Category: queer

Film-in-Progress: Salina Conlan’s “Resistance”

One of the cool things about playing in fannish spaces is that you meet a lot of cool, stunningly creative people. While lots of people question the value of transformative work (which I don’t, and neither does Celia Tan, who is also someone I know through fandom), many people who play in transformative spaces, also play in original ones.

Among them is Salina Conlan, who I first met at the Gallifrey One convention as part of a somewhat legendary team of Torchwood cosplayers. She’s one of those people I see once a year and get to have a cool mutual respect thing with because we love some fiction in a somewhat similar way.

Salina is currently working on her senior thesis film Resistance, which is about a reporter, who happens to be gay, going to Iraq to cover a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” related story and then has to reassess his priorities (she’ll give you a better summary below).

As a queer person and someone with a journalism background who now does work about the media, this was pretty exciting to me, and not just because Salina’s good at stuff. So, I thought I’d let her talk a bit about the project here to help her get the word out about the film and her fund raising efforts:

Can you give us a brief synopsis of the film?

Reporter Joe Hodges goes to Iraq to interview soldiers about the DADT repeal and a soldier from their unit who was dismissed because of that. In the process he learns that things are not just black and white and the repeal doesn’t wash away the ingrained biases that people have.

Why did you choose to tell this story? With the DADT repeal process well underway, what makes this still relevant?

Originally, the script was built around the idea of a reporter who works to expose the truth and a closeted soldier, who works desperately to hide his personal truth. I think that theme is still prominent in this version of the story. I started on draft 1 in March or April of 2010 and the whole repeal came about when I was just locking down the structure of the film and the heart of the story. I wrote a few drafts while the politics bounced back and forth, then finally figured out how I wanted to tell this story regardless of how the politics ended up. DADT may be officially repealed, but the process of enforcing that repeal seems to be in limbo. More importantly, changing a policy won’t change people’s opinions. I made that notion a big theme in “Resistance.” This film goes beyond the bias of the policy and gets into the individual opinions that people have on gays, the military, service, and obligation.

What makes you the right person to be telling this story?

I love to tell stories about people. I like to get into the grit of what inspires us, what makes us tick and what are we afraid of. You can get on a soapbox and offer an audience all the facts and your opinion on the matter. There are times when that is the best way to tell a story, but I didn’t feel that way about this project. While I certainly have an opinion, I wanted this story to be about human issues. It’s a story about people that is framed by politics. I think that makes it something enjoyable to watch.

Tell us a little bit about your cast.

I’m thrilled with the actors who have come on to this project. Rory Coyle plays Joe and he brings that character to life effortlessly. Joe goes through a heck of a journey and there is some intense acting required to pull that off. Rory is so good, he makes it look easy. Ric Maddox, plays Lieutenant Daniel Burke and not only is he a very talented actor, but he served in the U.S. Army and has been really helpful with keeping the military aspects of the film as true to reality as we can get. I could take up pages and pages raving about this cast. I’m thrilled with every single person that we’ve gotten. They are all amazing actors and perform these roles perfectly.

Is this story personal for any of them, or are they just excited to tell a story that hasn’t been told very often?

From the start, many of the actors said that they were excited to work with this script. A couple of the actors shared some moments from their lives that made aspects of the story resonate with them. That was interesting to hear because it’s not necessarily the plot that they connect to, but the journey that the characters take or the way that they interact with each other. It seems to me that they like playing in that world and examining tensions between all these different characters. I give them a lot of freedom, as well as ownership of their characters. I still make sure it’s all true to the story, but these guys are so talented that I want to work with their ideas and bring out moments that are real.

I think most people know that film making is really hard, but not necessarily what goes into it. What do you want people to know about this process that they might not be aware of?

The first thing that comes to mind is that everything costs money. More than I even realized at first. Food, costumes, props, gas reimbursement, locations, permits, lodging, etc. all cost money. To make a film of this size and scope and do it justice takes a substantial chunk of cash. Yes, that’s a bit of a plug for support, but it’s something I didn’t fully realize until I was in the thick of it. I thought I could cut corners to get by – and I have – but it’s still a constant struggle to stay on budget without sacrificing quality.

The other thing is that we are filming 26 pages in 6 days. I’ve heard that in Hollywood the standard of shooting is about a page a day. Since we’re pushing for so much more, the amount of pre-planning and scheduling is insane. I’m very lucky to have a talented and patient assistant director on this project that makes our schedules and keeps us all on task. We have two days in Mojave coming up where we shoot our exteriors and we have to do those days like clockwork because we can’t afford another day on location. If we don’t shoot it then it’s cut from the script.

