No Seriously, Rosie Meant An Actual Cruise

I'll be the first to admit, the idea of a Rosie O'Donnell special documenting gay parenting while traipsing about the Carribbean isn't my first choice of prime time programming. It's not even my eighth.

But ahoy there, matey. There be controversy brewin' on the horizon. It seems the Washington Post's Tom Shales found the HBO special about as entertaining as I did:

It's as if the primary concern of Rosie O'Donnell, who captained the project, was presenting to the mainstream TV audience a scrubbed-up, politely tidy image of gay men and women -- a portrait meticulously devoid of the drag queens, pierced nipples and campy vamping one often sees when a local TV station rushes off to cover a gay-themed event. O'Donnell earns herself a citizenship award or a political correctness award, but the unfortunate byproduct of the consciousness-raising is that it isn't engaging, it isn't much fun, and sometimes it's punishingly platitudinous.

O'Donnell almost robs her subjects of their sexual identity in the pursuit of making them wholesome. In short, there is no gay cruising on this gay cruise.

While many are decrying Shales stereotyping of gays as people who flutter about in a world of queens, piercings, and Broadway street re-enactments, there is a point to his description. The subjects of this documentary are the most boring gay people ever encountered.

(Video and commentary after the jump)

This is, of course, the goal. Any honest gay person knows what an all-mo cruise is like. Whether or not two gay men are coupled, dating, wedded, what have you, a gay cruise almost always has its orgiastic elements.

While watching All Aboard, it was difficult not to be aware of the editing. Rosie and the producers went to great lengths to clean up the footage as much as possible. Loving, monogamous gay families and their children frolicking across the sun-dappled decks are the image meant to be projected. This program is targeting a very specific audience, and it does so effectively. Look at it this way, my mother was the one who alerted me to All Aboard. She's the kind of person who watched it, she's the one who will be seeing, perhaps for the first time, that there are typical, run of the mill, house-with-a-white-picket-fence gay families out there.

Is there a more heart-wrenching image of the difficulties gay families face today than protesters screaming at couples with kids in strollers? When a toddler is lead away in tears because Christian fundamentalists are shouting at him, what more needs to be said?

All Aboard is a carefully crafted piece of propaganda. However, it is not false propaganda. It promotes selected families in selected situations, and it gives a face to those who are most affected when politicians and "pro-family" groups attempt to outlaw things such as gay adoption.

Shales may have communicated his point indelicately, but it is undeniable. Rather than engaging in disingenuous outrage, perhaps the best reaction would be pointing out the families featured, speaking about the difficulties faced by threatened adoption laws, and using the program as an illustration in the gay marriage debate.

Gay culture is what it is, and we get no points for throwing conniptions about remarks like Shales. Especially not when any member of the religious right can hop on an all-gay cruise with a video camera and find plenty of Shale's examples come to life. Honesty is more difficult than indignation, but it does us a better turn in the long run.

[Watch video – 15:47, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 15:47, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Comments

[Josh]

I like this.

[Gregory]

The average american relates to people just like themselves... everyday and everyday can be boring. Rosie is trying to show the world that gay people can and are everyday and boring just like everyone else. Gay people aren't always the geniuses, clowns, artists, performers, dancers, entertainers, freaks... that the world so loves to point at in awe or disgust. And to some of the world, mundane gay people are even scarier than the dragqueens.

[Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest)]

Well said, Robbie.

No wonder your blog has hit 1,000,000!!

[louis]

No Seriously, Rosie Meant An Actual Cruise

Yes indeed she did!

Wow things got pretty provacative near the end there.

And OMG, no I did not see former NFL defensive lineman Esera Toaolo in some 5 inch platforms, strumming a ukulele while carrying a falsetto little melody high enough in key to rival an American Idol Ace number on his gayest of day! What a hoot and three snaps that was!!

[blewsdawg]

*Claps loudly*

[Tommy]

I don't understand your defense of Shales. My first reaction was boring gays need love too. I agree that if its boring television to Shales, its boring to Shales and maybe to me and maybe you too. That's all fair. What I don't understand is his seeming extrapolation that 'robbing people of thier sexulality' is the same as presenting thier wholesomeness. There is nothing "unwholesome" about our sexuality.

