Nouveau Girl Blog

Nothin’ Funnier Then a Beating

Posted on February 24th, 2007 by April.
Categories: Celebrity, Ignorant, LGBT, Transgender, Video.

I sent the following e-mail to George Takei regarding an episode of the Jimmy Kimmel show that aired after showing Mr. Takei’s PSA video:
 
 

Hello Mr. Takei,

I want express my appreciation for the fantastic PSA video you did regarding Tim Hardaway.  You stood up to the bully and his ignorant statement, spanked him on national television, and made Hardaway look ignorant and silly.  You’ve become the clear winner in the court of public opinion.

The PSA video clip I’ve seen was cut from a segment of the Jimmy Kimmel Show.  I’m not sure if you produced it in conjunction with the show or not, but if you did I’d like to know if you’d address something from an episode following the airing of your PSA video.

On February 21st, Jimmy Kimmel had Rebecca Romijn as a guest to discuss her new roll as a transgendered character on ABC’s ‘Ugly Betty’.  During the interview he mocked transgendered men and women, made jokes while showing photos of several transgendered women, then wrapped up his "jokes" by reading from a book where a transgendered woman is hit with an ax.  All for laughs… real funny.

As a transgendered woman, I’ve faced the threat of violence and didn’t find the humor Mr. Kimmel thinks is there.  Mr. Kimmel’s "joke" hits close to home, even here in the tolerant San Francisco area, Gwen Araujo was beaten to death by a group of men… just like his "joke".

If you have any contact with the producers of the Jimmy Kimmel show, I’d appreciate bring attention to the fact that violence toward anyone is not funny - and that includes the LGBT community.

Here’s the segment from the 2/21/07 Jimmy Kimmel Show:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhf_uF3pgnU

All the best,

 -April

P.S. "Naked Time" is one of my favorite StarTrek episodes!

 
 
(h/t Pam’s House Blend)
 
 
 

Links

Pam’s House Blend: Jimmy Kimmel Jokes About Violence…
Shakespeare’s Sister: Know what’s hilarious?
After Elton: Best. Gay. Week. Ever.

George Takei: PSA: Tolerance

Gwen Araujo: Justice for Gwen Araujo
Transgender Law Center: Gwen Araujo

YouTube: Jimmy Kimmel, Mocking & Beating the Transgendered is Funny
ABC Television: Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Wikipedia: Gwen Araujo
Wikipedia: Jimmy Kimmel

Home Page: George Takei

  -April

0 comments.

Quote of the Day

Posted on February 24th, 2007 by April.
Categories: Quote of the Day.

0 comments.

Glazed in Man Sweat

Posted on February 23rd, 2007 by April.
Categories: Gender, Ignorant, Sex.

hate |hāt|
verb [ trans. ]
feel intense or passionate dislike for (someone) : the boys hate each other | he was particularly hated by the extreme right.

The other day, I posted the video of George Tekei taking a shot at the ignorant statement made by former NBA All-Star player Tim Hardaway.  George illustrated he was the better man.  Choosing to have a bit of fun at Hardaway’s expense has the Intertubes a buzz, laughing at Sulu’s pwnage of the jackass.

Even those normally less supportive of gay issues have given George props.  A "gay dudes gross me out" coworker of mine yes not everyone in San Francisco waves a rainbow flag, sent me an e-mail - and I quote… "you have to see this video of Sulu giving Hardaway the total smack-down… it’s hilarious, funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.  Hardaway is Sulu’s bitch!"

Why?  Mr. Tekei stood up to the bully, spanked him on national television, made Hardaway look stupid, and became the clear winner in the court of public opinion.

I try to choose my words carefully.  To me, hate is a very strong word and expresses pretty intense feelings.  Rarely do I use the word and when I have, I’ll often retract it before I’ve finished the sentence.

[editors note: while writing this post, I did remember using the word hate while discussing taste of beets yesterday.  That's a good example, I think beets taste like dirt, but I'll cook them for someone else and I've used beet juice to dye pasta... I dislike beets, I don't hate them.]

Hardaway’s use of the word ‘hate’ made it easy to tease him and left little room for people to feel any empathy.  If he just stated disproval of gay sex, said gay people made him uncomfortable, or made him nervous to be around, it would be much easier for people to have sympathy for him.  Many people still feel uncomfortable being around someone who’s gay or seeing someone do something gay - two gay men, OK… two gay men holding hands, creeps them out.  But hate?  No, that’s area reserved for wackos like Rev. Phelps.