You’re using crowd-funding for this process. How is that going? I have my own experience with crowd-funding, and it was both really great and really stressful.

It’s going well because a few people have been so very generous. I’m trying to get the word out and compel people to help fund this because the film I’m making is one that Hollywood wouldn’t dare make right now. When studios are concerned about selling tickets and DVDs, they are less concerned about art and social commentary; especially when that commentary combines the US military and a gay storyline. I don’t blame them for that- a business is a business. Still, I’ve got this story being made. Talented people are working to bring it to life and it’s going to be good and unique. I’d hate to have so much going for this project and get held back because my bank account bottoms out.

If people can’t donate to your project, what else can they do to help?

Please spread the word. There are billions and billions of people in this world. If 3,000 of those people see this project and can contribute $1 that’s out budget. It doesn’t take much, if a lot of people are invested. I’m trying to get the word out and that’s gone pretty well, but I’m also in production so I can’t spend all day dropping notes on twitter and facebook. You guys can do that.

Also if anyone knows of resources I can utilize for getting the word out about this project, whether it’s a branch of HRC or a charity that assists soldiers who have been dismissed under the DADT policy, that information would be a huge help. If you work for a LGBT center or have a good relationship with your local LGBT community tell people about this film. Start a buzz.

What’s the rest of the time line on your shoot and post-production?

April 8 we’re back into production. We shoot for two days at a small studio in Mojave and then our last day is back near home (Long Beach). Once we get through that weekend we’re wrapped on filming. The editor has already been working on the footage from the first weekend so we’re somewhat ahead of the game. It’ll take about a month to get picture lock- that’s the first edit with no special effects, sound editing, credits, or music. The rest of the process will take another two months. Part of the reason it will take that long is because we’re all students and have to focus on passing other classes and graduating on top of finishing this film. My hope is to have it all done in June and start submitting to festivals right away.

And, while I’m sure thinking ahead is slightly overwhelming right now, what’s next when this is done?

The next steps are publicity and submissions. Once it’s done, we have to find an audience. I can submit to festivals, but then people need to come and see it. At this stage, the main way to draw a crowd is to spread the word. There are so many people trying to be seen every single day that one voice crying out is easily overlooked. However, if a lot of people are vouching for a project, it’s a lot more likely to get viewers.

When that is done, I think I’ll take a long nap and maybe a bath. It’ll be nice to have some free time again.

I might just be singing a lot of show tunes right now trash day

So the big news of today is that Patty is coming home. I’m doing research and tomorrow we’ll be grabbing her a plane ticket for April 7 or 8. For those of you not in the know, we’ve essentially been apart since September, although we got to spend a weekend in Zurich and ten days together in Cardiff in November and had about another ten days together over New Year’s (although some of that was lost to food poisoning). We’re used to this thing we do, and we’re very good at it. But this one was a long, hard slog. So while her coming home is always exciting, this one feels particularly momentous.

Meanwhile, I continue to roll around in the Glee fandom (someone drew art for one of my stories yesterday!), which we have already established will be her time to be all “Yeah, reading a book now,” when she comes home. Despite the fact that we met through fandom (thank you, Ellen Kushner), we don’t actually share fandoms with much frequency. Although sometimes she call me Jack when I’m being particularly egregious, so it’s another wacky thing we navigate with good humor.

Speaking of pop-culture (this is the flimsiest segue ever), I’ve been meaning to make note of Rebecca Black, a teen who put out a really terrible video thanks to her parents paying to make it happen. The back story is as fascinating as the reaction to the video (which truly must be experienced to be believed). It raises a lot of questions about how we define a person as a public or private person in the digital age, bullying, slut-shaming, and whether there really is any such thing as bad publicity. I’d urge you to read this one.

Also deeply compelling is this piece about a mom having to unpack slut-shaming on the playground. Her son is eleven, and expressed to her disapproval that one girl he knew was kissing a lot of boys. And the reason he felt it was a problem seemed to be because of her gender.

Meanwhile, while out of the realm of stuff I often write about, it seems necessary that I note the existence of Mark Kirby, A. J. Sapolnick and their son Digby, a family that doesn’t seem to firmly fit into the category of fact, fiction, or art, because they’re pretty much all three all the time.

Next, a story that’s so irritating, I could write a full post on it, but I can’t bring myself to: an author pulls a story of hers from a YA anthology because the editor says that the publisher won’t like that the main couple in it are two boys and one has to be turned into a girl. Of course, later it turns out the publisher doesn’t care and the editor is defending herself with “Well, I assumed other people are homophobic, but I’m not; I once touched a gay person.” Not even kidding. I so do not have the bandwidth for this crap. But I will note, I am sick of my sexuality being described as alternative. At least we didn’t hit “lifestyle” on the bingo card.

