As far as I’m concerned, there are at least three kinds of SPAM email these days. One is the “get a larger penis/larger breasts/you’ve won the lottery” kind of spam sent to everyone with an email address. The second type, somewhat similar to the third, is the mass circulation of a funny joke, funny pictures, etc., among friends, family members, and colleagues. In this day and age when it can sometimes be difficult to consider much in life a laughing matter, this type of email can be a lifesaver. But like the first type, this type of email rarely parades around, pretending to be personal and seeking to warm your heart. The third type, which I am most concerned with, is the “mass forward” — those emails that at times will seem heartfelt but at others will be considered a waste of space and time, quickly becoming victims of the delete button.

I received one of the latter types of SPAM this evening from a distant relative whom I never see. It was one of those “What if your best friend died tomorrow and didn’t know that you cared about him/her? … Forward this to at least ten people immediately or you will be doomed to a life without friends. And make sure you send this back to the person who sent this to you so s/he knows you care” emails.

And, of course, this “personal” email reminding me to care and love the people in my life wasn’t just sent to me. It was sent to everyone in my aunt’s email address book. Sure, for a moment, I thought, “That’s nice.” But then I noticed that she really seemed to have sent it to everyone in her address book.

Does that mean she loves us all equally and wants us to know that she cares? Or is this just an easy way to remind us: “Hey, I’m still alive, why haven’t you been in touch with me? The ball’s in your court now, and I’ll know you don’t care about me if I’m not one of the ten people you send this email back to?” Sure, the latter probably isn’t what she’s thinking (at least I hope not!), but on some level, that’s what the mass email is. It’s an efficient means to reach out to everyone you know at once without offering anything resembling a personal touch or requiring you to take time out of your busy life for the people you care for.

After all, it takes maybe a minute to send (maybe less depending on the speed of your computer). Yes, it might take far more time to send a personal email or pick up the phone and call each of the people in your address book. (Heaven forbid you really put the people in your life first and make an effort to show them that they matter!). Do I really know that you care if I, along with everyone else you have ever received an email from, receives this email? All I really know is that you care enough to put me in your address book (though with my email program, at least, it automatically saves the email addresses from every email I’ve ever received and puts them into my address book — so if I ever hit “reply to all,” I’m sure that some of those spammers offering me insight on how to get bigger breasts or how to lose 85 pounds without ever exercising or dieting would receive that email). Not exactly personal since I’ve never met those folks (at least not to the best of my knowledge).

The mass sentimental email is, in many regards, something akin to the sentimental greeting card. I’m not a fan of buying cards of the sappy genre because I figure it’s always better to say those things myself, to sound more sincere and a little less like someone who is a good shopper for sentimental greeting cards. I’ve made this complaint to friends before, some of whom have reminded me that such cards and forwarded emails provide a means for people who are not good at expressing their feelings to do so. But are they really expressing their own feelings, or are they merely latching onto — even purchasing — someone else’s words to avoid having to confront their own fears and emotions — and in many instances, their own dearth of time or misguided priorities about who and what matters most?

So yes, while the Internet might provide us an easier means to tell everyone we know how much we care, it can’t guarantee that they’ll take such gestures seriously. It might even turn them off, allowing them to think that that’s all the time you’ve got to give to them.

I’m sure you’re thinking, “And this doesn’t sound like a cheesy Hallmark card?!” Feel free to think that. I wrote it all by myself — though I was inspired, I suppose, by the mass sentimental email. I suppose it means that the email served its purpose: It made me think. Just probably not in the positive, uplifting way its author intended.

Laura Nathan-Garner

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Perhaps MTV executives took a hint from Chang Liu’s piece, “Where multiculturalism gets airbrushed,” because yesterday the entertainment magnate announced that it will be launching LOGO, a channel that will market to queers beginning in February 2005.

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has come out in full support of what it calls a “groundbreaking” move by MTV and Viacom. According to a press release by the group on Tuesday,

We’re excited and looking forward to hearing more about the programming and marketing strategies for LOGO … This channel has enormous potential — and who better to make the investment than
the network that has brought us ‘The Real World?’ MTV has the two main ingredients necessary for success: A solid programming track record and an unwavering commitment to our stories, our issues and our lives … With this announcement, MTV is reaching out to an underserved audience hungering for quality LGBT programming.

It was, of course, only a matter of time. In the last two years, we’ve already seen the rise of cable channels devoted to blacks and women, as well as television shows such as “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” “Queer as Folk,” and Showtime’s “The L Word,” which have allegedly targeted gay audiences. Given the success of these shows, it only makes sense that MTV would try to exploit this prime market. But I can’t help but wonder. First, is the success of “Queer Eye” due to a predominately queer audience or due to an audience that is still predominately heterosexual, which watches the show because, well, it’s an entertaining reality show? If the show’s success can be explained by the latter, will MTV be able to win over the same audience (unless, of course, LOGO plans to feature the new staple of American culture — reality TV — around the clock)? Moreover, is this marketing scheme really about representing the queer communities for their own sake, or is it merely another means for a media magnate to score more cash? Finally, though LOGO’s website indicates that “Our vision is to always reflect the diversity of the LGBT experience,” will the network’s actions live up to its words when, as Liu suggests, MTV has yet to figure out how to represent multiculturalism without airbrushing away differences?

LOGO’s mission to speak to and represent diversity is, of course, a venerable one. But only time will tell how “groundbreaking” MTV’s actions really are. Stay tuned — but be sure you read between the lines.

Laura Nathan-Garner

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Last Friday, AlterNet published a piece by Columbia Journalism Review Managing Editor Brent Cunningham, who argues that the media, by virtue of its elitist composition (amongst other things), has contributed to the invisibility of the working class in the United States.

