It’s June. That means it’s the season of gay pride parades all over the place, which generally are an excuse for people to gather in the local gayborhood, have a big parade, buy rainbow tchotchkes, and hear a few political speeches being drowed out by the thud thud thus of dance music. Whee!
OK, I am really not that cynical. While I don’t always go, I think it’s really nice that it takes place. I recognize that for people at different places in their lives than me, it’s empowering and wonderful. There are still people – the young, the recently out, the small towners – for whom seeing that many openly gay people in one place is incredibly exciting and important.
As it was for me, at my first such event – the big gay march on Washington in 1987. Talk about starting with a bang. I was young, I’d just moved to the big city (Boston), I was still trying to figure out how to be a grown up in a world that was a lot less accepting of gay people than the USA of 2009… it was an important, empowering thing.
But after an endless string of gay pride parades in Boston, I realized that what it really was – for me – was a day to go enjoy spring weather, see a fun parade, see everybody coming out of their winter hibernation, sit on the Common and sweat, and then go dance my ass off at the block party in the South End. (I wonder if they still do that.)
Similar story in DC – stand on a corner on 17th Street and watch the always surprisingly small parade scoot by, go down and broil in the sun at Freedom Plaza the next day for a while until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
And that’s fine.
There’s another gay pride ritual that happens each June: the “normal gays” complaining “Eww, I hate gay pride, it’s all those drag queens and guy in leather, and they’re the ones on the news, I’m not like that, it’s so embarrassing!” And this year we have a particular whiney and stupid entry into that “who’s more annoying” sweepstakes: a piece on Huffington Post by Max Mutchnik, gay Hollywood power queen who is to blame for created the sitcom Will and Grace. (I would have missed it if not for Joe My God.)
It’s a rambling bit of navel gazing in which Mutchnick observes that while he and his partner sat stuck in traffic in West Hollywood because the pride parade interfered with driving their infants to music class (because really, if you don’t get to music class at nine months, your children will never enter the Hollywood elite), he watched all the young faglings heading over to the parade, and they all looked like Adam Lambert, so he didn’t really want to go, because he is one of the normal gays.
This leads to a rambling piece decrying the lack of a unifying leader for the GLBT community, but verges into the head-up-ass area with this:
So I cringe when a local newsperson shoves a microphone in the face of some young 95-pound twink (Straight Translation: a twink is a skinny homosexual with a lot of moxie). The twink looks into the camera and screams into the reporter’s microphone: "Get down here now. The drinks are big. But you know what’s bigger…" He laughs in a high-pitched cackle and his "girlfriends" join in. I wish they’d read more and drink less.
I’m depressed. Why is this the voice speaking for me?
Yes… a Hollywood media mogul who created a program viewed for years by millions of Americans, who has the inside line to sit down and chat with the leaders of big gay political organization, whose writing appears on Arianna Huffington’s site, is complaining that someone else is speaking for him.
And OMG that person is not representing him! Not like they way he provided a wonderful, accurate representation of gay America with a sitcom featuring a repressed, tedious queen you wouldn’t want to share an elevator with, a screaming queen who makes dick jokes and cackles, and which chronicled Mr. Dull’s inability to form a healthy relationships with anyone but his clingy, dependent gal pal.
Why is this voice speaking for you? Well, maybe despite having access to media that only a handful of people do, you haven’t said anything to the rest of American society besides, “Look at the funny queen! He’s a little pathetic but entertaining, and he likes to dance for us!”
Followed by, “I’m normal, why are these abnormal people on TV?” Well, Max, where were you?
Yes, one of the more powerful gay men in America is getting pissy because no one has stepped up to be leader. Again, Max: where are you? Why are you waiting for someone to do something when you’re more powerful and wealthy than almost all the rest of gay America?
The whole “ugh, gay freaks” trope is tiresome enough when it comes from an accountant who goes to the bars every other weekend, but is careful to make sure nobody at work knows he’s gay, and then wonders why nobody thinks gay people can be as ordinary as him.
Coming from the likes of Mutchnick, it’s just an amazing testament to the ability of people to spend their days thinking about themselves without ever seeing themselves.
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Honey, let me tell you about Boston’s Gay Pride – The parade is all churches, banks, business and politicians asking for the GLBT community’s vote. And, although it gratifying to see we’re just another constituency to be seen/used, it’s also very, very, very boring. The only fun in the parade are the seriously butch Lesbians on motorcycles and the Brazilian contingent.
The block party is still going strong outside of Fritz. It’s just as big and loud and crowded as it always was. Except now, there are two distinct groups that go and dominate the party – Crystal-Titty Muscle boyz and E-Enhanced Twinks – it’s all very sad actually, although the music is good.
I’ve been avoiding the parade for the past 7 years or so. I much rather prefer the small intimate dinner gathering my friend hosts every year at his place Pride evening.
To tell the truth, I would rather go to a Pride parade in a deeply Red State – at bit more energy, a bit more danger, and bit more in your face. We seem to have lost our edge here in Boston, since basically , with the exception of Federal recognition, we’re just the same as everybody else.
All my life I’ve wanted for my community to be mainstream, and now that we basically are, I don’t want it! LOL
The most fun I ever had at Boston pride were the times I marched/danced w/ Gays for Patsy in the parade.
I can’t say we have danger and exciting “we’re oppressed” drama at Houston’s pride, but we do have it at night so we don’t all collapse of heat exhaustion, and they used to string a big disco ball up over the intersection of Westheimer and Montrose. (I hear it’s a victim of budget problems this year.)
Honey, I bet I danced with you with GFP at Pride and the dances afterward. Not to mentioned I competed with the ReneGAYdes! Small world indeed.
Oh wow, I was at everything until I skipped town in 1996 – the Tuesdays at Ramrod, the dances in JP, etc. etc. I bet you know some of my old dance partners from back then.
We’re considering going to Pride in Houston…The only one I’ve attended was in LA. I’d like to compare the two!
My first gay pride parade was in Los Angeles in 1978. And boy, was it WILD!!!
I don’t bother going to gay pride any more. It’s boring and tedious and tame. It’s become way to family oriented for me. It lacks the edgy, on the verge of being arrested for public indecency feel that made it so appealing to me in my youth. Now people bring the kids.
Of course, living in West Hollywood, as I do, makes it easy for me to be cynical. But I still miss the outrageous, in your face, got to be real, X-rated gay pride parades of times gone by. (Does that make me a traditionalist or a conservative?)
John – you HAVE to email me with the names! I’ll try and find some pics of me at the dances – oh what trip down memory lane!
Stephen – “does that make me a traditionalist or a conservative?”
No honey – it makes you old(er). I too miss the edginess, but alas, parts of our community have grown up, sold out, and have become “mainstream”. Sigh……
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