Finally, on one more personal note, there are only 7 seats left in my Public Relations for Creatives 101 class on March 31, so if you’re planning to register, you should do so soon.

A few quick goodies

I’m in Boston right now, and about to do some meetings, but in the meantime, I can still keep you at least marginally entertained.

First, you can catch me over on the 2MTL (that’s Two-minute Time Lord to you) podcast talking about how and why people mourn fictional characters. Chip gives great interview and makes me sound smart. Also, the the music under his opener is really worth a giggle in all the best ways, but we do try to jump into the topic as seriously and respectfully as we can. It was super fun to do, and um, you can hear my shockingly girlish giggle at one point.

Next, for those of you who still actually read my LiveJournal, I’ve committed some Glee fanfic (and thanks, by the way, for putting up with my “Oh, hey, shiny,” about all that). I might just have some meta for you here later about Blaine’s hair styling choices and race/ethnic identity and private school. Not even kidding. And I’ll certainly totally at least have some less serious business meta back on LJ about why I wrote the story I did and what is and isn’t realistic about it (and why I made those choices), and why, aside from parts of Glee being problematic, writing about some of the non-problematic parts of Glee (like the well-rendered queer relationships) actually runs the risk of creating whole new problems because of certain aspects of fandom culture and its tropes.

Glee: Teen narratives and measuring up

One of the truly great things about working at home is being able to sing along really loudly with the stereo. Yes, this post is secretly about Glee. Actually, not so secretly, because aside from being in the obsession stage, I’m in the anger stage.

This is why I don’t watch shows about high school. This is why I resisted Buffy for so long. This is why I can’t watch stuff like 90210. Because this stuff makes me angry. It’s really true, you know, no one ever gets over high school. Which is why these shows work. But….

It’s hard for me to watch shows about people that would be mean to me. I almost couldn’t watch Buffy‘s first season because Cordelia made me so uncomfortable I kept wanting to get up and pace, or, better, leave the room. And I know Buffy and her friends are supposed to be misfits and all, but still, they’re good looking and have each other. There’s a reason, after all, that I tell people that maybe Andrew is my favorite character in Buffy, and it’s because he’s not even cool enough to be their friend. He’s a loser. And he does some terrible stuff. And he’s so awkward and pathetic that our nerdtastic heroes even tell him so all the time. But it works out okay for him in the end. So he feels a lot, well, safer to me than the rest of the crew. He and I could have been part of the same pathetic friends network for sure. Buffy and me? Probably not so much.

Now that I’m writing this out, I promise you, I know how ridiculous it sounds. But it’s really true for me. It may also be why I don’t really read YA. Because it either reminds me of horrible books I had to read for summer reading examinations in private school, which usually involved coming of age stories about girls confronting the 19th-century American wilderness, or of all the ways I failed at being a delightfully quirky, gorgeous, magical teen.

So, despite (or because of), staying up to 7am (I’m so serious and so full of shame) to watch all of the second season of Glee the other night, I kind of want to punch a wall. In part because all the New Directions kids are more or less horrible to each other, and when they are not being horrible to each other they back each other up like nobody’s business. Also there’s making out. And music! Mostly, I didn’t have any of that in school. Blaine’s GAP disaster is about as magical as high school ever got for me, and that was on a good day. And I never looked that good in my uniform. I suppose that’s true for most of us.

But of course, what’s really getting me, having seen the bigger Kurt arc now is, how does this show exist? Or, I suppose more accurately, gay kids today are so damn lucky, which, okay, isn’t true. It’s still really, really hard to be a gay teenager, and for a lot of people it’s fundamentally terrifying and dangerous. And I was lucky; in that I was safe and sneaky and didn’t have any reason to think I was a bad person for being queer. On the other hand, I do remember spending a lot of time looking at the one out girl at my school and how people called her ugly and wondering if this meant I would be ugly too and quietly seething about how gay boys were socially luminous and gay girls, well, weren’t.

That sort of nonsense hasn’t really changed of course, and I always have to think of it when I think about my gender stuff, which I always fear is a mere longing for privilege. But the fact is I grew up as the kid who never got to buy the personalized pencils at the stationary shop (because I had a weird name) and never saw people on TV who looked like me (because I had a weird face). I never got to watch stories about teenagers whose lives bore any resemblance to mine because I had such a weird education — I used to study the The Brady Bunch in hopes of understanding life in America, where boys fixed radios and longed for cars and there was football and homecoming. And I sure as hell never saw a first kiss on TV that bore any connection to the idea that someone like me could be chosen for something other than some boy deigning to cure me of my ugliness and awkwardness.