As Cunningham argues:

After reading this, I thought, “Well the answer must lie in recruitment. If the problem is one of underrepresentation of an entire class of people, their lives, and problems by the media, then wouldn’t one solution be for journalism programs and various media outlets to recruit more working class people as students and staff writers? Wouldn’t this improve the ways in which their predicaments are narrated by other journalists as ‘someone else’s problem,’ ‘a life to be pittied,’ ‘a chaotic — even dangerous — lifestyle that suburbia should fear coming into contact with?’ If journalists reported with a grassroots flavor, in the truest sense of the word, wouldn’t we be able to bridge the misrepresentations, underrepresenations, and misunderstandings produced, at least in part, by the media — and in turn bridge the class divide, or at least better illuminate the problem?”

It was almost as if Cunningham could see me thinking this, however. A few paragraphs later, he suggested that getting more minorities involved in the media might help alleviate the problem of invisibility. But then he continued on to suggest that having a journalist go into his or her own working class community to report might give his or her subjects the wrong impression. That is, the people in the community might associate his or her profession with elitism and authority. In turn, locals might either treat the journalist with more respect than they would otherwise, undermining the realism and authenticity of the reportage, or they might not trust the journalist and his or her motives, preventing the journalist and his or her subjects from striking up a rapport that would allow the reporting to reflect the lives of the people in question on any given day (rather than on that particular day).

Can the underrepresented speak?

Cunningham isn’t mistaken on this account. His argument, in fact, is one that ethnographers and journalists have long struggled with: How can underrepresented people represent themselves with an authentic voice? No matter how good their intentions are, once journalists and ethnographers get involved, the voice is always likely to be a little less authentic as the interviews, the reporting, the interactions become an event, and the lives of the subjects become something of a spectacle — something out of the ordinary.

I’d love to tell you I have a solution, but I don’t think there’s a perfect solution to this problem. I think the closest solution to perfect we have is talking about it — figuring out who it is that we’re talking about, getting to know the people we’re writing and talking about, empathizing with them, understanding them as folks just like ourselves (despite potential differences in bank account balances), recruiting more underrepresented groups into journalism programs and to work at various media outlets.

Going from “wrong” to “write”

But for the underrepresented to want to partake in careers that rarely speak to them, we need to examine another representational problem first. That is, could the problem be not just with who tells the stories, but with how they tell those stories? What constitutes “news?” Why do we have such narrow structures for writing and defining news?

The vast majority of journalism programs are centered around teaching mass-communication. While, in theory, such programs should be speaking to — but for (and by) the masses — they don’t cater to a sizeable segment of the people in this country (or even in this world). Most of these programs don’t get down to the nitty gritty of how to discuss and write about cultures — particularly those of which the journalist does not consider him- or herself a part. These programs do, however, teach you how to write good lead sentences, where to put periods and commas, and what words to capitalize or italicize. And, of course, they teach students how be sparse of words when writing or speaking.

I realize I will sound like a hypocrite here, seeing as I’m one of those people who can be ridiculously anal about sentence structure and grammar and deleting redundant phrases and paragraphs to keep things short (though I’m sure you wouldn’t know that I try to “cut the fat” based on this article). But keep in mind two things: 1. I’m writing this criticism reflexively. That is, this is a criticism not just of other people, but one that affects all of us, one that affects the ways in which we create distance in our writing. 2. I have never been formally educated as a journalist, though I have edited countless stories for my younger brother, a journalism major at the University of Texas. My experience with journalism education, then, derives largely from our discussions, my frustration with his writing, and his pride in his ability to follow what, to me, seems to be a writing formula designed to make the journalist appear as neutral as possible.

In reality, this objectivity is frequently little more than a name, an excuse to hide (whether consciously or not) from digging deeper, discussing real issues, talking about people, culture, differences, similarities. Basically, all of the things I like to discuss.

While my rant may sound self-absorbed, it’s one small example of a much larger phenomenon in the way in which journalism is typically taught and the way in which I suspect that deters many people — particularly some of the so-called invisible working-class people — from choosing such a career path. That is, because most journalism programs are focused on mass-communication, they stifle individuality, creativity, and critical thought in favor of a formulaic, capitalistic/corporate mentality that wants to be able to spit out stories as quickly as possible.

Sure, this isn’t always the case; there are stories that require multiple writers, interviewers, editors, and subjects; stories or projects that take months, even years, to complete. Some of those are even stories about the working class — “special features,” they call them. But as Cunningham emphasizes, the problem for the invisible working class is that their lives aren’t lived as features or projects. They’re humans who live everyday, and most of those days go unnoticed because on a “normal” day, the media tends to de-emphasize (or ignore) the importance of personal experience and empathy.

Typically, the closest we get is replacing the ‘e’ with an ‘s’ and winding up with sympathy and pity – in other words, a means to problematize other people’s lives and distance ourselves from “those people” and their problems. Typically writing in the third person, journalists become invested with some authority; the opinions they articulate don’t seem to be opinions by virtue of keeping pronouns such as “I” out of the story and shielded from criticism. And when opinions do become apparent in non-commentary pieces, they’re frequently cast as universal opinions. Keeping things short and simple by writing as onlookers (i.e. – outsiders) also becomes a way to circumvent description, feeling, and humanity. Distance is, after all, what creates an aura of objectivity (though scratching the surface tends to suggest otherwise), which in turn creates an aura of authority – a privileging of the subjectivity of the reporter over that of the people s/he’s writing about, or a means of treating the subjects of the story as “foreign,” making it difficult for readers to treat those subjects any differently.

Speak, memory

The solution isn’t to abandon journalism or to abandon writing and communication conventions, but rather to experiment and embrace other types of communication — types that are less formal, less structured, more human, more personal. Two years ago when I worked with students in the Chicago Debate League, a debate league for students in urban public Chicago schools (which were predominately comprised of impoverished minority students), I found that the willingness to de-emphasize certain structures in favor of personal expression and inclusion can go a long way in making students feel empowered and feel as if someone is listening. That is, unlike suburban debate programs, which typically have a wealth of funding to send their students to pricey summer workshops where they can learn from successful college debaters and return home with mountains of research and refined speaking skills, students in the Chicago Debate League often don’t have much in the way of well-researched “evidence,” renowned mentors, or hours after school to prepare for tournaments with their teammates.

