the ch!cktionary

    9 Nov 2011

    “A fag hag is not just a straight female friend. In a friendship, your bond isn’t based on the novelty of your gender or sexuality. A fag hag is not your friend. She’s an insult. Contrary to popular belief, a fag hag is not necessarily fat, lonely, undateable or so socially damaged that she couldn’t possibly have her own love life. Nor does she necessarily own cats. Any woman I’ve met who has tried to become my hag (whether or not they employed the term) believes that a gay man can give her something a straight man cannot—platonic friendship, an outlet for hetero-verboten sex talk, someone to check out boys with, and often, an outlet for her annoying commentary about gay men.

    Every gay man knows a girl like this. She is the girl who you used to see movies with in college, the one who you thought viewed you as a person until she screamed “Ooh, I just saw you check out that guy’s legs!” as if you had subtly invented cold fusion in the cafeteria. Soon, it turns out she “loves having gay friends.” She is the girl who plans bachelorette trips to gay bars the way some people take their kids to the zoo. She is the girl who screams “You’re going to Town? You’re so CRAZY!” at you on the street when she ascertains that you are headed to a popular gay bar. She is the girl at the party who needs to tell you all about gay men.

    What does the fag get in return? A constant companion at bars so he never has to drink alone, yes. A den mother to cook him dinner and coo over his problems, sure. But there is an even more sinister use for this special “friend.” On nights when he doesn’t want to get laid, a gay man can head to her house for movies and ice cream. On nights he does, he just deploys the girl to introduce herself to a guy he likes. When he’s done with him, he can use her to deflect additional advances. She is his pimp and his Dear John letter all in one. She’ll facilitate date after date until she realizes that at the end of the night, she won’t be the one with the boy in her bed.”
    — Zack Rosen, Dealbreaker: He Has a “Girlfriend” - Health - GOOD

    My initial reaction after reading this essay:



    So, let’s get some disclosures and conflicts of interest out of the way: I am, what most people would describe as, a “fag hag”. The male portion of my social circle can be neatly divided into two groups: dudes I’ve fucked and dudes who don’t fuck women, with the latter far outnumbering the former (trust me, no easy feat). In short, Dorothy and I have got an awful lot of mutual friends, BUT (and this is an enormous BUT) I don’t personally identify with the label “fag hag”, for all the reasons outlined in the excerpt above. I’ll admit, I was prepared to be offended when I first encountered this piece, but then I realized that this caricature of the “fag hag” actually describes a lot of people I’ve met.

    Rosen is talking about a particular type of woman, the type of woman who believes that her friend’s sexual orientation plays the major role in their friendship. You see the “gay best friend” phenomenon play out in trend stories and pop culture (think: Sex And The City or Will & Grace). A whole generation has grown up thinking that homosexuality is trendy, rather than an aberration, yet they’ve replaced fear and hatred with equally ridiculous and ignorant generalizations along the way. It’s as if gay people have gone from being considered sexual deviants to being hailed as fairy godmothers bearing gifts of Chanel. Like really? Your friends are not accessories, people. And yet, I’ve heard perfectly intelligent, self-identified liberals spout off the most offensive bullshit ever about their so-called “friends”. Some of these gems include arguments like:

    “Gay men can’t be friends with straight men.”
    “You’re either a bottom or top. You can’t be both.”
    “Gay men don’t settle down.”
    “There is a gay fashion gene.” (ACTUAL QUOTE)

    And these are gay people’s supposed allies. Clearly, we’ve got a long way to go. The part of Rosen’s piece that most resonated with me was the following: “Any woman I’ve met who has tried to become my hag (whether or not they employed the term) believes that a gay man can give her something a straight man cannot—platonic friendship, an outlet for hetero-verboten sex talk, someone to check out boys with, and often, an outlet for her annoying commentary about gay men.” Though it sounds out-there, I’ve actually had women approach me to ask how I acquired my very own gay mafia, like there’s a technique or networking skill involved. It makes me wonder if the fetishization of gay men just further contributes to their marginalization. Is the Sassy Gay Friend the new token black friend? Is it a necessary, albeit fucked-up step toward progress? Does mainstream acceptance always have to lead to the co-optation of progressive movements? A bunch of stereotypes is not exactly the foundation for friendship. Real people must get hurt as a result, right?

    The reality is that queerness is not a monolith, and there’s no such thing as the universal gay male experience. I have gay friends who are caricatures of what you might see on TV, gay friends who “pass” as straight at work everyday, gay friends who only want to talk about sex with me, and others who don’t even mention a romantic interest until it’s serious. There’s absolutely nothing that they all have in common besides their propensity for fucking other dudes, yet this single shared trait is enough to prompt people — both the well-intentioned and the bigoted — to form preconceived ideas about them. While Rosen’s account clearly doesn’t hold true for all gay male-straight female friendships, one thing is for certain: with friends like these, who needs enemies?

    28 Jul 2009

    Bruno: A Social Experiment or A Queer Travesty?

    I’m about two weeks late on this, so forgive me if it’s been pointed out already, but isn’t Bruno just a social experiment disguised as low-brow entertainment?

    Bear with me. But first, a few points to keep in mind:

    1. Bruno is not some plot-driven drama you can enjoy alone. You go to this type of movie with friends. Half the fun is sharing the experience with other people.
    2. Fans of Sacha Baron Cohen will naturally be inclined to side with his character, even if they are homophobic bigots and even if Bruno is a walking, flaming gay stereotype.
    3. A personal disclaimer: I have never seen Borat and have watched about four Ali G segments in my entire life, including the one where he interviewed Naomi Woolf. It made me cringe.

