A good commentary on how the left is and should be orienting itself towards the current U.S. election, by Michael Albert.
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Journalist As Hero
Despite the fact that by far the most plentiful kind pf publication that has appeared with my name attached is journalistic (mostly magazine-style) articles, I have never considered myself to be a journalist. In fact, when necessary I have actively resisted that label and rather advanced the counter-label "writer who does some journalism," and when a couple of people who don't know me very well have helpfully suggested that maybe I would like to go to journlism school, it has been hard not to roll my eyes. This is not in any way meant to put down those who are journalists, I just don't happen to be one of you.
Nonetheless, I have always had a certain fascination for knowing and for finding out and even, I am somewhat ashamed to say, for being known to know. Even though it shows signs of being a part of my life for at least two years to come, occasionally my imagination has turned to speculating about what I might do in my productive life once my oral history of Canadian activists project is finally completed, and I have trouble coming up with anything that does not involve me acquiring, arranging, and presenting information and words in one form or another.
This article -- a glowing portrait of Seymour Hersh, a central figure in revealing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam so many years ago as well as the more recent Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq -- relies far too much on the mythology of journalist as hero, as someone whose individual skills and choices can create meaningful change, and ignores all the systemic reasons why Sy Hersh is a rarity. For that reason, it certainly does not end my search for how I can do meaningful, political, intellectual work in the community...but even so, it does kind of get my blood racing a little, and therefore does count as input into the process.
Nonetheless, I have always had a certain fascination for knowing and for finding out and even, I am somewhat ashamed to say, for being known to know. Even though it shows signs of being a part of my life for at least two years to come, occasionally my imagination has turned to speculating about what I might do in my productive life once my oral history of Canadian activists project is finally completed, and I have trouble coming up with anything that does not involve me acquiring, arranging, and presenting information and words in one form or another.
This article -- a glowing portrait of Seymour Hersh, a central figure in revealing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam so many years ago as well as the more recent Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq -- relies far too much on the mythology of journalist as hero, as someone whose individual skills and choices can create meaningful change, and ignores all the systemic reasons why Sy Hersh is a rarity. For that reason, it certainly does not end my search for how I can do meaningful, political, intellectual work in the community...but even so, it does kind of get my blood racing a little, and therefore does count as input into the process.
Saturday, July 24, 2004
Red (?) States
As far as I know, in pretty much every political culture which has inherited at least some of its symbolic language from Europe (i.e. most of them in this world shaped by empires) the colour red tends to be associated with the left. I'm less clear on how widespread the association of conservatism with the colour blue is, but that is certainly the case in Canada and my impression is that this is something we have inherited from the Parliament in Westminster, and therefore a fair number of other states have probably inherited something similar.
Yet in the trendy lingo bandied about by pundits in this U.S. election season, "red states" are those likely to vote Republican, while "blue states" are Democratic. Not only do I find this personally confusing every time I hear it, and have to take a few seconds to remind myself that red actually symbolizes the slightly more right-wing party in this instance, but I also take it as a sign of the general disconnection in the U.S. from the political culture in most of the rest of the world -- even the political culture in the rest of the world's rich, white-dominated countries.
Of course, I find it hard to believe that people actually voted for George Bush, and even harder to believe that many plan to do so again, but they did and they do.
There is a new book out called What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, by Thomas Frank. I have not read the book itself, but I have read some articles about it, and heard its author interviewed. Frank points out that the growth of working-class conservatism is connected to the deployment by the Republican Party and the other branches of the conservative movement of a twisted kind of class conscious language even as the Democrats have retreated from class-based approaches. The conservatives have invested a great deal of money and effort over the last three decades in creating a frame in which liberal values on certain issues are seen as being the purview of elites who force them down the throats of ordinary Americans, and this has mobilized increasing numbers of working-class Americans to vote for a party whose economic policies are most harshly counter to the wellbeing of ordinary folk.
An interesting insight into where this came from, and another example of the disconnection of U.S. political culture from the rest of the world,came from the interviewer on the radio show on which I herad Frank interviewed. This host objected strenuously to Frank's statement that the conservative mantra of liberal-equals-elite has a grain of truth to it, and instead said it was the centrists who have taken over the Democratic Party that are elites while true liberal values are not elite. This is actually kind of a complicated assertion based in the various ways that the word "liberal" is used, and I won't try to sort it all out now -- certainly the rather superficial sense of liberalism as tolerance for social difference is a value-base that anyone can hold. However, it should be noted that, in most of the world, those who deploy class-based analysis as a significant part of their politics from a left perspective have tended to see liberalism (in the classical sense) as an elite ideology.