And in a lot of ways, Glee is, of course, more of the same. Pretty fake-nerds with the sort of American lives people in New York City don’t get to have and where the boys are always cooler than the girls. But the way Kurt is sort of strange looking and takes everything so seriously and how all these queered characters are front and center in different ways and this show is a hit? Really? Really really really? It’s sort of awesome.

Except for the part where I still feel jealous and cheated, even if a huge part of my fannish journey over the years has been about going from identifying with characters who are self-injurious and wear their wounds on the outside (e.g., Severus Snape) to identifying with characters whose circumstances are pretty screwed up, but are going to do their damnedest to do everything (e.g., Jack Harkness). I felt so guilty, the first time I identified with a fictional character that was better looking than me. It’s quite a bit funny weird.

And I’m definitely having that identification guilt thing about Blaine on Glee, because seriously? If a photo exists of me in school uniform, you’re never, ever seeing it; we’d all be disappointed. And I’m probably a bit of an ass for thinking he’s awesome largely because he goes to private school and is good at stuff and parts of fandom sort of hate him for that (because, er, parts of fandom sort of can’t stand me either for some of the same reasons). But hey, if shows about high school aren’t for addressing the too long lingering wounds of that period in our lives as reenacted in our adult existences, then I don’t really know what they are for.

When I think about this ridiculous simmering anger I feel about not having characters like Santana and Kurt and Blaine on my screen when I was sixteen, I wind up reminding myself that I never could have stood to watch this show at that point in my life. Sure, maybe I wouldn’t have felt so alone. But I still wouldn’t have had cars or football or friends or kisses or known how to identify with all that luminousness.

I can’t tell you how much I hope that’s just my own brokenness. Because all my well-compartmentalized neuroses aside, it makes me sad to think that there are some stories that are just too lovely to help, because you just don’t think you can measure up.

But for me, that’s what fandom’s about in the end. Measuring up. Giving yourself permission to measure up, to say that your real life and real flesh and real everything is as good as fiction. Maybe that’s not important to everyone; maybe that’s weird. But I’m an only child, and stories were my world. They were who I had to keep up with, and I’m still learning how. In spite of how hard I find it sometimes, it sure is a lot of fun.

Glee and the victory moment

Before we get started, this post contains spoilers about a very recently aired episode of a major TV show. This blog, as a rule, contains lots of spoilers. I’ll use cut tags in the community that is LiveJournal, but it doesn’t suit my purposes or technology here. So Snape killed Dumbledore; Tara got shot; and Ianto Jones was killed by a vomiting, drug-addicted, three-headed turkey alien. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’m going to talk about Glee.

I’m not a Glee fan. I’m not really anti-Glee either, it’s just that I’ve watched parts of a few episodes here and there and it hasn’t grabbed me. It should grab me for all sorts of reasons, but I find myself profoundly resistant to how much they don’t utilize the movie tv musical form to its full advantage.

By making sure the presence of the songs is relatively naturalistic — which isn’t to say they aren’t bizarre and unlikely, but do people announce they are going to sing and have relatively legitimate plot reasons for singing — the show is never quite a heightened reality as far as I can tell. Songs do not substitute for months of relationship development; they illustrate, rather than embody, change. So to me, the bits I’ve watched always seem to hover endlessly on the cusp of the moments I’m actually looking for. It’s a bit like when you can’t sneeze, and we all know what that’s like.

But I did just watch “Original Song,” because I was so profoundly taken with a particular moment in it I caught on YouTube. The surprise may be that, that moment wasn’t the Blaine and Kurt kiss (which was admittedly pretty remarkable and nuanced). The moment was the Warblers’ performance of “Raise Your Glass.”

I love Pink’s “Raise Your Glass.” For me it’s brilliant and real and relevant, and the video (which contains a lot of confrontational stuff and so engenders lots of interpretations and reactions, not all of them positive) makes me cry pretty much every time I see it. But it’s about, at its heart, being different, and never ever being able to hide it.

So when the Warblers get up at that competition in their grey trousers and smart blazers with the red piping and Blaine — perfect, pretty Blaine — bursts into that song, it’s astounding to me, especially after that duet with Kurt, especially when he’s walking backwards across the stage and, grinning, beckons the rest of the Warblers towards him. There are so many implications there at once — is it a gesture of asking people to follow him towards something awesome? or of calling someone into a fight? or of seduction? It’s hugely powerful to me in its ambiguity.