If the point is that all media depictions should give equal focus to the "depravity" of gays. I would ask why? It is, of course, true that popular gay and straight culture is highly sexualized but if someone was doing a documentary on the vacations of young straight families would anyone think of criticzing it for not also showing the nightlife debauchery of young straights?

[Robbie]

Of course there are all kinds of gay people out in the world, but Shales critique is that there was obviously a lot of cleaning up to project a middle-American image involved.

Perhaps you'd need to see the entire "documentary," but out of a thousand gay families, maybe five or six were actually profiled. You stuff a thousand gay folk on a cruise, and you're going to get, at the very least, a few ribald comments, some quirky humor, and some typical gay fun.

It was all so painstakingly vanilla. There was effort involved in projecting everything "just so."

There's nothing wrong with that, either. Rosie was trying to get a certain message out, and as I said, she does it effectively.

It's just kind of funny to anyone familiar with gay culture, or any gathering involving more than a handful of queers, at how carefully selected and screened the entire thing was. It's obvious to me, and I think it's pretty obvious to others.

And I think that's what Shales was saying. No, all gay people are most certainly not the stereotype, but it's just sort of hilarious at how far O'Donnell goes, how meticulous they must've been in their editing to have ended up with the program they did.

I want to emphasize, I'm not saying what O'Donnell did was a bad thing at all. The profiled families are real people, in very real situations that will hopefully give viewers on the fence a serious think.

But I didn't really find Shales remarks offensive. I thought he was dead on in what O'Donnell did to create the program she wanted.

[louis]

ooops, *provocative* that is.

And on the heels of Dan's compliment to Robbie, excuse me while I just slip ths in real quick, I too would just like to express my appreciation of this site right down to the little navigational details etc. that really makes for an outstanding site, especially in the way of a multi-media site! This in addition of course to the fine writing skills and the overall eruditeness that both you and Mal share.

great work guys!

[Robbie]

Louis is bein all nice to me.

*suspicious glance*

Oh, what the heck *group hug, group hug* I could go for one today anyhow.

[louis]

{{{{{{{ }}}}}}}

[Robbie]

LOL, thanks guy =)

[Tommy]

I'm all in {{{{{{}}}}}}!

[Robbie]

Woo!

[blewsdawg]

??? Am I interrupting anything here?

[blewsdawg]

Oh, what the hell? {{{{{}}}}}

[Robbie]

Atta guy =)

[blewsdawg]

I'm the straight guy.

Should I be doing this?

[Robbie]

It's a group hug, not a group grope.

Though, you might want to have a six pack, just in case.

There are laws about all this, you know.

[North Dallas Thirty]

If the point is that all media depictions should give equal focus to the "depravity" of gays. I would ask why? It is, of course, true that popular gay and straight culture is highly sexualized but if someone was doing a documentary on the vacations of young straight families would anyone think of criticzing it for not also showing the nightlife debauchery of young straights?

Actually, in most cases, they do, Tommy.

However, that's something that the vast majority of people out there, being straight, understand. They may not approve of it, but they watch it and understand the motivations behind it.

Shales sounds almost...well, cheated.....that he isn't getting to see drag queens, weird piercings, or orgies. Part of that is media sensationalism, but on the other hand, we've done such a fine job of drumming THAT as "normal" for gays into peoples' heads, anything else is going to look suspicious.

As it stands, to get people to think otherwise, they by and large will have to be presented very sanitized chunks of gays at work. That's what this is.

[blewsdawg]

*Pauses Bruce Willis movie*

NDT is right. Most shows about straight families include the misbehavior (if you wish to call it that) of some family member(s) (read: Growing Up Gotti)(also read: The Osbournes). Otherwise it would be pretty boring TV.

*Swigs a Guinness* *No- A Budweiser!!*

I don't think there's anything wrong with this either, but if it is that sanitized, it's probably pretty transparent.

*Restarts Bruce Willis movie* *No- Schwarch- Shwarz- Bruce Willis*

[blewsdawg]

Specifically, I mean reality shows, documentaries, etc. Not Sitcoms and such.

