The New Homophobia: It's Everywhere!
The Malcontent aims true and shoots straight: The Grievance Gays
"What to make of the new definition of homophobia now concretely embedded in gay thought? No longer do we ask for amorphous tolerance and equality before the law. Now we seek not mere acceptance, but affirmation and security in all areas of politics, media, sports, entertainment, and advertising. A grimace from the face of an NFL player and an odd throwaway comment, and soon organizations like the HRC speak of violence against gay youth in response. Straight men must now always be comfortable with displays of same-sex affection, and if they are not, they must be hidden, silenced, scrubbed clean of public record. Anything less is harm against gays. You will do nothing less than celebrate and accept every aspect of our lives, or you will learn to shut up."
Me? I thought the Snickers commercial was entirely unnoteworthy. That anyone could even find something homophobic and offensive about what is so clearly a mocking of the traditional notion of guyhood is beyond me . . . and yeah yeah yeah, the website had NFL football players reacting in a kind of "Wha? Oh, no, that's just wrong!" fashion as they were shown the commercial. But c'mon -- what is it that Grievance Gays expect? 100% thumbs up from 100% of the population? The Jews would kill for those kind of approval numbers, and they've had thousands of years to work at it.
Being gay used to mean being able to withstand a certain amount of criticism and social disapproval in the understanding that deliberately choosing the road less travelled necessarily entails a bit of personal struggle. But now all we seem to have are a bunch of shallow, silly queens all huffed up about a candy bar commercial that takes a riff on Disney's famous "Lady and the Tramp" spaghetti-romance scene, albeit with two greasy male mechanics in a garage. Honestly, is this the worst that it gets? Are things now so easy for gay Americans that we have to manufacture bigotry where it doesn't actually exist?
I looked upon the whole thing as visible progress rather than a slight. I mean, two guys got face time during a Super Bowl commercial. When was the last time that ever happened? In thirty seconds, a Super Bowl candy bar commercial managed to completely brush aside the notion of the gay man as cultural victim while simultaneously sending up Disneyesque notions of romance, masculinity and social mores. This should have been the commercial that queer advocates embraced, but the Grievance Gays decided to get all up in arms about it, instead.
They chose poorly.
Where the Grievance Gays see homophobia, I see the tacit recognition that romantic same-sex relationships are now an established part of our mainstream culture -- two knuckle-head mechanics are shown to be completely and absolutely aware of the potential social implications of their inadvertent physical contact, so much so that they resort to deliberately nonsensical macho stereotypes, as if manhood is defined as the ability to suffer pain or gulp toxic substances. And it's played for laughs, not because the commercial is making fun of gays, but because it's making fun of faux macho guys who are completely adrift in what were once considered clearly defined roles of manhood and virility.
Like the Super Bowl itself, for instance.
Only the thinnest of skins could find this commercial (or anyone's allegedly homophobic reaction to it) offensive. Grievance Gays -- grow a pair. If you found this commercial terribly offensive and injurious to your delicate sensibilities, perhaps you should look in the mirror a little less often. The truth is that the Snickers commercial disparages heterosexual males for their generally recognized aversions to emotional intimacy. Period. For angry gays to read anything personally insulting into it is just an exercise in Narcissism, not to mention an excuse to get some more sound-bites tossed off on 24 hour cable new shows about the oppressive, bigoted American culture in which homosexuality presently thrives.
And don't even get me started on the frickin' suicide robot commercial. At least GM had the good sense to tell the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to take a hike . . .
UPDATE:
Apparently, I spoke too soon. GM has no balls, either.
Western culture is doomed.