitz. The judges are alternately fatuous and downright nasty. The host seems extremely pleased with himself. And the contestants all seem to have moving human interests stories to tell.
Even though this was the first show I have watched from beginning to end, I have seen a few snippets from other episodes. In the backstage glimpses the audience is privy to, you can always count on at least one star breaking down in tears under the intense pressure of hours of rehearsal. Of course one of the reasons the star might be crying is the realization that he or she has the time for hours of rehearsal because no one else in show business will give him a job. There are lots of scenes of grateful stars shouting the praises of their pro dancer partner.
And the audience and judges get misty eyed over the whole thing. There was Chaz Bono being showcased the other night. The camera showed him sweating away during rehearsals. He laughed a little. He cried a few times. He and his partner talked about his sex change operation and the controversy over him offering young viewers a bad role model by appearing on the show. What he didn't do was anything resembling dancing.
Sitting there watching everyone in the studio react to the video as if they were part of some special moment was disconcerting. And Cher was there, standing, wiping tears from her grotesquely over-made face, as if this stuff mattered to anyone beyond this audience desperate for something to feel good about.
The whole idea of Chaz Bono's decision to have a sex change operation and then top it off by an appearance on "Dancing With The Stars" being somehow courageous grabbed me on the same level that throwing a hot dog at Tiger Woods is courageous. Personally, I think the most courageous thing about having a sex change operation is coming to grips with the fact that you will have to spend more than one night in Trinidad. But I am being flip. I just don't see what the big deal is. If you want to talk courage let's talk about the guy who was trapped on the mountain and cut his arm off with his pocket knife. Of course, he does lose points for using it as a kind of publicity stunt. If you want and need a sex change, be my guest. If you want me to think it courageous, grab a pocket knife and head for the mountains. You might want to think about selling the film rights before you leave.
So anyway, I was looking at all of this and realizing that these people are registered voters. Well, some of them. These same folks who are crying over Chaz Bono's existential choice and craning their necks to catch sight of Cher, will be asked to make informed decisions at the polls. They are the same people who pollsters call up in order to publish more contradictory results. I wonder how many of them have strong opinions based on nothing. Jobs Bill? The Affordable Health Care Act? Tea Party? Rick Perry? Michelle Bachman? Mitt Romney? Kenyan? Mormon? Socialist? Fascist? Job Producers? FLOTUS at Target? Illegal Aliens? All of this stuff pales next to Chaz' sexuality.
I read an article in The New York Review of Books a year ago focusing on the build up in Afghanistan. In the middle of reading it I finally came to the realization that one of the main reasons for the quagmire there is that we are dealing with a population overwhelmingly young, male, and illiterate. Expecting the typical Afghan to understand our presence there is like expecting a ninth grade boy to understand anything beyond his immediate urges. The best thing to do is lock them all in a large closet and wait for them to turn twenty-one.
I'm rooting for the people camping out on Wall Street and around the country. But unless they can stage some kind of contest that requires skimpy outfits and acts of media induced courage, I don't see how they will make much of a dent on our nation's consciousness. On the other hand, I did find some hope in what has happened recently in Colombia. The women in the town of Barbacoas, fed up with authorities' lack of action, announced last June that they would withhold sex from their partners until the 35 mile road connecting them to the region's capital got paved. Army engineers started the paving job yesterday.
I predict there will be a major revival in productions of Lysistrata this theater season.
6 comments:
"Personally, I think the most courageous thing about having a sex change operation is coming to grips with the fact that you will have to spend more than one night in Trinidad. But I am being flip."
Haha! Flip is good! Flip is funny. :D
"So anyway, I was looking at all of this and realizing that these people are registered voters. Well, some of them. These same folks who are crying over Chaz Bono's existential choice and craning their necks to catch sight of Cher, will be asked to make informed decisions at the polls."
I love how it went to this place in your head. It's a true thought, a scary thought, but a connective leap I probably would not have made unless either reading this or going inside your head like "Being John Malkovich."
"The women in the town of Barbacoas, fed up with authorities' lack of action, announced last June that they would withhold sex from their partners until the 35 mile road connecting them to the region's capital got paved. Army engineers started the paving job yesterday.
I predict there will be a major revival in productions of Lysistrata this theater season."
WOOT WOOT! Go Women of Barbacoas! Way to make the job get done. Ohhhh, Lysistrata! I have not thought of that play in a while. Heh: reminds me that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
What a fun piece, Mr S. Fun, because underlying the hot dogs, stray nipples, and sex changes, it's like reading the script of a horror film, and it is always a bit of fun to be scared by the things you know are lurking around the corner, in the basement, inside the dark wood waiting to jump out at you to frighten the bejeebus out of you.