[beautifulatrocities]

Would. Rather. Die.

[Tommy]

I have not seen the whole show but the point is, is it a true depiction of these peoples vacation/lives or not.

What Shales says is a really stupid criticism if he is saying it can't be real because they were not gay enough.

[just me]

Sounds like the issue is reality TV and entertainment.

People don't watch reality TV to see boring stuff, they watch it to see the other stuff.

If they did any kind of show about our family, it would probably make for really boring TV. I suspect that most families fit in this catagory. Good family times, but not really something anyone wants to spend an hour or so watching.

[Mark]

It seems to me that Rosie is trying to show people what they'd see if they accepted the homosexual lifestyle, and while people might indeed see such things, is that reflective of most of what they'd see?

Was this presentation was an accurate presentation of the entire gay community? (Which is what everyone knows Rosie wants us all to accept.) Did what was shown reflect a small subculture of the gay community, or did it show people the whole picture, i.e., what those who oppose same sex marriage, gay adoption, gay culture (in its variant forms), and homosexual activity (in its variant forms) would see if they were to honestly look at the gay community in order to assess whether or not they find such values as espoused by all the variant forms of homosexuality as acceptable?

An even simpler question is this: What is essential to being gay, regardless of what type of gay someone is, what qualities and behaviors are required to be a part of the gay community, or to be considered gay? Seeing that would cut through any sort of criticism about what "type" of gay person is presented and get to the heart of the matter so that people could honestly decide their own feelings and reactions to homosexuality.

Then moving from what is essential, what is common should be honestly considered. For example, it seems to me that gay porn is generally a part of the lives of most gay men. Am I wrong? Pornography may be widespread among heterosexual men, but it's generally not considered acceptable or respectable in the heterosexual community. It's still generally considered sleazy, and it's also generally considered bad/deviant behavior to watch pornography (especially among those who are faithful to most major religions, which is a large group of people).

If every adult American were to look at gay porn, mainstream gay porn, and by that I mean the type of gay porn that is consumed by most gay men, how would they react? My suspicion is that most heterosexuals would react with honest revulsion.

More pointedly, consider what is entailed in homosexual acts, which I assume are to a large degree essential to being gay, if not in actual practice, at least in desire. Again, I think most people find that stuff gross. Yet homosexual acts are essential, at least in desire, if not in practice to being gay.

I know some of you will try to say that heterosexual acts gross you out. While I can't relate, I understand, but here's the point: the heterosexual community isn't asking or demanding that you accept them or their sexual activity. It kind of doesn't matter if you accept it or not we aren't going to develop a complex about your non-acceptance. At least that's my perception of what heterosexuals would feel if the subject came up.

Which brings up an important point that confuses a lot of homosexuals: Why do you care about making us approve of what you do? Why do you want to be so visible? It really does feel like the gay community is trying to force heterosexuals to embrace the totality of what it means to be homosexual. What if many, if not most, of us don't want to and never will? Why do you care?

And why does what you do with your genitals need to be everybody's business?

What is wrong about having sex be something private and discreet? I am confident in saying that most religious people (if not most people in general) think it is in poor taste to discuss genital acts, or sexual tastes, (especially in public) whether they be homosexual or heterosexual, so it isn't even an issue of discrimination. It's an issue of whether or not a person has social grace.

Look, homosexuality (or being gay, or whatever people want to call it) means being sexually attracted to persons of the same sex, wanting to have sex with them, and having sex with them. There's pretty much no way to get around that. Yet most people don't want to even think about what that entails, and the gay community seems to want to shove everybody's nose in it.

Even though I will never endorse homosexual activity, or heterosexually oriented sexual sins, I will also never run around trying to learn who is doing what. Frankly, I don't want to know. I don't need to know. I prefer not knowing. I don't think I'm alone in that boat.

I think most people want to live and let live. Yes there are extremists (on both sides, I might add), but I honestly think that most people don't want to hurt gay people. I think most people just don't want to hear about what you prefer to do with your genitals, whether you are homosexual or heterosexual.

Why is that wrong?