Many of these students have to work full-time to help support their families; many have been involved in gangs or been deemed “failures” by their teachers. They have lived life on the margins and grappled with what it means to be invisible and what it means to struggle to fit into academic and social structures that don’t accommodate the lives they live. And then they’ve become involved in the Chicago Debate League, which refuses to force students to assimilate into a predominant structure, allowing them to instead assimilate that structure into their lives, at least partially on their terms.

Because the Chicago Debate League encourages students to draw on their own resources — their community, themselves, a little bit of Web research here and there, and some amazing teachers who are committed to seeing their students succeed, many students have excelled despite the odds. Many have graduated from high school, gotten out of gangs to stay in school, gone on to attend top colleges, debated in college, earned scholarships, or stuck around to mentor debaters in their own community. Some have fallen through the cracks along the way, I’’m sure. But this has been the case for far fewer than you might expect. Because the communication activity is willing to broaden the parameters and relax its structures, a significant number of students who wouldn’t have otherwise excelled or felt empowered or visible have excelled, felt intelligent, gotten excited, and found a voice — one that allows them to represent themselves far better than anyone else can.

This, it seems, may be the best testament yet to our collective ability to bring visibility to those who have historically been invisible. Or rather, this may be a testament to the ability of  the invisible to make themselves visible. And while this may not provide an overnight solution for alleviating the poverty associated with such invisibility, that empowerment and sense of self is most certainly a first step in rediscovering the “can do” attitude that this nation was founded upon. It may also underscore the importance and power of relaxing “formulas” for “good, objective” journalism and communication in favor of more human, subjective communication.

Laura Nathan-Garner

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At a time when all manner of news — some of it propaganda, some of it fluff, and some of it genuinely world-changing reporting — is pouring forth from endless television broadcasts, news tickers, newspapers, and radios from every corner of the world, the question naturally arises: Is the notion of “objective” news reporting definitionally unsound? And what, in this era of “good” versus “evil,” do we make of Al Jazeera?

In its brief but engrossing 83 minutes, Control Room, Jehane Noujaim’s 2004 documentary, records Al Jazeera’s and other news organizations’ coverage of American invasion of Iraq in March of 2003.

Among its strengths is the ability of Control Room to convey that the notion of objectivity in news reporting is itself problematic; we have Al Jazeera and Fox and everything else in between, all of it purporting to be good, professional reporting. As portrayed in Control Room, Al Jazeera is clearly opposed to the American invasion of Iraq, and the audience gains a sense of the Arab solidarity that Al Jazeera both channels and panders to. The film, however, does not delve deeply into the political explanations of why the individuals who work at Al Jazeera are against the American invasion. Rather, it is from the personal, emotional, and visceral responses of the witty, charming, and acerbic individuals who work at Al Jazeera that the audience gets a sense of the Arab perspective, focused through the lens of Al Jazeera, on the American invasion of Iraq.  

Noujaim appropriately builds her documentary around two charismatic characters — Hassan Ibrahim, an Al Jazeera correspondent, and Samir Khader, a senior producer for Al Jazeera. In Control Room, we are not only shown a good amount of Al Jazeera footage and all of the scrambling that goes on behind the camera, but we are also treated to Ibrahim’s and Khader’s intelligent, caustic, and often sad banter. From the bemused chuckles and appreciative grunts that I heard around me at Film Forum, I wasn’t the only one charmed by Ibrahim’s and Khader’s humor and savoir-faire.

Noujaim isn’t so cheap as to rely on charismatic individuals to carry her film, and she tastefully but poignantly documents the coverage and spin around the death of an Al Jazeera reporter who was killed when American forces bombed the Al Jazeera building in Baghdad in 2003.

Noujaim does a responsible job of portraying the variety of news organizations that are reporting on the American invasion from the American government’s Central Command station, or Centcom, in Doha, Qatar. Not all of the journalists, however, are portrayed kindly; one journalist from MSNBC appears to be worryingly dumb and unconcerned with the reality that America is invading a country and beginning a war, and we are given a particularly choice scene in which an American anchorwoman comes across as particularly wooden, mechanistic, and a little freakish.

Control Room has elevated the debate of whether the concept of objectivity in news is now defintionally unsound, and it offers valuable insight into an Arab perspective on the beginning of the American war in Iraq. With Control Room, Noujaim has raised the stakes of the debate, and it is now our responsibility to continue that conversation.  

Mimi Hanaoka

When I visited the Church of Fools this morning, I was warned that the “Church of Fools is currently not suitable for children.” Undaunted by the “often colourful and occasionally offensive” language that apparently litters the church, I knocked on its virtual door only to be told: “Sorry, but Church of Fools is closed at the moment.”

The Church of Fools is one of the newest ventures into what can loosely be defined as religion. The online church claims to be the United Kingdom’s first 3D, Web-based church, and its target audience is the religiously marginalized. The church began as three-month “experiment” on May 11th, and it draws a virtual congregation of up to 10,000 visitors a day. The pious may choose a character, sing, pray, and jubilantly exclaim Hallelujah!”

The Church of Fools website claims:

Church of Fools is an attempt to create holy ground on the net, where people can worship, pray and talk about faith.

The church is partly intended for people on the edges (and beyond) of faith, so please be aware that the language and behaviour in church is often colourful and occasionally offensive.