It’s also hugely powerful to me because it’s a reminder that looking for signifiers in people — are they my tribe? are they safe? will they understand? — is a useful mechanism, but it’s not remotely the whole truth. It’s not always accurate. And for people who aren’t necessarily assumed to be what they are, to see all those uniformed boys saying we’re all freaks, obvious categories or signifiers aside, is huge. It implies a world of which I don’t have to be afraid.

One of the videos going around the Internet today is of a group of Glee fans of indeterminate age reacting to the Blaine and Kurt kiss. It’s a dark, grainy video and hard to see, but it seems like a mix of genders and, I’ll go out on a limb and assume, orientations. It’s pretty fantastic to watch them cheer so madly, because I never got that.

There were no gay kisses on network TV when I was a teenager. Or when I was in college. It was a long time after when there finally were. And that was after a great deal of ridiculous debate and really pathetic news articles about the whole thing first. I know that Tara and Willow were huge for a lot of people, but watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer as late as I did, it was actually just sort of weird and sad for me the way they couldn’t have them kiss for ages and how that was somehow supposed to be enough.

I consume a lot of media. And these days it has a lot of queer content in it. Some of it speaks to me, some of it doesn’t. But the stuff that speaks to me, no matter how much I talk about it because that’s what I do, speaks to me in a pretty personal way. I’ll watch an episode of something and walk around with a little secret smile about it for days (I just rewatched the first two seasons of Torchwood and had forgotten some of the interpersonal loveliness in it). I don’t, as a rule, want to stand up and cheer no matter how much I’m enjoying myself. For me, it mostly feels too late to have the moment those fans in the Glee-viewing video are having.

But when Blaine starts knocking “Raise Your Glass” out of the park, I had that moment. And the reason was because he was absolutely up there performing for both the intradiegetic and extradiegetic audiences as a gay teen who is happy and smitten and confident and sexy and none of that is why he’s up there singing about being a freak. He’s singing about being a freak, because everyone is a freak, and because life is awesome.

Glee, I’ve heard, gets a lot of stuff wrong, especially when it comes to people with disabilities (remember, other than this one episode, I’ve seen about 20% of a handful of different episodes, so I am, in fact, relaying other people’s insights to you that I am absolutely not qualified to comment on). But the show really does seem to get something remarkably right with its gay teens. Just the fact that the show has multiple queer characters whose queernesses read so differently is fantastic; we are not a monolith.

But what I really love? Is that Blaine is a leader. And readily followed. And deeply insecure. And struggling with the consequences of talent and attention. And maybe it’s the blazer and my sense that I can understand the world of his part of the show more than I can understand the world of the other parts of the show (entertaining side note: Dalton is also the name of a notorious New York City private school at which I attended summer camp as a kid). But he knows he’s lucky. And he just grabs for things. It’s all there in “Raise Your Glass,” which is his victory moment after doing something he adores (singing) with someone he adores (Kurt, who is complex and remarkable in his own right). It’s glorious.

Most of us don’t get victory moments like Blaine’s on that stage. Not in front of a cheering crowd, not spurring every one of your friends on to more joy and awesomeness. But somehow we get let into that moment in “Original Song,” and it’s startling. It’s why musicals matter. Hell, it’s why music matters.

I don’t often wish I were younger than I am. But wow, jump to my feet cheering during all that in my parents’ living room? Someone was somewhere. A lot of someones. What a thing!

But here’s another thing I want, that I believe we can, and must, have. I want queer female characters on TV that are also get to your feet and cheer moments like Blaine’s “Raise Your Glass.” For me, Blaine is kinda sorta enough, but then I look at Blaine and think I need to try my hair like that; he’s seriously a look that could work for me. But he’s absolutely not enough for a lot queer female teens out there; and he’s not enough for all the people who have a lot more lessons to learn about queer folks than “Oh hey, they’re actual individual humans.”

I know better than to hold my breath. But I also know, that like this instant on Glee, that moment just might sneak up on me, on all of us, at any time. I hope there’s some crowd of kids in a living room somewhere cheering when it happens.

And I also hope, to quote the song, they are never anything but loud. I am struck, always, that the most central message and lesson of my own queer experience has always been, simply, speak.

I don’t imagine any of this is going to make me start watching Glee, unless I succumb for scholarly reasons. The show still gives me that feeling like when you need to sneeze but can’t. To me, the “Raise Your Glass” moment is just proof that, that feeling is real and makes sense. Because when Glee delivers? Apparently it really delivers.

