Larry H. Miller Doesn’t Care About Gay People
January 10th, 2006I’m no Kanye West, sorry.
The Guardian (!) has picked up the Brokeback Mountain cancellation. I’m guessing the other theaters in town showing the film are jumping up and down with glee. Of particular interest in the Guardian post is this comment:
“If you ask me he banned the wrong movie. Chronicles of Narnia made me think about Tilda Swinton riding me with a strap on. If that’s not evidence of that movie brainwashing today’s youth with unbiblical sexual practices, I don’t know what is.”
Gay cowboys rule. o
January 10th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
Your state made Canadian news tonight with this story. We are all up here, thinking, Larry H Miller is an asshat. Censorship sucks. I hope people stand up and fight this bullshit.
January 10th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
I had a witty comment all laid out, but I just can’t get past that Tilda Swinton comment Jon posted above, I snorted tea out of my nose when I read that. Oh, errr, and Larry Miller is an @sshat as you say Karen, tolerance, understanding and consideration seems to rather thin on the ground in today’s America.
January 10th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Two things.
I just recently wrote about Tilda [or as I now refer to her, the newest reincarnation of Jesus...I love her] so it’s funny to think of her putting on a strap on and riding someone. Funny in the way that I wish I didn’t think of it first.
Secondly, I’m confused as to why people sound surprised about the whole Brokeback Mountain censorship thing. Or am I misinterpreting anger as surprise? We deal with stuff like this all the time, every day. Last year at my school [Syracuse U.] a kid was beaten up down the street from me because someone THOUGHT he was gay. I’ve had a carload of frat boys scream ‘fag’ at me, and pull over and start coming towards me. I headed into a nearby hotel, so no damage done, but still. And let us not forget all the laws passed about us, or pushed to be passed [no adoption rights in some states, anti sodomy laws, the push to be cast as second class citizens]. Rejection is a daily part of my life.
To be honest, I’m surprised there aren’t more theatres, protests, and angry or violent voices about this. It may be cynical on my part to think that our country should react this way, but in the long run, it is safer for me to think along those lines. Giving people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to my acceptance has, too often, been painful and damaging. So better me to think the worst and be proved wrong later, than to think the best and be let down consistently.
January 10th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Wish I did* think of it first. Sorry for the lack of ‘preview’ button use.
January 10th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
Funny, in my post Narina Tilda dream she didn’t have a strap-on just a strap.
I love the phrase asshat.
January 11th, 2006 at 5:11 am
I think people are surprised because it’s really hard to accept that communties can be so backward and small-minded in this day and age.
I mean, really. It’s made the news here in Australia (probably because Heath Ledger is an Aussie) and we cannot understand why anyone would ban it.
If you don’t want to see a love story involving cowboys - don’t buy a ticket and sit in the cinema.
It’s not rocket science.
January 11th, 2006 at 6:38 am
What’s sad about this whole issue, is that if it were a story about two women in love….it would be a number one seller!
January 11th, 2006 at 8:32 am
Is that a snide barb at Larry Miller — “one assumes he keeps his hands off the [Utah Jazz] players” ?
Love it. Someone should send him a link to the Guardian. Though it’s probably way too left-wing for him to even admit it exists. Hell, he may even try to ban it.
January 11th, 2006 at 8:51 am
the thing that bothers me about this is that no one mentions the other theaters across utah and the country, i assume, that aren’t showing this movie for the same reason!? miller screwed up by advertising jordan commons would show it and then pulling it. had they not advertised it in the first place this would not be an issue at all. not one theater in utah county is playing this movie. where’s the uproar?
January 11th, 2006 at 9:25 am
westerndave, I think the words “Utah County” and “gay” might tell you something.
January 11th, 2006 at 10:11 am
People seeem to be forgetting is that the powers that be want people to talk about this. It’s part of a campaign to keep their power base scared. The whole “war on Christmas” thing was part of that ploy. They need to make sure the values voters don’t ever start to worry about things like an unsuccessful war, a collapsing heath care system and so on.
January 11th, 2006 at 11:50 am
Maniacal,
You are right. It is sad. I might have actually considered going to see this movie if it was about two women being in love. Not enough killing and explosions in this movie. At least Harry Potter has magic and dragons.
Now I’m not saying that I gay bash,
But Brokeback won’t get my cash….
Honestly, the movie just did not interest me. Now I have my personal views about homosexuality and I am sure that had a part in it, but for the most part, I am just not in to seeing a love story. Well, that is unless Selma Heyak and Halle Berry are the cow…girls!