Church of Fools is a relatively innocuous and poorly orchestrated religious site, as evidenced by the fact that its operations have been temporarily shut down due to individuals logging in as Satan, hijacking the pulpit, and cursing. The BBC notes that it is the less pious, sneaking into the church from Australia and the United States, who are channeling Satan. The Church of Fools is currently developing a system of cyber wardens who will patrol the aisles and the pulpit; those caught blaspheming may be punished and consigned to a virtual hell by the virtual wardens.

Since various communities and networks — support groups, community bulletin boards, dating services, friendship circles, such as Friendster, and forums for political and social discourse — have migrated from the flesh and blood world to the ever-expanding and wildly accessible online world, it should be unsurprising that a religious community should establish its only place of worship online. The question should not be whether the Church of Fools can provide some sort of benefit, since some marginalized Christian or other will likely benefit from the online community. What we must keep in mind, rather, is that religion is an entity that is increasingly politicized, particularly with the current administration’s crusade-like rhetoric of good and evil in Iraq and Afghanistan. With organizations like the Church of Fools, religion is not only politicized but is happily bleeding into the realm of infotainment, total anonymity, and private demagoguery.  

Mimi Hanaoka

Ah, election year … A time for breast-baring, contentious films about crucifixion, abstinence promotion, and mind-boggling constitutional amendments to ban the recognition of love in order to preserve the sanctity of a “purer” form of love. And yes, a time to ask who will save your soul during an epic war being fought on two fronts (or more) – the war on terrorism and the war on immorality, the wars on the streets of Baghdad and the culture wars waged by the media, wars fought in the name of Christ and wars fought in the name of mutual respect and genuine tolerance and compassion.

Lately, whenever I turn on the television or read the news, I can’t help but wonder: Where do we go from here? We could simply resign ourselves to accept – or flat out reject – the polarizing logic taking over our culture, accept at face value the answers that The Bible purportedly offers, treat these peculiar cultural trends as a given without seeking “divine” inspiration, no questions asked.

Or we can seek refuge from what filmmaker Brian Dannelly aptly terms “very George Bushian” times. Fleeing to Canada is, of course, one option. But given that most of us have families, jobs, and lives that we can’t easily leave behind, skipping the country is not always a viable option. I thought I had found a simpler – albeit much less permanent – solution: Watching cheesy, seemingly mindless films about high school life. I saw Tina Fey’s film Mean Girls, for instance, not because I wanted to have to think or see a potential Oscar nominee. Nope, from the trailer, I knew the plot was far from anything special and that Lindsay Lohan wouldn’t be nominated for best actress. But I knew it would make me laugh, which is far more than I can say for almost anything I see in the media — or even on the street — these days. I’m also willing to (try to) sit through mindless high school flicks in hopes of being reminded of simpler times, times when deciding who to sit with at lunch or who to ask to prom was considered a life-altering choice, times occasionally characterized by a level of pettiness and intolerance that even our nation’s leaders have yet to sink to.

But as I was reminded by Brian Dannelly’s film Saved! – which, based on the trailer, appears to be another cheesy teenage flick with a religious twist – narratives about high school can be a poignant metaphor for an increasingly asphyxiating political culture.

By telling the story of “good girl” Mary (Jena Malone), a student at American Eagle Christian High School who becomes pregnant when she sleeps with her boyfriend, Dean (Chad Faust), in a desperate attempt to “save” him from becoming – er, being – queer, Dannelly puts forth timely questions about the existence of queerness in Christian (and human) culture, abstinence, and the contradictions and dangers of religious fundamentalism. And through the character of Hillary Faye (Mandy Moore), Mary’s former best friend who is on a mission to save Dean for his “sin” of being gay and Mary for her “sins” of having premarital sex, having a gay boyfriend, getting pregnant, and falling for the minister’s son Patrick (Patrick Fugit), Dannelly questions why a materialistic holier-than-thou aura working in the name of Christ to “save” so-called sinners gets conflated with a “good, pure” Christian soul. Add in Hillary Faye’s attempt to “save” – and convert – Cassandra (Eva Amurri), a rebellious Jewish student who dates Roland, Hillary Faye’s brother (Macauley Culkin), who – thanks to his wheelchair – Hillary Faye considers both a liability to her lifestyle and a cause for her to earn “Jesus points.” Put all the pieces together, and you’ve got a story that the Bush administration should be all too familiar with.

Coming on the heels of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and election year politics that have inspired unprecedented cultural polarization, the timing of the release of Saved! is impeccable. One can only hope that moviegoers don’t dismiss the film as just another high school flick or as anti-Christian. But the latter is practically assured. From the beginning Saved! has been mired in controversy. Citing their refusal to be associated with an “anti-Christian” message, a Christian rock band and several production sites with evangelical Christian ties backed out of agreements to work with the Universal Artists and the rest of the Saved! team at the last minute.

But a closer reading reveals that Saved! doesn’t promote intolerance. Rather, by refusing to embrace the unquestioning devotion and silence of religious fundamentalism, Saved! encourages dialogue regarding the contradictions of religious fundamentalism and what it means to be human. Though “believers” may choose to sit this dialogue — and this film — out, that would be a grave mistake. At a time in our history when religious films like The Passion of the Christ and attempts to outlaw gay marriage (at least patially for religious reasons) have been so influential in dividing the United States, both skeptics and believers have a vested interest in discussing the ways in which the politics of religion impacts our lives — even in films that we consider ourselves too old to relate to.

Laura Nathan-Garner

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For philosophical reasons, I am opposed to mandatory drug testing, but not necessarily because of issues dealing with privacy. When I think about drug testing and when I’m told that I must go through it in order to ‘get the job,’ I become offended. The message I hear is not that “we want to pry into your private life,” but rather “we don’t trust you (e.g., we don’t believe you).” So in order to earn their trust and assuage their fear, I’m told that I must prove to them that I am clean and sober. But I am clean and sober. Why must I prove it?  