(ETA, 5/12/2011: And that was then and this is now. I’m completely hooked on this ridiculous show.)

the distance to Mars

In the midst of everything else that happened in this very heavy news week, Maryland sent its equal marriage rights bill back to committee. Despite what was initially thought, the votes just weren’t there, the state just wasn’t ready yet.

Equal marriage rights are a tricky topic for me as a queer person, and, believe it or not, one I don’t actually like talking about. There are huge issues of heteronormativity and queer culture erasure involved in the discussion, as well as issues regarding misogyny, and an ongoing hunch I have that much of mainstream heterosexual culture is characterized by such intense and unnecessary hostility and suspicion between the genders, that what really terrifies people about equal marriage rights is the option to opt out of that misery that doesn’t really work for them, as opposed to a parallel discussion about trying to fix the often toxic male-female dynamics in this country.

A lot of the gay couples I know are married. Some legally, some spiritually, some both. Some in states where their marriages are recognized, and some in states where they aren’t. The one thing all these couples have in common? Equal marriage rights didn’t exist when they were kids, anywhere, and so they’ve all had to adjust to being pioneers. For some of them, it’s easy. For some of them, it’s easy with a bit of peculiar on the side. And for some of them, they still feel like they have to mention their spouse like a question mark, as if they won’t be believed, as if no amount of paper in the world could make it make sense — not just to others, but to themselves — even as it’s actually happening.

One of the things I think we overlook in the discussion of equal marriage rights is the importance of narrative. Not political narrative or marketing narrative or campaigning narrative, but stories, fiction, the way what is possible often comes to us through the mechanism of what it is not actually a non-fictional fact in the world.

In one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes, “The Waters of Mars,” which I love because it’s about death and sacrifice and early space exploration, there’s a small, completely incidental moment (it’s character development only, not narrative advancement), where someone mentions another man’s husband. It’s completely without note of how notable that is to us in the non-Whoniverse here and now. I don’t have time to find it in the disc, but trust me when I tell you it’s “blah blah blah his husband blah blah blah.”

New Whoniverse stuff is, of course, filled with things like this (see: the lesbians in “Gridlock”) that often get overlooked in the face of stuff like Captain Jack Harkness. But as someone who really loves the Whoniverse and really loves both those small moments and the absurdity (and promise and hope) that is the idea of Jack’s 51st century, it bears noting that some of my sadness this week over the equal marriage bill being tabled in Maryland comes from stories seeming far too far away.

Look, I don’t get a TARDIS. I don’t get the Doctor. I don’t get Jack. I don’t get Torchwood. I don’t get the wonder of the stars as we’re busily retiring the space shuttles. I don’t get all the things I’ve written and dreamed about my entire life. I don’t get to save the world. But wow, if people could just say “his husband” and “her wife” all the time without pause or uncertainty or question, that wouldn’t just be equal rights, that would, for me, be spaceships and dinosaurs and time travel and hope.

sometimes trash day is a day late

I’ve been speaking to Patty every other or every third day. Yesterday she had to run to the grocery while we were on the phone so I got to hear India. There sure are a lot of car horns. I continue to be her own personal news service. She continues to be awesome. I’m looking forward to when I get to think about her coming home (when we have a firm date, you too can join the countdown).

Yesterday I used Living Social to buy some language lessons at half price. If you’re in New York City, you can do the same thing today. And yes, that referral link helps me out, because if three of you sign up, I get my classes for free. You can use the classes any time this year (but you need to register by October) and the choices are French, Spanish, Italian, German, or Arabic (you don’t have to choose now). If I didn’t need German, I’d be all over the Arabic.

Also in the real, of classes, I’ve signed up to take something at Trade School where people barter their expertise. I’ve also signed up to teach a class, so I’ll let you know as soon as it’s on the schedule.

Don’t forget I’ll be reading from Whedonistas, along with Teresa Jusino, NancyKay Shapiro, and Priscilla Spencer on Monday night. We will have books to sell, one day before the official release, but numbers are limited, so get their early.

As I mentioned the other day, I have a lot of things I want to write about, including the marriage equality mess in Maryland and the discussion of victim-blaming regarding a New York Times article. Most of the discussion I’ve seen has been about the Times specifically or rape-culture generally, and I think there’s a useful component missing: which is about journalism systemically. But as ever, my life is deadlines, Japan is getting a lot of focus, both Wisconsin and Libya need to be getting a lot of focus, I’ve got some interview questions to send to a film maker who I’m going to talk to here, and I really need to clean the flat, so it may take a bit.