What really gets me, though, is not just that the political structures in the United States manage to get a significant proportion of ordinary folk to vote for the party that is most aggressively against their own economic interest. Rather, as I observed a couple of posts back, the political structures are such that it probably does make strategic sense for progressives in swing states to vote for John Kerry, who not only is not left, he isn't even liberal in any sense that would make sense outside of the particularities of U.S. political culture where "liberal" is an amorphous agglomeration of meaning that includes everyone from moderate conservatives like Kerry and Clinton to actual liberals to all the many and diverse flavours of leftists that are out there. A system that makes Kerry a sensible choice for leftists is, well, ingenious in its oppressiveness.
It is hard to be hopeful in the face of all of this. Certainly it doesn't help any to see the visciousness of the attack and counter-attack as progressives debate the Nader candidacy -- surely our knives can find better homes than each other's backs. And, let's be honest -- it does not really matter that much. So there is not much to do but keep on keepin' on, and remember that as disconnected as the political culture in this country might feel from time to time, it has produced some amazing social movements over the years and it can do so again.
Yet in the trendy lingo bandied about by pundits in this U.S. election season, "red states" are those likely to vote Republican, while "blue states" are Democratic. Not only do I find this personally confusing every time I hear it, and have to take a few seconds to remind myself that red actually symbolizes the slightly more right-wing party in this instance, but I also take it as a sign of the general disconnection in the U.S. from the political culture in most of the rest of the world -- even the political culture in the rest of the world's rich, white-dominated countries.
Of course, I find it hard to believe that people actually voted for George Bush, and even harder to believe that many plan to do so again, but they did and they do.
There is a new book out called What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, by Thomas Frank. I have not read the book itself, but I have read some articles about it, and heard its author interviewed. Frank points out that the growth of working-class conservatism is connected to the deployment by the Republican Party and the other branches of the conservative movement of a twisted kind of class conscious language even as the Democrats have retreated from class-based approaches. The conservatives have invested a great deal of money and effort over the last three decades in creating a frame in which liberal values on certain issues are seen as being the purview of elites who force them down the throats of ordinary Americans, and this has mobilized increasing numbers of working-class Americans to vote for a party whose economic policies are most harshly counter to the wellbeing of ordinary folk.
An interesting insight into where this came from, and another example of the disconnection of U.S. political culture from the rest of the world,came from the interviewer on the radio show on which I herad Frank interviewed. This host objected strenuously to Frank's statement that the conservative mantra of liberal-equals-elite has a grain of truth to it, and instead said it was the centrists who have taken over the Democratic Party that are elites while true liberal values are not elite. This is actually kind of a complicated assertion based in the various ways that the word "liberal" is used, and I won't try to sort it all out now -- certainly the rather superficial sense of liberalism as tolerance for social difference is a value-base that anyone can hold. However, it should be noted that, in most of the world, those who deploy class-based analysis as a significant part of their politics from a left perspective have tended to see liberalism (in the classical sense) as an elite ideology.
What really gets me, though, is not just that the political structures in the United States manage to get a significant proportion of ordinary folk to vote for the party that is most aggressively against their own economic interest. Rather, as I observed a couple of posts back, the political structures are such that it probably does make strategic sense for progressives in swing states to vote for John Kerry, who not only is not left, he isn't even liberal in any sense that would make sense outside of the particularities of U.S. political culture where "liberal" is an amorphous agglomeration of meaning that includes everyone from moderate conservatives like Kerry and Clinton to actual liberals to all the many and diverse flavours of leftists that are out there. A system that makes Kerry a sensible choice for leftists is, well, ingenious in its oppressiveness.
It is hard to be hopeful in the face of all of this. Certainly it doesn't help any to see the visciousness of the attack and counter-attack as progressives debate the Nader candidacy -- surely our knives can find better homes than each other's backs. And, let's be honest -- it does not really matter that much. So there is not much to do but keep on keepin' on, and remember that as disconnected as the political culture in this country might feel from time to time, it has produced some amazing social movements over the years and it can do so again.