When I think about employers and becoming an employee, I often think about trust among other things. Seldom have I worked for an employer that I hadn’t trusted, and always I trust from the outset. I believe in trusting until I have reason to distrust, and then, of course, it’s difficult to trust again. So for instance, when I join a company, I don’t go to each of my superiors and demand from them results from new drug tests (my thinking, I’d imagine, being that management on drugs isn’t such a good thing. Colleagues, fine.  But not management.) I mean, don’t I have that right to know if my superiors are clean and sober? Apparently not: this I found out firsthand, but I’ll leave that for another time. The reason I bring all of this up is that I’ve discovered the harsh reality when one decides to try and stand by his convictions, and I was caught completely by surprise — I’m still reeling from it, actually.  

A week ago, I interviewed for a position with a fairly large company out near the Pittsburgh Airport, which would have been a nice, leisurely morning and evening drive. I was being presented to this company by a recruitment firm (which, of course, shall remain nameless) that I’ve dealt with in the past. The job was a simple six-month contract, but it meant money and some semblance of security, which is something my wife and I need at the moment. The interview went very well and earlier this week, I got a call from the woman who, at the recruitment firm, had been representing me. She told me that I’d gotten the job. What she’d failed to do when she first presented me with the job proposition, however, was to tell me that they require a mandatory drug screen.

Of course, given my philosophy, my convictions as I’ve just stated them, you can imagine my response. Yes, I did actually say “Whoa!”, which stopped her from speaking, and then I explained to her my feelings. We talked back and forth for a while, and at one point, I did say no to the offer, but then she talked me out of it, and I asked if I could take the day to think about it and call her later in the afternoon (besides, I had a phone interview with another company that day and so wanted to keep my options open.)  

As the day progressed, I began mulling things over. I feel ashamed to say this, but I did in fact decide to take the job, drug screen and all. I felt ashamed, as I said, but I also felt that I was doing my familial duty. Not that I have children, but I have a wife, and we have a nice home and nice things and I wanted to keep providing this for her. I didn’t want to be the bum she was seeing me become, something which she seemed to enjoy reminding me of.

Just as I was about to make the phone call to give my rep the good news, however, I received an email — they didn’t even have the courtesy to call me (and they still have not returned my calls) — that stated that the account manager, a different woman who represented the actual company, had decided, without even bothering to consult me or await my answer, to rescind my offer — although I can neither confirm nor deny this, she probably thinks I’m a crack-smoking, cocaine-sniffing, heroine-shooting junky and didn’t want to take a chance losing them as an account.

I was told by my rep, much to my relief (who still won’t call me or take my calls), during a few back-and-forth emails that the account representative, rather than telling them that I was opposed to mandatory drug screening, simply said that I decided to consider other opportunities, which was true, of course. I mean, I had no choice, and I still don’t.

I suppose that if there is a lesson to be learned, and there really is, when it comes to choosing between your convictions and life itself, think very, very carefully, and deeply, before opening your mouth. You might just be doing yourself a favor.  

Thomas J. Clancy

There is no alternative for gay males in the mass media. According to the “opiate of the masses,” (television) we are super skinny or we are Adonis clones. We listen to Divas and shop at chic stores. We have the wit of Tennessee Williams, and we’re culture vultures that other men and women need to imitate. We club every night, cruise every weekend, and show up protesting when our rights are being tampered with. As I watch television shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Will & Grace, I can’t help but shake my head at the messages they are sending to people across the nation: Everyone thinks I am just like these men. For entertainment purposes, let’s take a look at my “normal” attire:

Jacket: Brown with red and yellow stripes — color clash is a major violation from the fashion police.

Shirt: Blue- and white-striped Kroger bagger shirt — Kroger is not a designer label.

Pants: Light brown with a dark brown stripe in the middle — They look like something a mailman would wear back in the 1980s.

Socks — Multicolored — Wrong.

Shoes — Vans Skateboard Brand Tennis Shoes – Gay men don’t wear tennis shoes unless they are actually going to play tennis. Gay guys don’t skate either.

Shop at chic malls? According to my choice of apparel, I’ll take Salvation Army over Diesel anytime. To break some other myths of stereotypical gay men, I have the wit of a soap dish. Sure, I can be funny, but wit wasn’t a trait I acquired. I don’t do clubs either. I have an aversion to techno music and dancing. I prefer staying at home and reading a good book on left-wing politics. Cruise every weekend? I’ve been single for four years and my boyfriend back then dumped me because I wouldn’t “put out.” As far as I am concerned, I’m probably celibate. Sex just seems to irk me right now. On the topic of protesting, I don’t mind doing my part on Internet forums, but frankly I don’t feel like waving a poster and screaming at the opposition. If it doesn’t look like I’ve received an invitation for absolute ostracization from the gay community, I don’t know how I can make it any clearer.

My body is no better in the grand scheme of things. For one thing, I’m black, and affirmative action doesn’t exist in the gay community. When I go on personals sites like XY (for gay youth) or PlanetOut, black models are an endangered species if it exists at all anymore. I’ll go out on a limb here and say if you’re not white, no need to apply. The reason I say that is because most profiles contain this message:

Latino may be added, but that is a rarity. Black men are never a sought out for companionship, or at least tolerated. The reason is because of the images the media feeds the nation. For instance, big butts are all the rage these days because J. Lo is incessantly being shoved into our eye-sockets. Getting an Asian girl is “hip” because Lucy Liu is the hottest lady in Hollywood. Can you name a black actor who plays a gay male, besides the guy from HBO’s Six Feet Under? I don’t think you can, and neither can I. A lot of people don’t realize that mass media influence exists in the gay community; we’re not the “open minds” kind of people that are portrayed during nationally televised protests. We are just like everybody else. Sometimes I feel the color of my skin has been the main factor for why I am the knight of unrequited interest. On more occasions than I can remember, I’ve had many great discussions with people online chatting for the first time. When they ask for my picture and I send it, the chatting ceases to continue. Five years ago when I first came out in eighth grade, I wanted to be white just because I thought it would make it easier being gay and finding love, which my mother in reply lectured me against. “Someone should love me for who I am and not the color of my skin.” Sure, that may be morally sound, but in the real world, it’s still difficult to take that in consideration, especially when it seems like the world doesn’t want you for a life partner.