Except this is not a movie... Hmmm.
Makes me think about how underlying all comedy is tragedy -- nastiness, the depravity of the human condition, etc, etc.
Thank you for making me laugh out loud and cringe, all at the same time! :)
It's weird that people are considered courageous when they do something for themselves, both Chaz Bono and Arron Ralston, did things that improved their situation, they made hard choices for sure, but they made them to benefit themselves. As I get older I see a lot of people stuck in bad marriages or bad jobs and they are too afraid to leave a spouse or change careers. The courage of Ralston and Bono was that they at least tried to fix there bad situation.
The other thing I learned from ralston is always take a sharp knife, preferably with a saw attachment, when going off hiking.
First, thank you for keeping me sane; I am surrounded by "Dancing With the Stars Fans" at work, and some of them are my bosses, and I ... don't exactly agree with them on the merits of the program.
Second, I do often recall a lesson we had in class on this topic. Something along the lines of how "hero" used to mean "a great person who did something outstanding," but by our day it had come to mean "somebody who had gone through something bad" -- case in point at that time, the Iran hostages.
Today, I guess a hero is just "somebody who does something that other people would not be comfortable doing, but is willing to do it on TV."
PART 1
Usually Starkeyland rubs me the right way, but this time it rubbed me wrong. I'm speaking in particular about finding equivalence in throwing a hot dog at Tiger Woods and Chaz Bono entering Dancing With the Stars. I couldn't disagree more that they're equivalent. I don't watch DWS and I'm not gonna argue that seeking publicity, career resurrection, or spotlighting in water cooler conversation by way of an inane and sparkly reality show is courageous, don't worry. But as a gay guy whose existence and acceptance in this world lay somewhere between straight folk and that of transsexuals, maybe I can offer a bridge-like perspective.
It sucks growing up feeling unlike everyone around you. (I'm sure we've all experienced this in some way at some point in our lives for any number of reasons, so I know everyone can, ironically, relate on that level). Being gay but not knowing what 'gay' was was scary and lonely. You look at your parents and your siblings and movies and television and read about characters in books who are all - at their basic physical levels and day-to-day interactions - comfortable with themselves. You don't see yourself reflected anywhere, not even in a deck of cards. You see people who wear their gender roles like fitted suits where boys are boys and girls are girls. Heaven forbid a boy want to use his allowance buy a doll with comb-able hair! Males and females are free to hug and kiss and hold hands and show affection wherever and whenever they want when you can't do the same without utter shock. You witness people finding comfort and companionship in another human partnerships not believing it's even possible for you because you've never observed it the way it would work for you. Not seeing anything that reflects how you feel or how you see yourself is extremely alienating, and downright depressing. Add on top of that messages from peers and from public spheres (like church) telling you you're a faggot, are disgusting, are messed up, and going to hell for how awful and dirty you are. You've got the makings of someone who wishes they were dead, or, at the very least, sees little hope that life will ever be happy.
That's just being gay. Imagine having gender dysphoria where you have all those feelings and can't even get out of the body that isn't yours.
So when Chaz Bono waltzes onto the inane Dancing With the Stars, he's doing much more than jazz hands in an attempt to resurrect some pathetic previous career or to showcase a wow surgery. He's traveling into a treacherous land (not even counting the death threats) for a transsexual where males are males and females are females so much so that the costumes, traditional gender-specific dance steps, and audience, even, have centuries-old roots that speak of power and subservience.
PART 2
As a transsexual who's struggled with gender dysmorphia and public antagonism the greater part of his life, that has to be terrifying. Courage to me is forging ahead in spite of your fear. Chaz has forged ahead.
And from what I recall, Joseph Campbell says a hero is one who travels into unknown dangers and brings something back that the general public can use...
I can't help but think of the little gay kid I was, yearning to see a reflection of what I was, somewhere, anywhere. I think if I had seen Chaz Bono on television back then - someone who didn't fit the age-old majority notion of male-female righteousness - I would've been able to sooner see a place for myself in the world. I would've had a little more strength and courage myself to withstand or beat back monikers like 'faggot' and 'sinner.'
I think Chaz on DWS, on American television, in 2011, is showing courage by braving a treacherous landscape and is definitely bringing back something to gay and transgender youth everywhere that they can use to better their lives.
Just because his action isn't considered courageous or useful to your community doesn't mean it's not courageous or useful to mine.
Now we just have to figure out whose community the hotdog thrower is a hero for.
Thanks for reading.
Sorry Corey. I was just trying to be funny and in the process came across as insensitive. On the other hand, my main point that all the attention this show receives and its parade of has beens or never weres constitutes an error of magnitude and provides an insight into the relative depth of the American people is something I continue to stand by.
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