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Monkey Butler
We are definitely not in Hamilton any more...we were riding the bus earlier this afternoon, and I happened to look out the window and what did I see? A snazzy green convertible containing some snazzy (read: affluent-looking) young people and...a monkey in the back seat with one of the people. The monkey was wearing a shirt.
And did I mention the fact that the 24-hour gym near where we currently reside has live DJs?
Crazy.
And did I mention the fact that the 24-hour gym near where we currently reside has live DJs?
Crazy.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Housing As A Market Commodity Is Stupid
Yesterday, we took possession of our new apartment. We won't be living in there full-time for a bit yet, because our sublet hasn't finished and we have to take care of the cats. Still, it was exciting to see the place.
Our housing needs have not changed appreciably since our apartment in Hamilton: We need two (2) bedrooms, one to serve as my office and the other as a bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom, some living area, and one (1) roof over our heads.
In Hamilton, we got into our place just before the rents in that city really started to rise. Even with the gutting of rent control by the Harris Tories, and an avaricious landlord who raised it every nickel he could every year (and also left us without heat for 6 weeks last autumn), our rent was still reasonable for Hamilton. For the sake of argument, let's call that rent X.
Our new apartment is smaller than the one in Hamilton, but it is newer, nicer, has better amenities (pool, playground for kids, basic cable included), a definite community amongst the cluster of buildings in the complex, and a second bathroom (not that we need it). If you take the exchange rate into account, it costs about 85% more than our unit in Hamilton, or about 1.85X.
The complex happens to be owned by UCLA, and its units are for the use of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows with families. According to the woman who gave us our orientation to the place, the building across the road is pretty much the same as these buildings -- they look the same from the outside, and she said the interior layout is the same. There may be some differences in amenities, I don't know. The big difference, though, is that the ones across the road are privately owned, and therefore the rent is determined by market forces. The rent in those units is about two and a half times the rent in the UCLA-owned buildings, or almost five times the rent in our Hamilton apartment -- 4.75X to be precise.
I suppose most people would just shrug and say, "Thems the breaks," but it strikes me as ridiculous that something that is universally needed, essential for life, and functionally identical, more or less, in the three data points I've cited should vary so drastically in terms of people's ability to access it. More than ridiculous, it's gross.
An interesting sidelight: Obviously UCLA provides this cheap housing as part of its efforts to provide high quality of life to attract the best possible students and researchers. However, the functional social meaning of this location and rent and so on could be seen as, "You have obviously come from or are at least destined for privilege because you are pursuing higher education. We know you can't afford to live in this kind of place paying market rent, but you deserve to, so we'll take care of you until you can translate your educational privilege into financial privilege."
Well, that's one version. Here's another possible meaning: "The expense of living and studying puts barriers in the way of access to education and post-doctoral opportunities. We will provide affordable housing to help level the playing field a bit, to make it easier for students to live near the university, in high quality housing that is supportive to their goals of learning, and that does not require them to take time away from their studies to work."
I like the second version, but I suspect there are elements of both present. But high quality, affordable housing that is near to the university and requires only a single bus to get there is not exactly easy to find. We certainly would never have been able to live in the building across the road, but we would likely have paid an extra $200 or so for a place farther away and much lower in quality, so not taking this place was never a serious consideration. In addition, I am excited by the possibilities for community -- more than 1100 units in the complex, an active resients' association, community activities for parents with young children, and a great deal of diversity among the residents.
Our housing needs have not changed appreciably since our apartment in Hamilton: We need two (2) bedrooms, one to serve as my office and the other as a bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom, some living area, and one (1) roof over our heads.
In Hamilton, we got into our place just before the rents in that city really started to rise. Even with the gutting of rent control by the Harris Tories, and an avaricious landlord who raised it every nickel he could every year (and also left us without heat for 6 weeks last autumn), our rent was still reasonable for Hamilton. For the sake of argument, let's call that rent X.
Our new apartment is smaller than the one in Hamilton, but it is newer, nicer, has better amenities (pool, playground for kids, basic cable included), a definite community amongst the cluster of buildings in the complex, and a second bathroom (not that we need it). If you take the exchange rate into account, it costs about 85% more than our unit in Hamilton, or about 1.85X.
