What if the Avengers had an opening like Full House:
WikiLeaks, which for some reason is trying to elect Donald Drumpf, has released the names and personal information of gay men from countries where it is illegal to be gay. For many, this is a death sentence.
I actually knew this, but it pops up every now and then: Disney and Cyan were in talks to make a Myst (or at least Myst-like) island at Disney’s now defunct Discovery Island.
Sadly, I”m missing the Pittsburgh premier, but here is the trailer for King Cobra, which looks amazing:
I’m so excited for “Hairspray, Live”! Here’s the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ7K0sbmIKk
The Pope, once again, attacks trans* kids. The normal reminder, that institutionalized discrimination, especially from something as big as the 1 billion-members Catholic Church leads to increased violence and suicides against those groups. And let us not forget that this is the same church that protects child molesters, so maybe people should stop listening to them. Just a thought.
HBO’s “Looking” wrapped up with a movie. Although I loved how the second season ended (and was heartbroken that it wasn’t renewed for a third season), the trailer looks like it’s kept to the tone of the show:
I”m more and more convinced the Catholic Church is a hate group. Case in point, they tell gay people that acting on their sexuality and finding love is a sin. And if you ever commit that sin, you can’t take communion. So no chance of love or happiness, but if you do, you can’t partake in a sacrament. Really, they can believe whatever they want and keep whatever rules they want, but we’ll still fight them since they have so much power in the world and make the lives of queer people around the world a living hell.
Today marks the 47th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which launched the LGBT-rights movement.
If you’re not familiar with the riots, here’s what happened:
And just this week, President Obama and the National Park Service has named the Stonewall Inn and Christopher Park a national historical monument (number 412 if you can believe it). We owe so much to those brave trans-women of color, homeless youth and drag queens who launched the riots and the queer revolution.
People ask why we celebrate pride. NoFo writes it much more eloquently than I ever could, here is an excerpt:
We’re proud because despite relentless persecution everywhere we turn—when organized religion viciously attacks and censures and vilifies us in the name of selective morality, when our families disown us, when our elected officials bargain away our equality for hate votes, when entire states codify our families into second-class citizenship, when our employers fire us, when our landlords evict us, when our police harass us, when our neighbors and colleagues and fellow citizens openly insult and condemn and mock and berate and even beat and kill us—we continue to survive. … We’re proud because—thanks to the incredible bravery shown by gay people who lived their lives openly in the decades before us—we can live our lives more and more openly at home, at work, with our families, on our blogs … and even on national television. … We’re proud because after all we’ve been through, the world is starting to notice and respect us and emulate the often fabulous culture we’ve assembled from the common struggles and glorious diversity of our disparate lives.
We’re proud because this weekend we’ll celebrate with drag queens, leather queens, muscle queens, attitude queens and you’d-never-know-they-were-queens queens, and together we can see through the “pride” in our parade and enjoy the underlying Pride in our parade.
Quite simply, we’re proud that we have so much to be proud of.
We can take some time, and even in the face of hatred, bigotry and discrimination, we can carve a place in this world, claim it our own and celebrate.
Because even if Pride doesn’t change many minds in the outside world, it’s our PARTY, darlings. It’s our Christmas, our New Year’s, our Carnival. It’s the one day of the year that all the crazy contingents of the gay world actually come face to face on the street and blow each other air kisses. And wish each other “Happy Pride!” Saying “Happy Pride!” is really just a shorter, easier way of saying “Congratulations on not being driven completely batshit insane! Well done, being YOURSELF!”
We can celebrate the community that we have, the radical acceptance that we embody and the fact that we’ve survived. We have a chance to come together, remind ourselves we belong to a larger community, have some fun and take back our city; just for a little bit. We know that hatred will continue, but still we march forward. We have pride because it helps those coming after us. In the words of Harvey Milk, it gives the next generation hope:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWo8BKJCxYQ
And this is a chance to celebrate the fact that I’ve survived. A chance to celebrate the fact that I’m a proud gay man. And even that act, powerful unto itself, has hopefully made a difference.
The most important and powerful action a person can make is to come out to those around them. Then the LGBT community isn’t a scary abstract anymore, it has a face. If you know someone who is openly LGBT, you see their humanity. You can understand that we’re not asking for anything special, just the same rights everyone else is guaranteed by the constitution. A chance to be happy. A chance to live the life we want, surrounded by those we love.
“Many of us want to, and will: when a gay, lesbian or transgendered kid isn’t at special risk of being brutalized or committing suicide. … “When a gay person’s central-casting earnestness and eloquence aren’t noted with excitement and relief, because his or her sexual orientation needn’t be accompanied by a litany of virtues and accomplishments in order for bigotry to be toppled and a negative reaction to be overcome.”
We will stop talking about coming out when it’s not news anymore, when the last barriers have finally been broken down. We’ll stop screaming for our rights when we’re finally treated as equals by our government. We’ll only stop telling our stories when they don’t matter.
