Vito: Calling Out Hollywood's Portrayals of Gays and Lesbians

This week I watched HBO's documentary film "Vito", which tells the story of Vito Russo, a gay man from NYC who found his voices as an gay advocate in the aftermath of Stonewall. He was an active critic of LGBT portrayals in the media. In the 80s he published his book called "The Celluloid Closet", the first major book to critique these portrayals in Hollywood. When the AIDS epidemic shook the gay community, Vito formed ACT UP, an advocacy group for justice, before his death from the disease in the 90s.

The film is a classic-style documentary: a blend of historical images, clips, and interviews by those who new the subject best, but what makes it so captivating is it's relevance almost 50 years later. I was left wondering at the end of the film what Vito would think of the amount of progress we have made for LGBT individuals since, but also the amount of work we still have left to do--particularly when it comes to visibility and representation in the media.

Gossip Girl

One show I have recently begun binge watching on Netflix is Gossip Girl. The story focuses on a group of privileged teens, Blair Waldorf, Serena van der Woodsen, Nate Archibald, Chuck Bass and Dan Humphrey, living on the Upper Eastside of New York City. The show is narrated by Gossip Girl, a ruthless and mysterious blogger who reveals the teen's deepest secrets. The television series is based on the book series of the same name written by Cecily von Ziegesar.

The series began with the return of Upper East Side "It Girl" Serena van der Woodsen, after a long, mysterious stay at a boarding school in Cornwall, Connecticut. It is revealed that she has had a scandalous past that continues to haunt her throughout the show and she is notorious for her many on-again, off-again relationships with countless male characters as well as for her rebellious drive-outs. Blair Waldorf, who is described as the queen at the center of the chess game, is a longtime friend and occasional rival of Serena's, and the queen bee of Constance Billard School's social scene. The story also follows Chuck Bass, who serves as the show's antihero, being a womanizer and party lover with a troubled life and past that provide a hidden vulnerable side, and “Golden Boy" Nate Archibald, always being fought over by the prominent female characters, and deals with a lot of issues that compromise his "perfect" life. Gossip Girl ran for 6 seasons before they producers decided to end the show with the reveal of who Gossip Girl really was.

One of the things I found most interesting about the show was their advertising methods. The show was notorious for it's mixed reviews, but after receiving horrible criticism from a couple different sources for it's risqué content, they decided to take those reviews and use them as part of an advertising campaign. I found this entirely innovative and to be an interesting twist on typical advertising methods.

Ellen Degeneres' response to online critic, Larry Tomczak

Ellen Degeneres, who has her own popular talk show, responded to a pastor, Larry Tomczak, on accusing her of promoting a gay agenda along with the rest of the media.

Larry stated, "Ellen DeGeneres celebrates her lesbianism and "marriage" in between appearances of guests like Taylor Swift to attract young girls."

As a longtime outspoken leader in the conservative community, Tomczak encouraged parents to fight the "indoctrination and propaganda coming from those advocating a gay lifestyle," offering advice for keeping children out of the influence of stars like DeGeneres, Jillian Michaels, Anderson Cooper, and Michael Sam.

Ellen usually does not answer to online critic's, but as she said on her show, she decided to make an exception to being on this list, and responded perfectly on her talk show.

Christian writer Larry Tomczak, who regularly writes for the Christian Post, is outraged at the gay agenda in Hollywood.  He recently addressed the "tsunami" of gay acceptance, claiming it is an "abomination."  Ellen responds in a witty and respectful way.  Ellen states that she is married, not quote on quote "married".  She then goes on to say that she does not even know what "celebrating her lesbianism" means, and continues to make fun of the ignorant fact.  Ellen accuses Larry of watching a lot of gay TV!  As he criticized many other TV shows that feature gay couples.

To conclude, she said: "The only way I’m trying to influence people is to be more kind and compassionate with one another.  That is the message I’m sending out. I don’t have an agenda. I’m not here to brainwash anyone." 

Then an assistant handed her a black and white hypnosis wheel which she began twirling at the camera, and spoke her closing statement.
"Attention youth of the world: I want you to live your lives being exactly who you are. Be true to yourself — the most important thing is to be true to yourself.
The second most important thing is that you wear Ellen underwear and only Ellen underwear."

I applaud Ellen for being so cool, calm, and collected about her response.  The fact that she can turn anything into a humorous joke makes her the beloved talk show host that everyone loves.  I do believe Larry was out of line to attack TV shows and celebrities, and I believe that Ellen handled it very maturely.  