The complex happens to be owned by UCLA, and its units are for the use of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows with families. According to the woman who gave us our orientation to the place, the building across the road is pretty much the same as these buildings -- they look the same from the outside, and she said the interior layout is the same. There may be some differences in amenities, I don't know. The big difference, though, is that the ones across the road are privately owned, and therefore the rent is determined by market forces. The rent in those units is about two and a half times the rent in the UCLA-owned buildings, or almost five times the rent in our Hamilton apartment -- 4.75X to be precise.
I suppose most people would just shrug and say, "Thems the breaks," but it strikes me as ridiculous that something that is universally needed, essential for life, and functionally identical, more or less, in the three data points I've cited should vary so drastically in terms of people's ability to access it. More than ridiculous, it's gross.
An interesting sidelight: Obviously UCLA provides this cheap housing as part of its efforts to provide high quality of life to attract the best possible students and researchers. However, the functional social meaning of this location and rent and so on could be seen as, "You have obviously come from or are at least destined for privilege because you are pursuing higher education. We know you can't afford to live in this kind of place paying market rent, but you deserve to, so we'll take care of you until you can translate your educational privilege into financial privilege."
Well, that's one version. Here's another possible meaning: "The expense of living and studying puts barriers in the way of access to education and post-doctoral opportunities. We will provide affordable housing to help level the playing field a bit, to make it easier for students to live near the university, in high quality housing that is supportive to their goals of learning, and that does not require them to take time away from their studies to work."
I like the second version, but I suspect there are elements of both present. But high quality, affordable housing that is near to the university and requires only a single bus to get there is not exactly easy to find. We certainly would never have been able to live in the building across the road, but we would likely have paid an extra $200 or so for a place farther away and much lower in quality, so not taking this place was never a serious consideration. In addition, I am excited by the possibilities for community -- more than 1100 units in the complex, an active resients' association, community activities for parents with young children, and a great deal of diversity among the residents.
Saturday, July 17, 2004
Bus Riders Meeting
I went to my second monthly meeting of the LA Bus Riders Union today, and because it was my second I actually got to sit in the main meeting rather than the orientation session they have for first-timers.
The big news in terms of their "Billions For Buses" campaign was that the Metro Transit Authority was ordered by a judge to purchase several hundred buses in late June (I'm simplifying the legal technicalities because I don't entirely remember them). They will be able to decide at their board meeting next Thursday whether to appeal the order, though the word at the BRU meeting was that the MTA Board will not appeal. However, even though this major purchase of buses to replace existing buses and expand the fleet is a victory for the BRU, there is a downside because the MTA has said they will pay for these buses by raiding a fund that was to be used to buy replacement buses between 2007 and 2014. BRU members will be objecting to this at the next MTA board meeting, as well as continuing to struggle against service cuts.
I may or may not go to the board meeting. I chickened out of going last time, just because it is a hassle to lug a baby all the way downtown, and I would feel a little uncomfortable having said baby in a formal meeting situation like that. However, I feel more inclined to go this time, if only to check it out.
Next Saturday the BRU is having an on-bus organizing day, and I am also considering going to that. I have always liked flyering and that kind of on-the-street outreach (strange for someone who considers himself a bit of a repressed introvert, but nonetheless true). However, I am hesitating because I am not sure it is the best role for me in this organization -- it is an anti-racist organization, led by and primarily focused on organizing in working-class communities of colour. When you are organizing people, a shared pool of experience can be your best tool, and identity shapes how people respond. So I'm not sure that, as a middle-class white Canadian, on-bus organizing is the most useful thing for me to be doing. So I will reflect on that.
There was also an open-mike session on the presidential election, which was interesting. Remember, most of the 30 or 40 people in the room directly feel the impacts of the anti-poor, anti-union, anti-immigrant, anti-people of colour political realities in this country, so it is not privileged leftists or union bureaucrats spouting off. And with the exception of one spirited endorsement of Ralph Nader from an older Latino man, almost everyone who spoke expressed a desire for a strategic, nose-holding vote for Kerry accompanied by movement building to hold whoever wins accountable.
I think my position has shifted a little since I wrote my election manifesto in June -- not the substance of my comments, but how they would relate to the U.S. presidential election, were I actually able to vote. In a state where the election is pretty much already decided, like California, I would still probably vote for a third party, but I would be more likely to fall into pragmatism and vote for Kerry in a swing state, now. See this blog entry by Paul Street for an artciulation of this position from "a political indepenent with a left Marxist background and related fellow-traveler anarchist sympathies."