The models of XY and PlanetOut, among other websites that cater to the gay community, not only display one race of people exclusively but also a body type: Extremely skinny and attractive. With these “flawless” clones that pop on my computer screen daily, these sites set a standard that each visitor is measured by. While Heterosexual America has very few icons with girth to stand idly by like famed former Playmate of the Year Anna Nicole, Gay America (for males) has none. With shows like Queer as Folk, Will & Grace, and Boy Meets Boy, it seems that the gay media stigmatizes anyone beyond a 34-inch waist. Each and every main character of these television shows differs very little when it comes to body type. Very much like race, a narrow-mind is installed into our brains:

The major concern for women during Third Wave feminism is battling body issues presented to us by America’s pop culture. However, with the increasing popularity in “metrosexuals” and the new mainstream limelight for gays, men are facing them more than ever before, and not just athletes as it was in the past. Gay men, in my opinion, are having a tougher time trying to meet the needs of their future boyfriends. There are masculine and feminine traits in both men and women alike despite sexuality, but in the stereotypical images of gay males, there are two traits and a specified body type for each. If you are a masculine gay male (others dare to label “straight-acting”), then you must don the body of a cover-man for Flex Magazine. If you are a feminine gay male, you have to wear 28-inch pants and be blessed with a boyish/androgynous face. With these unreachable (and unnecessary) extremes, what are all of us that fall in-between supposed to do? Why are we pigeonholed into such absurd restrictions? It’s bad enough realizing you are a gay person in a straight world, but it’s worse when the world can’t accept your love handles.

Throughout high school, I fought relentlessly to trash my identity because I knew no one would love me for what I looked like. A little overweight for my stunted height, I joined my wrestling team to help aid my cause of losing this little extra weight. After two years of running around the block and becoming an iron-loving gym bunny, it was pretty much done in vain. I got in much better shape and realized the importance of nutrition, but I was still without a boyfriend. With all of my attempts to become a card-carrying member of the gay community, I failed.

By the end of my senior year in high school, once my wrestling season ended, I decided to exhume my identity back and stop worrying about it. I came to the conclusion that for one, I shouldn’t be worrying about getting a life-partner at the time because I needed to obtain an education first; nobody likes a dummy anyway. Second, my mother’s advice came to revisit my conscience because Hollywood lied to me. Beauty and the absence of a belly don’t equate happiness. “Someone will love me for me and not my weight.”

Now that I am in college, my body weight is no longer a concern for me. Frankly, I don’t have the time for excessive burnouts in the gym and carb-Nazi Atkins diets because my European history papers are more significant to get done. I maintain my proper health, but I don’t put in the unnecessary effort to have the frame of a soccer jock because I just simply lack the motivation. For wrestling, I was at 135, and I now I sit at 154 pounds and more comfortable than ever. I suppose six-packs aren’t for everybody. Slowly but surely, I’m going through my withdrawal from the weight room from five days a week to two. I have just become exhausted at gaining muscle mass and now I just want to ride my bike for necessary exercise.

I feel more than blessed that I found the error of my ways much more quickly than my peers who let body issues take over most of their lives. Now in college I have goals and finding a guy isn’t a top priority as it was in the past. Sure, I have wishes to meet my waiting prince, but now I want to get my English and Japan Studies degrees. I want to go to Louisiana and learn Creole for graduate studies. I want to write columns about social and political issues for alternative magazines.

Instead of abandoning these gay websites, I decided to spread my ideals on the negative visual imagery these sites show to other members. Just as Third Wave feminists are fighting against mainstream body image, we gay men need to follow their example and do the same. We should be sending letters and emails to gay websites, protesting against these mainstream body images. We need to create awareness of what the typical gay culture is doing and challenge its standards.    

And somebody will love me; black, love handles, and all. Besides, we don’t call them love handles for nothing; your lover needs something to hold onto.

AirplaneRadio

Anyone who has ever applied to graduate school, or found an apartment, a car, a job, a good article (ahem), or even his or her soul mate online knows the Internet is something we can no longer live without. And single mothers, many of whom can barely support themselves and their children, are discovering that the Internet just may offer them opportunities that allow them to survive and provide a makeshift family support network for their children.

Co-Abode.com, the latest in online “matchmaking services,” is helping single mothers meet their match — other single mothers. That is, through the site, single mothers can find other single mothers who want to share their homes, reduce their expenses, and alleviate some of the burdens of raising children without a second parent.

Sure, this matchmaking system is fraught with many of the same risks and uncertainties associated with meeting a prospective significant other or friend online. In fact, the stakes are even higher since there are children, homes, and responsibilities (even some division of labor) involved. But if you’re willing to look past that, to look past the fact that the Internet, for better or for worse, has become one of our primary means for connecting with other people in this day and age, it’s a pretty good idea as it gives single mothers and their children a chance to defray some of the burdens of their lifestyle and, significantly, an easy way to network with other women who may be experiencing similar burdens. And the ability to find someone to talk to, someone to confide in, someone to learn from just might be one of the most important steps in empowering these women — and their children, many of whom are “latch-key kids” — and enabling them to secure a sense of belonging as they forge their own new little communities and family units.

One, of course, can’t help but wonder what the right thinks about this — I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before comments are made about how Co-Abode.com promotes lesbiansim because — gasp — it encourages two women to live together and about how it undermines what President Bush terms “that sacred institution between a man and a woman.” But if that’s what critics end up saying, one can only hope that they recognize that Co-Abode.com isn’t the cause of the dissolution of traditional heterosexual coupling. It’s a solution, a means to ensure that children whom might otherwise be raised by just one parent have more stable home lives and have other adults who care for them and to look out for them. Yes, they’re other women. But perhaps that just begs the question of why it is that the right believes that the institution of heterosexual marriage is so fundamental to the definition of family.