Right now, I’m out the door, as I want to visit the farmers market (mainly so I can report to Patty on it, it’s her favorite), before I come home and focus on getting stuff done.

news, agenda setting, and you

Since the beginning of this year, the news cycle has gone from what we call a 24-hour one (i.e., around the clock) to what I call an instantaneous one. Critical events happen, and there is no time to cover them with the weight and detail they deserve, before other critical events, often in unrelated areas, occur (in the 24-hour news cycle there isn’t necessarily new news, it’s just that we never stop talking — what’s been happening is something else). We went from the Arizona shooting, to MENA uprisings (which continue), to the union situation in the US (which is continuing), to today’s earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan.

And that’s leaving out other critical stories: WikiLeaks, the treatment of Bradley Manning, anti-bullying initiatives from the White House, equal marriage rights debates in multiple states, the appalling hearings on Islamic radicalization in the US, the war on Planned Parenthood, and the retirement from political life of the Dalai Lama. And I’m sure I’ve left out other critical stories. And that’s not even counting the stuff that’s really dropped off the radar. Like Haiti.

So what’s a person to do, when trying to do a Friday link roundup other than throw their hands up in despair?

The easy answer, the terrible answer and is my instinct to say, is I don’t know. Despite being a generalist, someone who works well on deadline, who’s very quick on the uptake, with a background in journalism and a career in media analysis, it all feels like too much, even to me, as someone whose job it is to never feel like it’s too much. But the first thing I do every morning when I wake up, is check the news on my Blackberry before I even get out of bed (something that drives Patty up the wall). I get up faster on days terrible things have happened. Today’s been one of those days.

The harder answer is, that as much as I talk about news selection and agenda setting as regards what the news puts out there, news selection and agenda setting also happens at home. It happens in what media any of us choose to consume. And, when stories get big, bad, and difficult, the impulse is often to consume less to preserve our own sense of well-being; or to consume more as if data helps us have control, as if more is always better.

But what we really need to do is be editors for ourselves. Am I annoyed ABC isn’t really covering the union crisis in the US? Yes. But I’m also annoyed when it’s all MSNBC covers, because I also need information about the MENA region (for which I’ve been relying on CNN out of the domestic options, and Al-Jezeera online for the international option). Meanwhile, I get my queer news headlines from The Advocate, but they never go into enough depth, and rely on my Twitter feed to point me to the news I need about WikiLeaks and Manning’s detention.

Of course, you aren’t me. You don’t need or want to watch two, five, or ten hours of news a day. So I’m not going to tell you to consume more news (unless you aren’t consuming any). And I’m not going to tell you what delivery technology to use. But I want to emphasize how news selection affects the information you get, especially on a day where a lot of us probably flipped on a 24-hour news channel and have left that channel on all day.

Haiti didn’t stop needing help because the media stopped covering it. The protesters in Egypt didn’t go home because the war reporters went to Libya. The right to collective bargaining isn’t safe in the US because state-level politics stories don’t often make national news. And queer people aren’t suddenly not in a civil rights battle for their very lives because you didn’t hear about a transwoman’s murder or a gay teen’s suicide or yet another damn couple who can’t get married.

The only way to get around the reality of agenda setting (which is sometimes about political agenda; sometimes about racism, sexism or homophobia; sometimes about dollars; and sometimes about an evening news program only having thirty minutes or a newspaper only having so many pages) is to do your own agenda setting which means varying your news sources as much as possible. You won’t catch everything, but you’ll catch a much broader view.

Meanwhile, I? Have dozens of issues I want to write to you about here, but I’m struggling a little at finding the interval to do so today.

I wear these things like words

I hate to begin any post with something so trite as Life’s complicated, but that seems like an easier lead-in than When I was at university, I was threatened with corrective rape.

When I was in university, I was threatened with corrective rape.

By fellow students, people I knew, people who lived in residence halls with me and served in student organizations with me, because my having a girlfriend made the school look bad, they thought. They were just going to show me what I really needed. I had to have campus security posted outside my dorm room door.

That was the same year I had to take a friend of mine to the ER after he and his boyfriend got jumped on a street corner for holding hands. There were stitches involved, because of where his head had been slammed into the corner of a newspaper vending machine.

This was also the same year I had beer bottles thrown at me from a passing truck, while walking hand in hand with my girlfriend. No, they weren’t just littering and didn’t see us; there were some slurs and the truck slowed down, pulled over, and she and I climbed over a barrier and ran through a field because we thought our lives were in danger.