The big news in terms of their "Billions For Buses" campaign was that the Metro Transit Authority was ordered by a judge to purchase several hundred buses in late June (I'm simplifying the legal technicalities because I don't entirely remember them). They will be able to decide at their board meeting next Thursday whether to appeal the order, though the word at the BRU meeting was that the MTA Board will not appeal. However, even though this major purchase of buses to replace existing buses and expand the fleet is a victory for the BRU, there is a downside because the MTA has said they will pay for these buses by raiding a fund that was to be used to buy replacement buses between 2007 and 2014. BRU members will be objecting to this at the next MTA board meeting, as well as continuing to struggle against service cuts.
I may or may not go to the board meeting. I chickened out of going last time, just because it is a hassle to lug a baby all the way downtown, and I would feel a little uncomfortable having said baby in a formal meeting situation like that. However, I feel more inclined to go this time, if only to check it out.
Next Saturday the BRU is having an on-bus organizing day, and I am also considering going to that. I have always liked flyering and that kind of on-the-street outreach (strange for someone who considers himself a bit of a repressed introvert, but nonetheless true). However, I am hesitating because I am not sure it is the best role for me in this organization -- it is an anti-racist organization, led by and primarily focused on organizing in working-class communities of colour. When you are organizing people, a shared pool of experience can be your best tool, and identity shapes how people respond. So I'm not sure that, as a middle-class white Canadian, on-bus organizing is the most useful thing for me to be doing. So I will reflect on that.
There was also an open-mike session on the presidential election, which was interesting. Remember, most of the 30 or 40 people in the room directly feel the impacts of the anti-poor, anti-union, anti-immigrant, anti-people of colour political realities in this country, so it is not privileged leftists or union bureaucrats spouting off. And with the exception of one spirited endorsement of Ralph Nader from an older Latino man, almost everyone who spoke expressed a desire for a strategic, nose-holding vote for Kerry accompanied by movement building to hold whoever wins accountable.
I think my position has shifted a little since I wrote my election manifesto in June -- not the substance of my comments, but how they would relate to the U.S. presidential election, were I actually able to vote. In a state where the election is pretty much already decided, like California, I would still probably vote for a third party, but I would be more likely to fall into pragmatism and vote for Kerry in a swing state, now. See this blog entry by Paul Street for an artciulation of this position from "a political indepenent with a left Marxist background and related fellow-traveler anarchist sympathies."
Friday, July 16, 2004
Anti-Choice Machinations
Ever since a Supreme Court decision in the '70s ruled that women in the U.S. really should have some control over their own bodies, the right has worked hard to take that choice away. Earlier this week I heard about a shocking victory for those forces, scored as everyone was paying attention to the attempted discrimination against queer people taking place in the U.S. Senate.
In essence, now health care companies can order anyone in their employ to never give women the information they would need to make informed choices about reproductive health. Though this ammendment to a massive spending bill in the House Appropriations Committee uses the language of conscience, it has nothing to do with individual doctors -- individual medical practitioners already have every right to exercise their conscience around these issues. What this ammendment does is attribute conscience to corporate institutions, who can then enforce their will on the hundreds or even thousands of doctors who depend on them for a paycheque, and thereby deprive women of the information they need to adequately exercise their consciences. So what does that say about who matters more in this country, corporations or women?
The bill still has to pass the full House and the Senate, and so this measure can still be defeated.
(By the way, I heard about this on KPFK, my new favourite radio station, on Beneath The Surface with Jerry Quickly. They broadcast on the web, and their consistent high quality of progressive spoken-word programming is worth checking out!)
In essence, now health care companies can order anyone in their employ to never give women the information they would need to make informed choices about reproductive health. Though this ammendment to a massive spending bill in the House Appropriations Committee uses the language of conscience, it has nothing to do with individual doctors -- individual medical practitioners already have every right to exercise their conscience around these issues. What this ammendment does is attribute conscience to corporate institutions, who can then enforce their will on the hundreds or even thousands of doctors who depend on them for a paycheque, and thereby deprive women of the information they need to adequately exercise their consciences. So what does that say about who matters more in this country, corporations or women?