The shape of families is changing in the U.S. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be a change for the worse. It just has to be a change that adapts to changing times. And for now, that seems to be exactly what Co-Abode.com is trying to do.

Laura Nathan-Garner

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We live in a time when every image seems to be political. I’m not just talking about images of torture emanating from Abu Ghraib or Janet Jackson’s breast from her half-time performance at the Super Bowl either. No, these days, simply going to the movies is a political act, a statement about whether you’re “with [Bush] or with the [Democratic] terrorists.”

Act one: The Passion of the Christ

Mel Gibson’s highly controversial — and highly politicized — film The Passion of the Christ kicked off a year of moviegoing that could be construed as anything but non-partisan. In an election year where the sitting president has made no secret of the relevance of his Christian faith to his political project, Gibson’s film seemed to offer what a friend of mine called “free advertising” for the Bush/Cheney 2004 ticket. As film critic Jay Bliznick noted, Mel Gibson’s film is “for Christian followers who haven’t really read their scripture … those who have been preached to and forced to memorize verse out of context.” Needless to say, this cultural rebirth seemed to feed right into the Bush team’s plans to secure the president’s base and ensure that the estimated four million evangelical Christians who weren’t inspired enough to vote in 2000 don’t stay home again this November. By reminding evangelical Christians that Jesus died for their sins and that they must lead “moral” Christian lives to be saved, The Passion encouraged viewers to distance themselves from the immoral behaviors of Janet Jackson and all those gays and lesbians who had the nerve to demand the right to get married in San Francisco this past February. After all, says Richard Goldstein of The Village Voice, “Religious beliefs and biblical teachings are the most common reason people give for opposing same-sex marriage.” So by claiming the war on immorality as its territory, the GOP got to cast the Democratic alternative as the harbinger of immorality, obscenity, and dissolution of what Bush termed the “sacred institution between a man and a woman.”

I don’t recall the day the media stopped covering The Passion so religiously, though I’ll admit that I thought that day might never come. All I know is that fateful day came sometime after Easter (when The Passion did wonders for the box offices) and sometime shortly before that fateful day when we learned about the torture occuring in Iraq.

Act two: “The Passion of the Election”

Enter the countdown to the election and the films that are as political as they come — with or without a spin. Filmmakers and artists have long been some of the more liberal elements of their respective societies. It’s no coincidence that writers and artists were subjected to many a McCarthy hearing during the 1950s and purged from the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Writers and artists, after all, are often the ones who are the most willing to openly criticize, though there are always some who say that their work is simply art and thus apolitical. But the filmmakers who have made the political films of 2004 don’t hide their agenda. They don’t make any pretenses about being apolitical. Rather, they seek to reject the passivity that has overcome the American electorate and explicitly (or implicitly) question the Bush administration’s failure to hold itself accountable to the interests of the American people.

It’s no coincidence that most of these films are the product of the independent film industry. This may be partially because big corporate film companies such as Miramax don’t think political films can sell given the political apathy of so many Americans. And, of course, as Michael Moore’s run-in with Disney/Miramax over his contentious film Fahrenheit 911 has taught us, even movie corporations don’t want to anger the hand that feeds them in D.C.

Consider Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential (based on the book by James Moore and Wayne Slater). Completed just months before the election, and it’s no coincidence that the producers of Bush’s Brain are struggling to find a distributor. As Slater revealed in a panel discussion concerning the making of the film at the South-by-Southwest (SXSW) film festival in Austin, Texas, this past March, the fact that the film exposed the whisper campaigns and political manipulation of Bush and his right-hand man, Karl Rove, caused many potential interview subjects to back out of scheduled interviews for the film for fear of losing their jobs. Similarly, many film distribution companies have been reticent to pick up the film — at least before the election — since they’ve seen the damage the Rove can do to those who interfere with his political schemes or challenge his authority.

Why did the filmmakers make this film? As Elizabeth Reeder, one of the film’s producers, suggested, the goal of film is to demonstrate that “Rove is out of control and is playing a dangerous game that is destroying democracy.” Do Reeder and her colleagues want to get their film distributed before the election? Absolutely. As Reeder, Slater, and Moore emphasized, Bush’s Brain “makes people think and brings to light stuff we normally don’t hear about because of the White House’s tight ship.”

Die-hard Republicans might dismiss the film — and the book — as propaganda, but the producers insist: “We made a valiant effort to show all sides, and if [certain] perspectives (including Rove’s own) aren’t present, that’s the fault of those people and of Karl” (who threatened prospective interviewees for the film). And while many of the people whom the filmmakers were unable to interview were interviewed in the book, the reason for their presence in the latter and absence from the former can be attributed to the fact that Rove and Bush had initially written off the book, thinking it wouldn’t be very successful. By the time the film project came around, they’d learned better — and feared the power of the silver screen. “Unfortunately,” noted Slater, “not participating in [the film] becomes a way to dismiss it as liberal propaganda.”

As one person who was fortunate to see the film at SXSW and the strong reaction it inspired (what one woman I met termed ”rock concert meets political rally”), it’s not at all surprising that the Bush administration might not want people to see the film. Some people who traditionally vote Republican walked out of the theater after seeking the film in shock, questioning whether they could really justify voting for Team Bush/Rove for another four years. But there were only 1200 people in that theater — enough to decide the election in Florida, but certainly not enough to change the outcome in the Republican stranglehold that is Texas.