January 11th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Coel –
You’re absolutely right. Another example (and we’re back to this) is how many states rushed to put the ban on gay marriage on their ballots, and frightened voters to the polls. Making sure that the Republicans got the right-wing hyper-Christian mob out in droves to vote, thereby helping to elect Bush. And distracting everyone with “non-issues.”
I know of several people here in my lovely Bible Belt Arkansas town who went to vote ONLY b/c of that issue being on the ballot. As one lady put it, “If something ever happens to me, I want to make SURE my husband can’t marry a man.” LOL!!
Is the word “tolerance” still in the dictionary? It’s much more damaging to hate than it is to love.
January 11th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Personally, tolerance is something that I hope we can strive to get past. Tolerance says to me ‘I don’t like/can’t stand/disagree with you, but I will put up with your lifestyle/choice/beliefs’.
It may be an unattainable utopia, but I hope that someday we don’t just tolerate, but cooperate and accept. I don’t want to be tolerated. I want to be loved.
January 12th, 2006 at 2:45 am
It’s bizarre how there’s not really a ‘big deal’ over here (in the UK) about the film - the majority of comments I’ve heard/read are that it’s an amazing film. Yet it seems to be such a big deal in the US. I have GOT to see this film.
I agree with John in the previous post, one day it will all be accepted, not just tolerated. Remember it wasn’t so long ago that women my age wouldn’t have been allowed a career, their own car, their own life…you know?
January 12th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
My father used to work for a car dealership owned by Larry Miller. They were all asshats there.
January 12th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
And I want to be loved as a conservative, capitalist, christian, republican, bush-supporting, white male. There is nothing wrong with amicable disagreement, it’s called tolerance.
I don’t have to accept homosexuality (the behavior and belief, not the people), but I can tolerate it and yet still wish that it’d go away like some pandemic. Much like how the Left accepts conservatism, and tolerates it and wishes it’d go away.
In order to have this utopian world everyone either has to believe the same thing or no one believes anything. I hardly think either is ever going to be accomplished.
Of more worthy debate is how far are either side is going to legislate their morality. The Right has found to their misfortune that their legislating of morality in the 19th century has come to bite them in the 20th. I believe the Left will find out the same thing.
When morality becomes something legislated than it becomes something that can be changed as society changes and fought over with great vigilance. The debate isn’t going away anytime soon, and that’s where a lot of the fun is.
Sebastian
January 12th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
But it isn’t an amicable disagreement. An amicable disagreement is debating whether or not Chris Carrabba was the best singer of Further Seems Forever. This is a fight.
Until you realize what it is like to be a minority in this country, one who is subjugated to hate every single day of their lives, maybe you can never understand.
Compare my life as a student who is gay to that who is straight. We both have school work. We both have extra curriculars. We both have a job and a social life. I, on the other hand, have to make sure that who I am surrounded by won’t verbally or physically harrass me. I have to be careful of who I come out to, because they may change their thoughts about me [I've lost friends because they found out I am gay]. I need to hear people refer to negative things as ‘gay’ and people who are stupid or foolish as ‘faggots’. That directly affects me.
Also, and I consider this to be a significant slap in the face, I am asked to educate my oppressor. Someone claims to be ignorant of my culture, and unless they are educated, they may offend me again. So ask the gay guy what is okay and what is not. So in addition to everything that I have to accomplish as a student, I have to deal with those who ‘wish it’d go away like some pandemic’.
There is no ‘fun’ in this for me. I am fighting for the right to be equal to you. I am fighting for the right to be safe. I am fighting for my future.
If you want to judge me, judge me based upon my morals. How I treat others. How I act as a member of society and as a fellow human being. But do not judge me because I have sex with men. That is a frivolous and childish endeavor to take on.
January 13th, 2006 at 1:07 am
Unless you live in a few of the very fine countries we have in this world, then I doubt that your life is really in danger for being gay. Your description of a day-in-the-life on the edge sounds like nothing more than the horrors we all went through in high school and college. Unless, or course, any of us were not computer geeks, nor new wavers, or just plain not as cool as other people.
It’s utter rubbish to postulate that we can never understand you. That’s a martyr and bunker mentality. We’re all minorities because no one is the same as us. We all have had hills to die on. Life is a bitch. Yours happens to be being a practicing homosexual. BFD. You don’t think other people have issues that are just as important to them and yet just as trivial to others as yours? Please.
