The first letter is my favorite:
As a gay man of a certain age (I was 18 when Stonewall happened), I realize that much of what I have valued overall in my life — virtually all of it “out” — has been access to a much wider landscape of sexual and relationship possibilities than most of my straight confreres felt they had. In fact, being gay in this culture has required me to forge my own identity — cultivate it consciously — rather than have it handed down through societal institutions like marriage. I think there have been benefits to that.
That everybody has a right to get married surely is obvious. But how lovely to feel you don’t have to.
When you’re gay, it can be difficult to explain to people why your views on gay marriage are negative or apathetic. I think this letter is very well articulated. I like that it expresses how a lack of marriage rights can be of benefit to queers without attacking the institution, which would cause a lot of people to close their minds to the sentiment.
The third letter I am not as fond of:
I dunno . . . after reading the article, sounds to me like gays get married for good or dumb reasons, impulsively or after careful or neurotic consideration, exactly like straight couples.
But as a 42-year-old gay engaged man, still giddy to be on the receiving end of a marriage proposal from my Julian, I do shudder to think what the gay-marriage opponents would think of our hypergay lifestyle, which I’m hoping California will condone soon by granting real marriage rights.
Why, just the other night we went to Target with our straight friend Brian and then, to top off our gay evening, got some doughnuts. It’s just one fabulous day after another.
Or should I say fabulously normal.
This is a typical example of the “gays should be able to get married because they’re just like straight people.” If this particular gay life style is “normal,” then something else isn’t normal – probably some more "hypergay" lifestyle. The use of the word “fabulous” seems particularly offensive to me, attacking certain non-assimilationist ways of being gay (i.e. faggy).
The last letter is very interesting. It’s about the images that ran with the story, campy 50s-style portraits of the young gay couples in the article. For example:
The letter states:
I enjoyed Denizet-Lewis’s article. He created a lively and sympathetic read, chronicling the path to marriage and beyond, a path that is not so different for couples of any sexual orientation. But why the colorized, exaggerated photos, mimicking the most clichéd and self-conscious of coupled moments? Why pose Marc and Vassili in tuxedos when they specifically stated that they will sidestep all the trappings associated with “traditional” weddings? Besides the uncomfortable nod to the ’50s (an era that was not especially welcoming to gays and lesbians), it suggests that gay couples are somehow “play acting” at being married. As a civil celebrant, who has had the great joy to preside over many gay unions in New Jersey, I was offended by the way these couples were depicted, at least visually.
I think this letter misses the point, which is the campiness of the photos. It’s not an “uncomfortable nod” to the 50s, it’s a parodic nod. Pictures like these, send-ups of the 50s, are usually parodic these days even when they feature straight couples. The letter made me think of Gender Trouble by Judith Butler. Butler writes about gender parody as repeating gender norms with a difference – in this case, that the couples are both men. This is not “play acting,” it is a parody that reveals the “original” as being a copy all along (unfortunately, I don’t have Gender Trouble with me, and this is something of a paraphrase from memory). In this case, the photos point out the constructedness of straight marriage as an institution. In my view, the author of this later misread the photographs and was offended by what she read into them, something that she wouldn’t have seen if she had noted the photos’ camp effect.
3 comments:
Your last point about the intended camp of the photos is a good one. I can definitely see where your argument is coming from. Unfortunately, I'm not totally convinced. What is the intended audience of the original publication? I don't know as much about how gay camp function as you do, buy I'm concerned that we are assuming that straight society doesn't understand camp in the ways it is necessarily intended. I might argue that if I were a straight person (oh god the image! hahaha) I might not pick up on the parody at all.
p.s. where is said, "we are assuming that straight society doesn't understand camp" I intended to say, "we are assuming that straight society does understand camp..."
I think there's something to what you're saying, Kylen, but I wonder why it matters whether straight people pick up on the parody. Why should that be the measure of whether the parody is effective or not? In fact, since it's camp, which is a queer strategy, and it's an article about gay men in the leading newspaper in the U.S. city with the largest gay population, I would say that it's reasonable to address a queer audience.
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