The bill still has to pass the full House and the Senate, and so this measure can still be defeated.
(By the way, I heard about this on KPFK, my new favourite radio station, on Beneath The Surface with Jerry Quickly. They broadcast on the web, and their consistent high quality of progressive spoken-word programming is worth checking out!)
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
New Piece Of Writing
Under the "Recent Writing" category in the side bar I just added an item. It is a scientific review article on the environment, gender, and immunology co-written by myself and my partner, Stacey Ritz. This is actually her project, and she invited me to contribute to it. She has been involved in some national meetings and conferences in Canada around gender and medical research, and the intent is for this article to be published in a special issue of the British journal Environmental Research containing only reviews coming from participants in that process, on the environment, gender, and their particular field. As noted in the link, the manuscript's current status is "submitted for publication." It will have to go through a peer review process, and so, presuming it is eventually accepted, it won't see the light of day for quite some time. Because this work is intended to be published in another venue, only the abstract of the article has been included.
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Queer As Folk Guilt
I like the television series Queer As Folk, and I am a bit ashamed to admit it. No, not because of any hesitation with respect to its focus, nor because of the copious and graphic depiction of young gay men having sex. I'm ashamed to admit it because in a lot of ways the show is not really that good but I like it anyway.
To clarify: I am talking about the U.S.-based remake of the British show of the same name. I have seen all of seasons two and three, and parts of season one.
Let me start by naming some of my criticisms of the show. The principal one is the writing. Material that is directly related to the central focuses of the show (young, urban, gay men, and the sex they have) generally feels like it is competently done, and sometimes manages to be quite engaging. It focuses on only a subset of the gay community and I have heard it criticized for being somewhat stereotypical in its depiction of that subset, but generally the writers do well enough.
All other facets of the writing, however, tend to be hit-and-miss.
The token lesbian couple on the show tends to be written very poorly. The characterization of Mel and Lyndsay often does not feel particularly realistic. I sometimes get the sense that the writers are not sure how exactly to signal their "lesbianness" in a sophisticated way, i.e. that their identities are likely grounded in communities/cultures that are distinct both from the mainstream and from the gay male culture at the centre of the series. As well, much of the time their baby is written more as a prop than an integral feature of their lives. Mel's Jewishness will be ignored for episodes at a time, and then awkwardly invoked by the charcter herself having to point out in dialogue that a given action or tendency is "Jewish" in some way.
A municipal election which serves as a story arc in the third season does not feel at all realistic. For example, the party operatives running the campaign of the Republican in this major U.S. city's mayoral election seem dubious about the idea of a slick, modern advertising campaign. Also, the responses of the electorate to interventions of various sorts through the season just aren't plausible.
More generally, the show tends to indulge in that ubiquitous television failing: trite, simplistic resolutions to serious problems just in time for the final credits. For example, one character is going through a tough period in season one and joins a homophobic "recovery" group. It is that old stand-by, the heartfelt declaration of friendship speech, that finally convinces him that he can't fool himself into straightness.
As well, no major recurring characters are people of colour. This falls into and reinforces two standard, oppressive patterns in our culture. First of all, it perpetuates the tendency for the label "gay" to automatically include assumptions of "whiteness." As well, by showing them pretty much only as part of the mancandy background landscape at dance clubs and in sex scenes, it simultaneously sexualizes and silences men of colour, both longstanding racist patterns in the dominant culture.
So why do I like this show?
There are a number of reasons. For one, I like the fact that it focuses on queer people. There are not exactly a lot of opportunities in the mass media to see queer people at the centre of dramatic television or even film. There are increasing instances of individual characters in shows grounded in the mainstream being allowed to come out as lesbian or gay, but that is fairly minimal. Mainstream shows with queer characters also tend to show queer individuals but not queer communities to which they might be attached, and to be able to show only a fairly narrow (often quite "mainstreamed") range of what it can mean to be queer.
One particularly important aspect of the focus of this show is not only that it shows homosexual relationships, but that it shows homosocial connections. How many locations in the media are there to see men giving emotional support and comfort on a regular basis to other men? It is almost completely absent, and I think any long-term efforts to overcome the elements of masculine socialization to which this lack is connected will require us getting used to seeing it even as we get better at doing it.