Maybe we all need to go around educating others about ourselves, what makes us happy and what makes us sad. Oh wait, maybe that’s what blogs are for. So we can go around walking on eggshells lest we offend someone. There have undoubtedly been actual persecuted minorities out there who would gladly trade for you plight.
The truly sad part is you believe you have to fight for something. You’re neither more unequal nor unsafe than any other average individual. The problem with the gay movement is they aren’t satisfied with tolerance, they want acceptance. And that is a fight.
Homosexuality is a behavior that I believe shouldn’t be practiced. It is part of how you act as a member of society and as a human being. I will not accept it as normal or healthy. You want to fight for your future to be as gay as you want to be, then you have to know that I’m fighting for the future of my self and my family that isn’t living in some debauched bacchanal.
That aside, I’m sure you’re a very nice person with lots of qualities and talents to be admired and respected for and doesn’t mean we couldn’t be friends and converse on a wide range of topics. But if you’re looking for condonation of your homosexuality and a confederate in it’s normalization, you’d best be looking elsewhere.
Sebastian
January 13th, 2006 at 1:54 am
Tiggerlane: that southern woman’s comment wasn’t so far off base. I babysit for an upstanding Christian family who loves the fact that I’m a “good Christian girl” (we don’t get into my actual beliefs — they just know I go to a church, and I try to avoid telling them that I go to the most liberal Christian church in the US — UCC, btw). My mom works with this woman, and she accidentally let it spill last year that the husband is really gay (and I wondered why they bought a king size bed). He’s celibate, but she (1) doesn’t want him leaving b/c they have an autistic son and (2) is prolly morally offended by it.
I’m sure she worries about what might happen with her boys and husband if something were to happen to her.
I do wish that people of all sexual persuasions would get over what happens behind closed doors. Honestly, swinging isn’t my thing at all, and I think it’s repugnant, but I respect the right of those people to participate in their chosen sexual acts. Swingers get equal rights under the law, because their issues stay in the bedroom. Homosexuality isn’t my thing either (but I don’t have any issues with it), and, again, I respect the right of those people to participate in their chosen sexual acts. However, they don’t have equal rights under the law, and I think they should.
January 13th, 2006 at 2:08 am
Sebastian:
I question the thought of homosexuality (and tolerance of it) leading to a “debauched bacchanal.” Do swingers and adulterers and perverts lead to a daily dosage of horribleness for each and every child on the streets?
Also, many homosexuals do have to fear greater persecution than people on the street. I don’t have any close friends that are out, and I don’t live in a particularly gay area, but I’ve seen a guy beat up b/c the other guys thought he was a fag. I tried to go help him out after he’d gotten knocked down and kicked in the face, and I told him I was sorry. He said, “It’s my fault. I’m a fuckin’ fag.” That’s always stuck with me; it should not be his fault that some guys in downtown Seattle wanted to jump him. Gay men have been killed for their orientation and for hitting on the wrong person (imagine being a straight man and worried that hitting on a woman who didn’t like you resulted in a severe beating or death — wouldn’t that be awful and nerve wracking?)
Homosexuals often have a hard time adopting kids or raising a family. They can’t get married nor have the same benefits as married people. If your partner is in the hospital, you are not treated like family, even if you’ve been together 20 years (whereas little miss and her husband of two weeks are good to go, even if they’re already unfaithful to each other).
This is what is meant by unequal, unfair treatment that gay people have to live with every day. It’s not fair, and it shouldn’t be that way.
January 13th, 2006 at 6:29 am
A few countries? I believe you need to look into your sources and research the hate crimes that have occured right here in our own country. Start with the Stonewall riots of 69, and continue from there.
In terms of understanding, you are making my case and point right now. As I get ready for my day, I can easily think of 3 things I am doing prior to leaving my dorm room in order to make my day a safer one. Why do I do this? Because I am gay, and I live in America.
You are not a minority. You labeled yourself as a Bush supporter and conservative. That means that your people run this country. That means you have 51 million people right outside your door who you can associate with almost right away. I am not so lucky.
The problems that I face are ones that are not brought about by my own doing. It is not like credit problems where I could have kept a better ledger or anything. I am persecuted because of the way I was born. I am judged, attacked, and legally kept down because of the way I was BORN.
Who reading this is married? Is allowed to get married? I can’t. Who can go into the hospital when their loved one is sick, without being kept out? I can’t. There are LAWS being passed about ME because I am gay. Isn’t that just a little odd to you?
