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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 2001)
Lembet 21.2001 38 BOOKS ............. ▼.............. V r~ J m r i . MrtmjMlibn Cummnnitv Chiin-h oí Rrtfcuxl lYrrntx S T 7 L CUT cn Breadway A Ifx '- In Celebration o f N atio n al Coming Out P ay ~ The gaying of America " < ' im ' /t Will and Ellen might be accepted and applauded, but w bat about the rest of us? by O r ia n a G r e e n Benefiting Esther’s Pantry & MCC-Portland ~ r with V ocalist Featuring the Music of Broadway and G rethe C a m m er m eyer ~5 wW »f ÍM SiUmc* ~ performances from the stage show Merely Players starring B arry M o r s e B arry M orse Jt. Tf'« "7<# ?****# " With Presentation of the 2001 Shepherd's Award and Farewell Tribute to Rev. Roy Cole T h u r s d a y O ctober 11.2001 World Trade Center Theater 121 SW Salm on. P ortland Doors Open at 6 pm with Silent Auction • Show 7 pm Tickets $45 - includes Post Show Reception Tickets thru FASTIXX & (jaiPied • www.outonbroadwajj.com REBECCA WEBB Longtime Co-Hott of 4M Sortkwnl ♦ • W tM lX N U I t JL * I mL> MARYANN HUMPHREYKEEVER Kkk F lirti und son 11VJM 5 n hm ttdwayrnfTrctntdttr.ctm i i"»C 4«in g V y ilH » p in ' w w w 4'rid bfO w n/ w n © WADDFIl <SrREED Eric D.Brown S01.238.Nm Gary Boyer S«ior Loan O raitart Present this certificate for a complimentary Sushi Roll of your choice when you purchase two LUNCH entrees at the Dragonfish Asian Café. DRAGONFISH ASIAN CAFE • 909 PARK AVENUE • 503.243.5991 ----------in the Paramount Hotel ....■ ------ = Expires November 30,2001. Not valid fo r cash, nor with any other promotion. S u s h i C e r t if ic a t e Present this certificate for a complimentary Sushi Roll of your choice when you purchase two DINNER entrees at the Dragonfish Asian Café. DRAGONFISH ASIAN CAFE • 909 PARK AVENUE ~==-....................... = In the Paramount Hotel " " ■ ■■ e are a living paradox. Gay men and lesbians have never enjoyed more media visibility and sup- port, yet 30 of our 50 states pro vide no legal protection of our basic rights. Polls reveal most U.S. citizens want us to have equal employment opportunities but not the right to adopt children. Author Suzanna Danuta Wal ters, with her impressive creden tials from Georgetown University and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, demonstrates she’s up to the task of dissecting this paradox and guiding us to an understanding of it. Her new book is titled All the Rage: The Story o f G ay Visibility in A m erica (University of Chicago Press, 2001; $30 hardcover). She calls our current times a historic moment. “Only 20 years GA ago when I was coming out, this world we now live in was unimag inable... gay MasterCards and gay ads, gay resorts and gay bingo, politicians courting gays and domestic partnership laws— who could even envision this moment?” So doesn’t this new visibility reveal an ideological shift in our acceptance? “I would never downplay the sig nificance of having gay characters enter main stream culture. But which images of gays are embraced, and which are pushed farther into the shadows? Heterosexuals who laugh at Will & G race may dig the aesthetic but avoid the implications.” Walters also is concerned that the kinds of gay characters easily embraced by straights are the ones who are least threatening. “Far too often, representation of gays is limited to either the exotic but ultimately unthreatening Other— the cuddly cross-dresser like RuPaul— or as gays [who are] really just like straights after all— like Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. [It’s] the ‘aren’t we all just human beings’ position that reduces cultural specificity to a bland sameness and, of course, assumes heterosexuali ty as the desirable default zone.” And that reminds Walters of another buried bias. “It’s reminiscent of the racist statement ‘but I don’t think of you as black’— implying that inclusion is based on an erasure of differ ence and an assumption of unquestioned white as good and normal.” Walters also worries that the true heart of our culture is not represented at all. “Our communities, our histories of struggle and sur vival, our imposed shame and subterfuge, our wit and alternative structures-of care— all these differences get erased and really violated when our worth is endlessly compared to that of heterosexuals.” In her book Walters expresses objections to the coming-out scenes that are a staple of so many films and television shows. “All too often, they focus [more] on the heterosexual reaction and response than the self-affirmation of the gay person. Anguished parents and compassionate ‘friends’ are the staples of these stories, focusing much more on the ‘accep tance’ and ‘understanding’ of the gay person, W th e D ick S aunders B and 503.243.5991 Expires November 30,2001. Not valid for cash, nor with any other promotion. 503-236-5599 «p m ¡ h * a ll 4 h k ra g e TH E Y S T O R Y OF V I S I B I L I T Y IN AME RI CA S U Z A N N A D A N U T A W A L T E R S thus rendering gayness still a ‘problem’ to be understood.” Political dichotomies also are examined, especially the Clinton administration, which welcomed more than 150 openly gay appointees yet failed us in so many other ways. “Clinton changed the climate even while he capitulated to anti-gay advocates,” Walters says. “His own lurches back and forth speak to the uneven development of gay rights in America. It’s not simply a forward march.” As a lesbian mother, Walters has strong views about society’s volatile attitudes toward gay parenting. “The family itself is the site where so many of our cultural and social anxi eties are played out: about sexuality, about chil dren, about relationships between individuals and the state...gay families are OK as long as they look like heterosexual families and are suspect when they attempt to revise family structures and reinvent intimacy and parenting practices.” So what does she think is a solution to all of this? “The gaying of American culture can and should be more than a fleeting fashion statement or subcultural suicide. In insisting on visibility without assimilation, the new gay movement can change the table settings them selves, not simply find the places already set at the table,” Walters believes. “A full and com plete ‘conscious integration’ of gays into Amer ican society means not just an end to the closet or double standards or gay stereotypes in popu lar culture. It means an opening up, a breaking through the tightly drawn wagons of heterosex ual assumptions that could potentially chal lenge and expand all our conceptions of family, gender, love, intimacy, sexuality.” J D O r ia n a G r e e n is happy to be visible as the Entertainment Editor o f Just Out and can be buttonholed at oriana@ justout.com .