Larry Tomczak's article:  http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/heres-the-deal/47834-avalanche-of-immoral-propaganda-targets-our-youth

Ellen's response:  http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/heres-the-deal/47834-avalanche-of-immoral-propaganda-targets-our-youth

Too critical?

I have always been a fan of Disney movies.  Always.  I still go to see Disney and Pixar movies in theaters, and still feel the same amount of joy I did when I was a little girl.  I contribute this feeling to two things - 1) me being such a child at heart and 2) because Disney is doing something right.  I came across a blog that brought up a lot of points that I didn't necessarily agree with, but at the same time sort of understood.

"I want my children to be able to experience the same movies, however, as an informed adult I am not sure I want to support a company that produces racism, sexism, violence and many other politically incorrect issues."

*Sigh* Alright... first of all, we need to consider the time that most of these movies were created.  Most classic Disney movies came out decades ago, where these issues of racism, sexism, and violence were relevant to the time.  Not to mention, the "offensive" characters are usually the villains.  A huge controversy began over the line "Where they cut off your ears if they don't like your face" from Aladdin.  I have seen Aladdin many times on VHS (aka BEFORE the line was changed to "where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense") and never did I find that line offensive until I actually read about it and became and informed adult.  Five year old Courtney didn't even notice this line, she was more concerned on the music and the color and the animation.  

"Perhaps the most offensive and ignorant part of any movie is simply the size and body image of Ariel in "The Little Mermaid". Her figure is completely unrealistic and the it also gives the message that if a girl is beautiful, skinny, and has large breasts and long flowing hair she can date any man no matter what her personality may be."

Sure, Disney favors the attractive.  I have never watched a Disney film with an ugly princess or where the prince wasn't chiseled to perfection.  But let's open our eyes- that's media.  Media favors the "attractive".  The focus in these films is never about how the characters look, but what they achieve.  It's their attitude and their perseverance that takes them far, not their good looks. 

"Even though I loved Disney movies as a child and would not give up watching them even because of all the politically incorrect and inappropriate messages I still think they are valuable to children's imagination and fantasies. I will have to grapple with the idea of showing them to my children, and it will be a difficult decision"

Alright.  Take a deep breath.  They're not that bad.  Most children don't comprehend the more "adult" based content in these movies.  I know I didn't.  None of my opinons on races, politics, or sex stem from Disney films.  Not to mention, Disney is improving their variety.  Example: "The Princess and the Frog" features an African American princess... see?  They're making strides.

Media is media.  It's always going to be skewed.  

Halo 4

My schedule this semester is tough to describe, but on Monday through Wednesday I have about an hour to myself until 10PM. So in that hour there’s a forty percent chance that I’m playing Halo 3 on Xbox live. I’m hoping I can stop anytime I want, but I think it’s getting me hooked again. The last time I played this game would have been junior year of high school. After two years of not playing, as one can imagine, I was quite rusty. Was I specifically bad? No, but compared to how good I was one could say there was a lot of room for improvement.

I used to be amazing, the record on my old account was winning 881 out of 1009 games. Online you play against people that have the same "skill rank" on a scale from 1-50, 50 being the highest. The way you rank up is by continuously and consecutively winning games. Consequently if you lose, you rank down. To become a 50 you need to win roughly sixty games in a row. I would play with my best friend from home and I had a 50 in Team Doubles. In other playlists I had 48, 46, 42, 38 and 20 in a playlist I did not play much. So I enjoyed being able to not do homework in high school and constantly win games a majority of the time I played.  

So now the year is 2012, the year the world is supposedly going to end. And even though Halo 4 is coming out I feel as though the Halo franchise is officially over. A gameplay trailer of Halo 4 came out and it is no longer Halo. It lost many aspects of it that made Halo, well Halo. Throughout all of its life there was no ability to sprint in Halo, but they added it to this edition. On top of that they added gravity to sniper shots, to make it more realistic, but the thing about Halo was that there was nothing realistic about it in the first place. The main character is a six/seven foot tall man that can jump at least ten feet in the air. There are aliens, lasers, flying ships, you can get shot over fourteen times and still live, regenerate health quickly and you can flip tanks over with your bare hands.

On the release of Halo 3 they grossed over $300 million and millions of people played on Xbox live in the first few days. It had a lot to live up to the Legends of Halo, and Halo 2’s Xbox live experience, but they did deliver. My concern is if Halo 4 will be able to live up to the greatness of its predecessors. This is the first “Halo” game being made by a company other than Bungie. This will be made by 343 Industries. I hope that this franchise will continue to be great, but I am quite skeptical of if they have it in them to deliver a solid product.