It was 1991, and I had just turned 18. These experiences were hate crimes, before there was a national legal definition of such in reference to LGBT people in the US, and I was lucky they were so minor.

Yeah, I live in a world where rape threats are minor; where only20 stitches is something to be grateful for; where the fact that they didn’t catch us, means it doesn’t really count.

I don’t wear these things like badges of honor, because they’re not. I wear these things like words, because they are part of the story of my life.

Which means you don’t get to tell me, no matter what your own experiences are, how insulted or threatened I’m allowed to feel about anti-gay discourse. You also don’t get to tell me what is and is not a hate crime (it has a legal definition in the US; and we’ll try to run with that). Nor do you get to put words in my mouth when I talk about some stuff that has offended me. Believe me, if I were going to call something a hate crime, I’d use the words.

The ones that are written on me, by all the terrible things that I’m supposed to be grateful didn’t quite happen.

Life is complicated. Your mileage may vary. But don’t tell me what mine should be. Not on this subject. Not ever.

actors, playing gay, and the perils of Twitter

Lots of things about being an actor can be less than fun. Anyone who does this sort of work will tell you that there are some parts of the job that just suck: weird working hours, unsteady pay checks, unpredictably long days, filming summer scenes in the dead of winter (how to know if you can really act: can you look happy about wearing a tank top and a mini skirt in 30 degree weather?). But few things inspire quite as much dread as love scenes.

As a performer I’ve largely been spared this, but not enough not to know that yeah, it sucks. It’s one of those things that falls somewhere between ludicrous and boring and embarrassing. Why it’s awful varies with the project and the people involved. Sometimes it’s worse when you’re genuinely attracted to the other performer; sometimes it’s worse when you can’t stand them; or when you’re buddies with their spouse. All of it’s pretty anxiety producing. For me, I get this running loop of terror in my head about how I need to give a good performance and look into it, but if I look too into it, will my partner in the scene mock me (this, for the record, has never happened, but it’s the neurosis I bring to the table — everyone has at least one).

One thing that can be, or can be assumed to be, tough for a lot of people, is doing love scenes with someone of a gender they’re not attracted to in their off-screen life. Because my tastes are wide-ranging, that’s not an experience I’ve had, but I can see how it would be super weird. And I don’t find it problematic that people find it weird. There can be a lot of social taboo going on there, no matter how progressive you are and no matter how much you get paid to pretend to be someone else.

Now, knowing, in fact, that it’s super weird for a lot of people, and that there are still way too many social stigmas out there about homosexuality (let’s face it, no one ever worried about whether a lesbian is comfortable making out with a man on screen), if you’re going to be playing gay on screen, especially in a love scene, casting will seriously, seriously ask you if you’re okay with that. Your agent will talk to you about the pros and cons of the choice. And sometimes, you’ll even have to sign something saying you won’t sue anyone if this playing gay thing leads to reputational damage (for the record: I’ve been questioned by casting more closely about my willingness to play gay, even after I’ve informed casting about my own orientation, than I have been about my willingness to have live insects placed on my body).

I’m not joking. I know we all wish I were.

So at the point that you are an actor and you’re booked to do a love scene with another actor of the same sex, and you’re straight and thinking “Oh shit, I hate filming love scenes and OH MY GOD, I’ve never kissed another dude before,” you’ve already had plenty of time not to sign up for this. I get that you’re stressed. I get that it’s weird for you. And I’m not asking you not to feel that way. Because filming love scenes SUCKS.

But in this age of constant interviews and the ill-considered opportunities for general crankiness Twitter provides, please think very carefully before you speak on the record about this experience. Because when your anxiety about this process reads as “playing gay is disgusting, and I’m worried about getting the gay cooties on me,” you look like a bit of an arse. At best. And it’s really hurtful to gay fans of a given property to hear that someone can’t stand playing a character that might be someone we can actually relate to.

This happens, unsurprisingly, all the time. It’s recently happened through some now deleted tweets in one of my fandoms of choice. And it’s happened before regarding other actors and properties that are important to me. Seriously, if you’re going to be in a film (no matter how terrible) about Alexander the Great, don’t make snide comments about the gay. Ditto for Torchwood. Double plus ditto for anything that is inherently and overwhelmingly a gay narrative.

So, “Hey, I have to do this thing that’s uncomfortable for actors in general and is new to me in this particular situation ’cause I’ve never kissed a dude before and I’m feeling a little strange about it; acting is so weird” — totally cool; it’s a weird job!

But, “Any hot chicks want to help me get the gay off?” Not cool, man, not cool.