The anniversary of Stonewall comes just two days after marriage equality came to all 50 states (and the anniversary of decisions in Lawrence v. Texas and Windsor v. United States), a major piece of the equality dream the drag queens, homeless youth and the rest of Stonewall protesters had less than 50 years ago. In 11 years, we’ve gone from no marriage rights to full equality across the country. We still have a lot to fight for, ENDA being at the top of that list, but for now, we can celebrate the ‘thunderbolt’ of equality that we have achieved:
So we keep fighting for progress, wherever we can. We celebrate our advances and keep chipping away at our obstacles: and this month we can celebrate both, as well as the individuals that make up our amazing community.
In light of the Orlando massacre, it’s more important than ever to celebrate Pride. To not be intimidated by the hate, but to instead keep rising, demand equality and fight for our very right to exist. What hurts the most about Orlando may be the reminder that even our own spaces, which we thought were safe, aren’t. Or maybe they never really were, not while hatred and prejudice still exist. But as we face, united, the epidemics of gun violence and homophobia, we can at least take solace in the fact that we, as a community, know how to win epidemics.
We’re proud of how far we’ve come. We’re proud to keep fighting. We’re proud.
A cute ad, very appropriate since the Euro football (soccer) tournament is currently going on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j80tCzDZgU
Did you know that Deadpool is actually pansexual? You’d never guess from the movie. So what if there actually was queer representation in comic book movies:
So, I’ll be back with a post about Orlando soon. Right now it’s too raw, and there’s still too much we don’t know. And every time I think about it I break down. I spent two days a crying, sobbing mess, and right now I’m still a little numb. But I’ll get to that another day. For now, here’s a distraction (of which I’ve needed many) of some of the fun, upsetting and crazy things on the Internet.
First up, the teaser for the live action Beauty and the Beast:
The teaser for the new Rocky Horror. Which, the guy playing RiffRaff, nails that line perfectly, which made me feel a lot better about the whole thing (and Laverne Cox looks awesome):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=outmDIi29Bo
This Saturday is the Ball on the Bridge, bringing Ball Culture (predominantly African American drag competitions) out into the open. Looks awesome, but sadly I can’t go, had I known about it sooner, I would have cleared my schedule.
The Pens won the Stanley Cup! Which was the most needed distraction Sunday night. Hockey Night Canada did an amazing job with their recap, and the music is so, so fitting, you’ll be hearing it a lot I think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwQ04ICfEH0
Okay, that’s it for now, but I’ll be back with more, and an in depth look at Orlando soon.
Quick update, I’ll most likely be back later this weekend, but for now, stay cool and enjoy what I’ve found today. We’re heading into the Stanley Cup Finals, and it’s been such a great ride. And the Penguins have been playing Mario Kart during intermission on the ice! Ride, Mario Kart, it’s a pun!
The trailer for Finding Dory:
Last month marked the final issue of the latest run of DC’s Midnighter, it’s a causality in their new something-or-other event that is throwing most of their titles back to square one (I don’t follow comics that much, so I can’t explain it, sorry). But Midnighter, aside from being beautifully drawn and well written, was the gay icon we needed:
This is a book I needed when I was younger, and for people to have it now, in the next generation, is my greatest accomplishment of all.”
It is a shame, although it was not cancelled because it’s led by a gay character, just economics and the reality that it’s really, really hard to launch new mainstream comic books that aren’t about the regulars everyone already knows about. But what I find really sad, is that it is the only comic from Marvel or DC fronted by a gay character. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (Movies and TV shows) has been going on since 2008. In that time (unless I”m missing someone) we’ve had one gay character who was in three episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. before he was written out. Not to mention we’ve yet to have a movie starring a woman (Captain Marvel releases in 2019, but what ever happened to the Black Widow movie? We did have two great seasons of Agent Carter, but that has been cancelled.) and we’re just now getting to having one led by an actor of color (Black Panther, 2018).
Deadpool is supposed to be pansexual, and while Ryan Reynolds has said many times he’d like him to have a male love interest, the only times in the movie (which I loved by the way) they could have brought up his sexuality, they turned to tired homophobic jokes about how he didn’t want to be pegged by his girlfriend. There’s now a ‘strong chance’ we’ll see an LGBT character in the MCU, but seriously, this is the best we can do?
I wrote all of that, then I was reminded of the Netflix shows, where there is a prominent lesbian couple in Jessica Jones and Daredevil (season 2), and rumor is the one character will be the first to be in all five Netflix shows. So we’ve got one!
We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go (I’ll be writing about the Padres next time as well), but it’s important to keep the pressure on for these things. Gay kids are everywhere and into a myriad of interests (sports, comic books, etc), we need to make sure that each one sees themselves and a better future in their interests, to give them hope.
Okay, one last bit on my soapbox, an amazing picture of a gay couple in Melbourne, a beautiful look at our community as we fight the tide of the world, together:
Oh hey, big surprise, the people shouting about religious freedom, really only care about themselves. And by that, I mean that conservative Christians want to be able to discriminate against the queer community. A mosque in Virginia was blocked from opening, but there’s no outrage about it from the right.
And speaking of, this is really accurate, and check out the scene with them eating lunch, it’s pretty important:
