November 19, 2004
More Questionable Rhetoric from the Religious Right
The American Family Association ("We've got a Jesus Fish in our banner!") has a few things to say about the DreamWorks film Shark Tale - specifically, that it condones homosexuality. I haven't seen the movie, but some of the quotes and synopses they deploy show that the film is pretty straightforward in hitting the "coming out" chord - specifically, one of the titular (hee hee!) sharks is a 'closet vegetarian', who enjoys dressing up as a dolphin. His father is embarrassed by his behaviour, puzzled, even ashamed - but eventually, he comes to accept and love his son as he is.
According to AFA, this is the wrong message to be sending to kids.
They offer the caveat that "naturally, children should be taught to be accepting of others." We can all guess who AFA thinks that acceptance should exclude. But I've got news for them - it doesn't work like that. Even if you're blinkered enough to accept their premise that things like race and gender are "immutable characteristics" while sexuality is a "choice," you'd have to work hard to ignore the difficulty children (the subject at hand) are going to have in making the distinction. Their little alert on Shark Tale is meant to warn parents against taking their kids to see the movie, and perhaps also to encourage them to have a family-values oriented discussion of homosexuality. The content of which would be . . . what, exactly? "Don't talk to those sorts of people, Timmy, they are in defiance of God's laws." Each person or group you cast out of the circle of humanity makes it easier to do the same again and again. There's a poem about it that I tend to quote too much, so I won't.
Now as to their specific argument about the movie, their belief in a 'Hollywood Agenda' needs to be addressed. I think that Hollywood absolutely does promote progressive values - that is, when it's not promoting guns and patriarchy. But the place of the 'coming out' thread in the movie isn't just as a framework for the 'accept people who are different' message - kids can absorb something like that in a far less complex, referential form. The thing is, the 'coming out' aspect is pretty clearly a joke for adults. These sorts of things are a growing part of the way children's movies get made, and they may or may not be a problem (if you've ever seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon in which he tricks Elmer Fudd into shooting himself in the face, you'll probably be less concerned about the sexual overtones of Shrek). The 'coming out' subtext is there to provoke the pleasure of recognition in adult audiences that will doubtless think themselves quite savvy for catching the reference. Its presence does reflect Hollywood's leftism, but it's decidedly not there as part of a Leftist plot to turn your kids "swishy" (a term which I would remind the AFA is offensive and antiquated, if I thought they cared at all about offending gays). More accurately, it's a reflection of the casual acceptance that the wider culture feels towards homosexuality, and yet another indication that your antiquated beliefs leave you further and further out of step with the mainstream. In other words, it is actually a sinister conspiracy - perpetrated against you by the majority of your fellow Americans. Boo!
While I'm at it, allow me to offer another reading of Shark Tale, less progressive than AFA's - why is it that vegetarianism and homosexuality are equated in the movie? Now, I'm not a vegetarian (not that there's anything wrong with that), but I know plenty of non-meat eaters who could kick Ralph Reed's scrawny ass from here to Tuesday, then fuck his wife 'til Thursday. More generally, the movie (and again I'm going from AFA's quotes here) equates vegetarianism and, by extension, homosexuality with weakness and reticence. This is the real ideological crime - the reinforcement of the idea that all beefy jocks are meat-eating ladykillers, and that all skinny, wilting wallflowers are tree-huggers with light loafers. For all the rhetoric in favor of acceptance, we're not making much progress if all we have to choose from in constructing our identities are combo meals numbers 1-8.
Your reward for reading this rant will be the dulcet tones of John Ashcroft on tha M-I-C.
You're really interested in starting a culture war, here, aren't you? :)
Hey, I didn't post "Ashamed to be an American."
John Kerry's pattern is one of deception. He went to a medal burning durning Viet-Nam protestation and burnt his ribbons but kept his medals. He fought to defend his country in a war that he didn't believe in.
Let me be clear here, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CANNOT HELP THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. IT IS THE PARTY OF A PRESIDENT WHO LIES ABOUT RECEIVING A BLOW JOB WHILE AT WORK. IT IS THE PARTY OF A FLIP FLOPPER NAMED JOHN KERRY WHO RAN A CAMPAIGN BASED ON INSULTING STATISTICAL ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT HUMAN NATURE. IT IS THE PARTY OF JOHN KERRY, A LOSER WHO HAS BETRAYED A MOVEMENT ENERGIZED BY A REAL LEADER NAMED HOWARD DEAN WHO HAD THE COURAGE TO TELL THE TRUTH.
HOWARD DEAN: YOU MUST BEAT THE DEMOCRATS IN ORDER TO BEAT THE REPUBLICANS. I AM CALLING ON YOU TO LEAVE YOUR PARTY. YOU CAN OUTFUND RAISE THEM AND YOU CAN BEAT THEM.
read the full treatise at my blog:
http://www.yeekyakairforce.com/ollie_byrd_is_the_moth/blogger.html
Umm... Ollie, perhaps you haven't heard, but the Republicans won the recent election. I will say, though, that if dishonesty bothers you enough to shout about it (please, the caps hurt my eyes) you should be far more outraged by the Republican party. Their lies are more audacious and more dangerous.
Btw, the point about vegetarianism and homosexuality is a good one. I think it intersects a few interesting social trends. 1) Vegetarians are often pacifists, hippies, etc. 2) Vegetarianism is, in a more general sense, out of the mainstream. There's a significant amount of overlap between the two, but there's definitely a perceived unmanliness to not eating meat; real men are blood-thirsty and aggressive. It's ridiculous of course, but stereotypes usually are. As an aside, some notable vegetarians: Ghandi, Einstein, Percy Shelley, William Blake, the Buddha, Diogenes, Leonardo da Vinci, and Emerson among many, many others. All very swishy...
Sleepy,
Give up the culture...surrender your keyboard...come on out.
To be frank, I always thought the word culture war was a misnomer for my side. If the left wants to make war on culture, so be it.
the WORDS culture war...the words...sigh.
Que?