Hardaway is a bigot.  He’s ignorant and was foolish enough to express that ignorance publicly.  The outburst ended his career with the Continental Basketball Association, any future appearances in NBA events and could likely limit any future opportunities in coaching or media.  There is a chance if he’d try to make amends, work past his ignorance, that he could be welcomed back in front of the public… maybe on Fox News [sic].

But there is another kind of bigot, one far worse then Hardaway.  These bigot’s are too smart to come right out and say something so foolish as Hardaway did, but what they do say is just as ugly and hateful.  More distressing still, this group of bigots try - often successfully - to express their bigotry in a way as to sound reasonable or couched behind a question… they won’t say "let’s put the fags in jail", but they’ll ask "should we do something to protect the children?"

This second group also has little problem finding media outlets from which to point a finger, demean, and vociferate ideas that anyone different or having views outside their own, are somehow a threat. 

I might have some hope for people like Hardaway, but this second group deserves no sympathy.  They only wish to limit expression, impose their views and beliefs on others, eliminate reasonable debate, and only further reduce, what little of it remains, civil public discourse.

Michael Medved sits proudly within this group.

His column on February 21, spewed out a volume of crap like an olestra fueled nightmare:

"Tim Hardaway (and most of his former NBA teammates) wouldn’t welcome openly gay players into the locker room any more than they’d welcome profoundly unattractive, morbidly obese women. I specify unattractive females because if a young lady is attractive (or, even better, downright “hot”) most guys, very much including the notorious love machines of the National Basketball Association, would probably welcome her joining their showers. The ill-favored, grossly overweight female is the right counterpart to a gay male because, like the homosexual, she causes discomfort due to the fact that attraction can only operate in one direction. She might well feel drawn to the straight guys with whom she’s grouped, while they feel downright repulsed at the very idea of sex with her."

Shakespeare’s Sister posted the appropriate response:

"Thirdly, I love the presupposition that fat chicks and gay dudes automatically want to fuck NBA players, and that NBA players are so insecure that even if someone to whom they weren’t attracted was in their vicinity, they couldn’t begin to function. In fact, I just love the entire idea of straight men who are made uncomfortable by the mere presence of someone wanting to fuck them whom they don’t want to fuck. All I can say is that these assholes would crumple if they had to spend a week as a woman, getting chatted up, having their space invaded, being subjected to unwanted touching, and all other manner of unsubtle displays of attraction by, well, them. It’s precisely the kind of drooling, moronic Neanderthals who proffer asinine arguments like this one that have the least compunction about aggressive horniness—which is, I suppose, why they can’t imagine that there exist people who, even if they are attracted to someone, don’t feel compelled to practically hump his or her leg to show it."

The Rude Pundit tries to get Medved out of the shower:

"The very idea of this skeeves the fuck out of Medved, a man whose balls are so filled with unejaculated semen that it looks like he has cantaloupes in his pants. Medved says, "[M]any (if not most) Americans no doubt share his instinctive reluctance to share showers and locker rooms with open homosexuals." If this led to a larger discussion about sexual desire and irrational fears that lead to prejudice, it’d be fine. But, no, Medved wants to stay in the dripping wet shower room with the large, nude men, many of whom so tower over Medved that they could use his head as a nutrest."

Firedoglake asks Medved to stop sniffing jock straps and pay attention:

"Wow.  The staggering misogyny of this premise frankly deserves its own post.  I mean, it’s downright breathtaking how many of his own personal issues Medved lays bare with this analogy.  Apparently to him the only thing as repulsively un-fuckable as a dirty faggot is a fat woman.  As if fat women are somehow the antithesis of desirability because they don’t look like a bunch of pole-dancing blow-up dolls.  Ah, the NeoCon mind, where no matter what time of the day or night it is, somewhere in there, a monkey is washing a cat."

Pandagon expands our view:

"You can sense Medved protectively grabbing his ‘nads. Hardaway may be revolted, but what about “the distraction” faced by all the closeted gay colleagues who played alongside him or on other teams? He’s ok with that? Despite the “male bonding” through collective homophobia in the forms of manly joking and banter, these closeted players, because of people like Hardaway, suffered in silence, yet still performed their jobs on the court each game."

As a final note, who would want to have sex with this jackass anyway?

Links

Home Page: George Takei
StarTrek:  Hikaru Sulu

Wikipedia: Tim Hardaway
Wikipedia: Hikaru Sulu
Wikipedia: Continental Basketball Association

-April

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PSA: Tolerance

Posted on February 21st, 2007 by April.
Categories: Humor, Video.

George Takei appears in this new public service anouncement for tolerance.

Live long and prosper.
 
 
  -April

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Cross of Iron

Posted on February 20th, 2007 by April.
Categories: Democracy, History, Republican, Speech, War.

Chance for Peace

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. [...] This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."

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