Bush’s Brain hasn’t received all of the press that Fahrenheit 911 has, however. That’s likely because, to the best of my knowledge, no major distributor has even tentatively struck a deal with the producers. If one had done so, the story would most certainly be making headlines. But the attention given to Michael Moore’s film is a good indicator of the fate Bush’s Brain might have (minus the attention-grabbing that Michael Moore typically brings with him).

When I was watching some news show on TV last week, the commentators were debating about whether Fahrenheit 911 should be distributed at all — by Disney or anyone else. There were several commentators — not all of whom are Bush fans — who suggested Moore simply didn’t have the right to make such a film and that it wasn’t in the best interest of filmgoers to be inundated with stories of “conspiracy” regarding 9/11. But that was a cop-out. Do these people seriously think that moviegoers just take everything they see at face-value? Are we not intelligent enough to form our own opinions — not just about the cinematography, the acting, the directing, but about what we’re told and how we’re told it? More significantly, if we are going to vote, if democracy is going to be representative and represent a wide array of opinions, then shouldn’t films like these be distributed so that people can make more informed choices, so that a wider array of perspectives can be represented? That doesn’t mean people have to go see such movies. If moviegoers and voters believe they’ve already made up their minds, if they find movies of a particular political persuasion offensive, then they can choose not to see them. But by the same account, shouldn’t the undecided, those who want to see a good movie, and those who are interested in seeing films that are consistent with their own views get to choose to see those movies?

All of this is not to say that the media hype over Fahrenheit 911, like that over The Passion of the Christ, is uncalled for. In many ways, such debates can be productive; they can promote discussion not just of the limits to freedom of speech and expression at a time when civil liberties are being curbed but also about the qualifications of our leaders and their political agendas (overt and covert). But, ironically, while The Passion may have been political as a result of its context — the Bush administration’s religio-political agenda and the election year timing — no one questioned whether Gibson had the right to make his film and the right to distrubute it. Sure, there was outrage about his characterization of the Jews and the violence that saturated the film. But no one seemed to question his right to make the film. Why is it that when the content of a film is explicitly political (as is the case with Bush’s Brain and Fahrenheit 911), we start to question whether filmmakers have the right to criticize our leaders? Perhaps it has something to do with Gibson’s reknown as a filmmaker compared to the relatively smaller political and film clout of the independent filmmakers who made the films about Bush’s agenda. But that cannot possibly suffice as the explanation. The context/content distinction must mean something. Whatever it is, my fear is that by boiling these debates over films with overtly political content down to “this filmmaker has/does not have the right to have this film” distributed, the more important debates don’t get had, undermining the political and creative potential of such films and their filmmakers. And in the process, they just might undermine the creative potential of democracy that Hollywood tends to pride itself on.

Laura Nathan-Garner

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A film that has been harshly condemned as anti-Semitic has now been altered, in the hands of Hezbollah, to make it unequivocally anti-American. Al-Manar, the Hezbollah-backed satellite television channel that is based in Lebanon, has recently begun broadcasts of an altered version of the trailer for Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ; the piece is titled The Passion of the Iraqis.

Al-Manar has changed the trailer for The Passion of the Christ to highlight the recent events at Abu Ghraib prison, and according to the BBC:

As the portentous music plays, a blood-stained hand flexes in pain. The screen fades to black as the words “No Mercy” fade up in white. A nail is seen being driven into the hand. The words “No Compromise” appear … as the music reaches its crescendo, the words “The Passion of the Christ” are replaced by “The Passion of the Iraqis.” Then one of the images of alleged American abuse of Iraqi prisoners that shocked the world flashes up on screen. It is the picture of a hooded Iraqi prisoner, arms outstretched, standing on a box in a mock electrocution.

Al-Manar — popular, political, and available in the Middle East where there is a satellite dish — constantly and effectively combines an unwavering political stance with entertainment and a strong reliance on a sense of pan-Arab suffering and solidarity. According to the BBC, al-Manar “has attracted a growing audience in the Arab world partly because of the emotional pull of its video edits of Palestinian and Iraqi suffering set to mournful music.”

Last year, al-Manar broadcast a 26-part mini-series, aired during the month of Ramadan, titled “al-Shatat” — the Diaspora — a highly controversial series which critics denounced as virulently anti-Semitic. “Al-Shatat” depicts the development of the Zionist movement between 1812 and 1948 and the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, and features segments about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a document which asserts that there is a Jewish conspiracy for world domination; scholars consider the document to be a forgery, created in czarist Russia, the purpose of which was to justify persecution of the Jews.  

Horrified at the content of the series, coupled with al-Manar’s rising popularity across the Arab world, Richard Boucher, a State Department spokesman, stated: “We view these programs as unacceptable.”

Equally unpalatable for many but successful for al-Manar is “The Mission,” a quiz show in which contestants who successfully answer questions advance on a virtual map, step by step, towards Jerusalem. If a contestant accomplishes his mission and steps on Jerusalem, the producers of the show play a Hezbollah song, the lyrics of which unsurprisingly proclaim “Jerusalem is ours and we are coming to it.”

The United States government considers Hezbollah — a movement that appeared in the early 1980s — to be a terrorist organization. It is now also a recognized, even mainstream, Lebanese political party; there are nine members of Hezbollah in the Lebanese parliament.  

Not only do we now have an unapologetically jingoist Fox to an unapologetically political al-Manar and wildly popular al-Jazeera, we also have the American ventures into Arabic language media, such as Hi, a lifestyle magazine targeted at the 18- to 35-year-old age bracket for both men and women, and the U.S.-run Arabic language television network, al-Hurra, and Radio Sawa. In recent months, the dividing line between physical and propaganda warfare has become increasingly blurred, as evidenced by the violence that erupted after the Coalition Provisional Authority shut down al-Hawzah, a weekly newspaper run by Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric in Iraq. Such violence should serve as a warning and a reminder that media organizations must be cognizant of the fact that what is flashed across their screens and what is pawned off as news may have direct and violent repercussions.  

Mimi Hanaoka