    I watched Bruno at the Loews on the Common, the biggest theater in Boston, during opening weekend. The film was showing concurrently on two screens and ours was completely packed, so there were literally no open seats next to each other by the time the movie began (an important point to keep in mind for later). I was accompanied by Patrick, his German friend, and his friend’s boyfriend who is originally from Kazakhstan. Between the four of us, that makes one Kazakhi journalist and one German-speaking homosexual. Kind of ironic.

    To understand how Bruno is a social experiment, one has to recognize that there are two audiences. There’s the audience in the theater, of which I was a part, and there’s the audience depicted in the movie. The former may be laughing at the reactions of the latter, but really, both of us are the butt of Cohen’s joke.

    (SPOILERS AHEAD, though there’s not much to spoil, plot-wise)

    Here’s why: The film makes it near impossible for any young, hip, and seemingly open-minded person to walk out. There are two instances in Bruno when members of the on-screen audience are so offended that they walk out. The first audience is a focus group for a television pilot that the protagonist has produced with the help of his Filipino lover, with whom he assumes various positions. There’s also a segment which I can only describe as “penis-spinning”. The second audience is a group of spectators who expect to watch a pro-wrestling match and wind up seeing Bruno making out with his assistant instead. Unlike the first group, which was merely outraged, the second actually threw things into the ring and had to be restrained from approaching the actors.

    (END SPOILERS)

    Though I personally wasn’t shocked by the movie (which probably speaks to how jaded I am), I’m well-aware that its graphic content and language is hardly the norm in American cinemas. Patrick later described the movie as “an all-out assault on good taste”, which is actually quite a compliment, though you’d have to understand Patrick’s views to appreciate it. What I think he really means (and what I believe) is that the movie is an assault on homophobia and American conservatism. Because the theater audience is compelled to side with Bruno and distance itself from the conservatism of the people he pranks in the movie, anyone who walks out makes their prejudices quite clear. This is especially true given the huge popularity of the film. There’s no way to leave your seat in a packed theater without being noticed. If most people are watching Bruno with their friends, then there’s also the added pressure of peer judgment, not just judgment from strangers.

    The reaction from LGBT groups has been mixed, to be fair, and I can understand how one might be hesitant to endorse a movie whose protagonist embodies some of the worst beliefs about gay people. That being said, perhaps now is a time when an utterly unlikable gay character is actually a sign of progress. Bruno may be no Harvey Milk, but neither are most of my gay friends. That’s not to say that they’re all nymphomanic, trend-chasing fame whores, but they’re certainly not martyrs, so why does every other movie with a main gay character end in tragedy? Bruno is so unapologetic about his actions, so far from tortured or conflicted, and so fully in love with himself that his sexuality is almost secondary to his self-absorption. For that reason, I find the Bruno character far less offensive and more whole than other gay characters, most of whom are portrayed as either hate crime victims or accessories for single, white women.

    It surprises me that people don’t immediately recognize Bruno for what it is and instead write it off as another crude attempt at humor. I don’t think my interpretation is a stretch in the least, given that Cohen is rather smart, even if not always funny. Though I would hardly consider Bruno the best film ever made, I do think this 81-minute mindfuck is rather genius for mainstream cinema. If nothing else, it’s better than anything involving wizards or vampires.

    1 May 2008

    According to Gossip Girls, there are exactly two minorities on the Upper East Side.

    So I know everyone loves Gossip Girls and everything but has it occurred to anyone else that this is just another in a long line of television shows about White high schoolers with their fabulous/dramatic White American lives? There was 90210, then The O.C., and now there’s Gossip Girl. And unlike the other two shows, there are at least stock minority characters on Gossip Girl but um, they don’t actually speak. Ever. Instead, they run around alongside their Queen Bee and let the pretty White girl do the talking for them. Maybe I’m making a big fuss out of everyone’s favorite guilty pleasure but what bothers me is that the guiltiest part of this pleasure is something no one seems to have picked up on: Blair Waldorf’s reign over her two minority minions stinks of colonialism.

    (Apparently, though, there’s a new Asian girl on the block and she occupies the incredibly stereotype-busting role of a … geek. Revolutionary.)

    So here’s the thing: yeah, the OMFG posters are totally hard to decipher and everyone on this show does look alike, because White women are the only ones who get roles of any significance and degrees of paleness get pretty hard to differentiate. Thank Josh Schwartz (the same man who brought you the impressively homogenous cast of The O.C.) who apparently decided that he couldn’t even find a Black or Asian chick who was funny enough to deliver zingers. So a major character role? That’s out of the question for chicks with melanin.

    Sure, television is escapist and everyone knows that there are minorities in New York even if they’re not on Gossip Girl New York, but this is the kind of shit that leads to minority girls growing up wishing they looked white. This is what perpetuates the idea that all Black people are thugs and all Asian people are nerds, because those are the only roles they ever occupy in popular entertainment. And Gossip Girl is the most insidious kind of messaging because it seems harmless and it’s high school and therearecuteboysomg! But just ask yourself, how fucking weird would it be if Blair were Black or if Serena were Asian? Put the face of a Black woman on that OMFG poster. Would that jolt you in the least? Would the show be less popular? Would you find it harder to relate or get invested in these characters? Because I can relate to White actresses better than I can Black actresses and that doesn’t make sense because I’m ASIAN. And as much as one loathes to admit it, as much as I don’t want to admit it, there’s something about a pretty White face that sells.

    This is why I don’t watch television.

    Reblogged: rachelhills