I’m afraid that if I cannot be accepted based upon the small fact that I just happen to have sex with men, then I could not share a conversation with one who believes that. On any topic. Because if I am not to be accepted just because I’m gay, then I will just have to find something as arbitrary to reject you with. Perhaps hair color.
I’m truly sorry you have these feelings surrounding my community. I can only hope that you choose to educate yourself on what is really going on here, and hopefully you will see that the problem is not a small or made up one. Even if you don’t achieve this epiphany, I will still fight for my right to just be considered equal. That’s all. Equal.
January 13th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
If you’re living somewhere where you have to navigate fox hole-to-fox hole, then you’re just stupid. I wouldn’t get any sympathy if I moved my family to Watts or Harlem and whined that I felt unsafe. The world is a cruel place. Millions of people every day do things to reduce the chances that they are robbed, raped, beaten or murdered and they aren’t even gay.
But wait, I’m part of the majority, life isn’t hard for us. It’s all wine and roses and free entitlements here in Bush country. No crime, no sickness, no death, no intolerance, no hate, no poverty for us. Life is just grand here in a red state. Maybe you should consider moving to a blue state and then when there’s a Democrat in the White House life will be good and sunny for you and just awful for me.
You’re not all that special. We all are minorities. Don’t you get it? Some time, some place, we all aren’t going to get our way, because what we want isn’t with the majority. You celebrate your wins and tolerate your losses.
The Federal government has infringed upon my rights to marry for 150 years (That would be the Morrill Act introduced in 1856 and made law in 1862, the Poland Act of 1874, the Edmunds Act of 1882 and the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887). Boo hoo. There are laws passed all the time against me because I’m white, I’m young, I’m male, and I’m not living in poverty. Who in America is exactly equal under the law? Where’s my fight so that I can be equal too?
You’re not being persecuted for the way you were born. You live in a persecuted world of your own making by your own behavior. Step outside your community and find out what the real world is all about. Maybe you should investigate “hate crimes” and realize the world didn’t begin in 1969. Start with the Jews, Christians, Lutherans, Mennonites, Huguenots, Jesuits, Puritans, Catholics, Quakers, Baptists, Mormons, and a whole host of others. The Stonewall riots are a tea party in comparison even if one, by some twisted reasoning, could consider a riot of their own making a “hate crime.”
So apparently you have no tolerance in your little world. You’re not willing to accept or even tolerate my being BORN conservative. Your loss. Maybe you can find some solace amongst your 57 million people outside your door, but I doubt it with the size of the chip on your shoulder.
Sebastian
January 13th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Sebastion -
I’m seeing a comment from someone that has never known personal discrimination or bigotry. Someone who has never been at the receiving end of a fist or baseball bat just for being a “certain way.” You have never been assaulted for supporting Bush. You have never been assaulted for being white. Nor have you ever been assaulted for being conservative. yet you sit back in your comfortable chair and pontificate about things you know absolutely nothing about. Nothing. Every gay friend I have whether male or female has been assaulted at least once in their life for being gay. EVERY SINGLE ONE. I have been in therapy groups with other gay men and every single one have seen discrimination and hate. Now I’m talking physical assaults. Actual physical attacks.
What I find offensive is blatant bigotry disguised as patriotism. Homosexuality is a behavior that shouldn’t be practiced? I’m sorry? How is that supposed to happen? How is being gay a “behavior”? I did not have a choice in my orientation. I’m just this way. I went through reparative therapy and group therapy to try and overcome my homosexual behavior. I’ve fasted and prayed and lived a strict religious life to try and overcome my sinful nature. NOTHING. CHANGED.
I can’t help what I am but I can live a moral life. I have choices now. I choose being a Christian. But. I choose being a Christian as I am. As a gay man. I’ve never been happier.
I am good person. I try to follow Christ’s teachings as best as I’m able. Yet to you, that’s not good enough.
I’m sorry Sebastion. I have nothing against you but I feel you don’t have the right to dictate about discrimination until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes.
I have a challenge for you. Walk into a sports bar that you’ve never been in before and let everyone know you’re gay. That’s all. Just say “I’m gay.” Let’s see how long you last before someone wants to plant your face into the cement.
That’s what gay America lives with daily. Still. That’s also why hate crimes are so important.
January 13th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
It’s stories like this that make me feel better about living in South Carolina.