I also quite like some of the characters, and the writing connected to them. Deb, the mother of one of the main characters, is great. I think Michael, Uncle Vic, and Emmett are generally interesting, and though I have been dubious at times at the way Justin was written, he has really grown on me.
Perhaps the most compelling reason to watch the show is Brian Kinney. He is an insufferable, hyper-masculine, arrogant, selfish jerk, but he says and does interesting things, and is cohesive and engaging as a character. He is in some ways the most defiantly gay of the main characters, and espouses and practices his "gayness" in a way that is assertively anti-assimilationist as well as extremely individualistic. At the same time, he also exhibits some very traditionally masculine traits more strongly than many of the other characters -- inability to express emotion, obsessive and objectified way of relating to sex, a certain kind of strength, and a resolute hardness, both sexually and in his character. He is not someone that would be easy to know or easy to like as a person, but I find him very (and I'm sorry to use this word yet again) compelling as a story element.
At heart, I think my affection for the show comes down to the fact that it tells stories about non-mainstream ways of being. These stories rarely have obviously politicized content, at least politicized in any sophisticated way, but they show a range of ways to live deliberately contrary to our inherited narratives about relationships and community. These kinds of stories are sufficiently rare in the broadcast media that I'm going to enjoy them where I can, however flawed and limited they might be.
To clarify: I am talking about the U.S.-based remake of the British show of the same name. I have seen all of seasons two and three, and parts of season one.
Let me start by naming some of my criticisms of the show. The principal one is the writing. Material that is directly related to the central focuses of the show (young, urban, gay men, and the sex they have) generally feels like it is competently done, and sometimes manages to be quite engaging. It focuses on only a subset of the gay community and I have heard it criticized for being somewhat stereotypical in its depiction of that subset, but generally the writers do well enough.
All other facets of the writing, however, tend to be hit-and-miss.
The token lesbian couple on the show tends to be written very poorly. The characterization of Mel and Lyndsay often does not feel particularly realistic. I sometimes get the sense that the writers are not sure how exactly to signal their "lesbianness" in a sophisticated way, i.e. that their identities are likely grounded in communities/cultures that are distinct both from the mainstream and from the gay male culture at the centre of the series. As well, much of the time their baby is written more as a prop than an integral feature of their lives. Mel's Jewishness will be ignored for episodes at a time, and then awkwardly invoked by the charcter herself having to point out in dialogue that a given action or tendency is "Jewish" in some way.
A municipal election which serves as a story arc in the third season does not feel at all realistic. For example, the party operatives running the campaign of the Republican in this major U.S. city's mayoral election seem dubious about the idea of a slick, modern advertising campaign. Also, the responses of the electorate to interventions of various sorts through the season just aren't plausible.
More generally, the show tends to indulge in that ubiquitous television failing: trite, simplistic resolutions to serious problems just in time for the final credits. For example, one character is going through a tough period in season one and joins a homophobic "recovery" group. It is that old stand-by, the heartfelt declaration of friendship speech, that finally convinces him that he can't fool himself into straightness.
As well, no major recurring characters are people of colour. This falls into and reinforces two standard, oppressive patterns in our culture. First of all, it perpetuates the tendency for the label "gay" to automatically include assumptions of "whiteness." As well, by showing them pretty much only as part of the mancandy background landscape at dance clubs and in sex scenes, it simultaneously sexualizes and silences men of colour, both longstanding racist patterns in the dominant culture.
So why do I like this show?
There are a number of reasons. For one, I like the fact that it focuses on queer people. There are not exactly a lot of opportunities in the mass media to see queer people at the centre of dramatic television or even film. There are increasing instances of individual characters in shows grounded in the mainstream being allowed to come out as lesbian or gay, but that is fairly minimal. Mainstream shows with queer characters also tend to show queer individuals but not queer communities to which they might be attached, and to be able to show only a fairly narrow (often quite "mainstreamed") range of what it can mean to be queer.
One particularly important aspect of the focus of this show is not only that it shows homosexual relationships, but that it shows homosocial connections. How many locations in the media are there to see men giving emotional support and comfort on a regular basis to other men? It is almost completely absent, and I think any long-term efforts to overcome the elements of masculine socialization to which this lack is connected will require us getting used to seeing it even as we get better at doing it.
I also quite like some of the characters, and the writing connected to them. Deb, the mother of one of the main characters, is great. I think Michael, Uncle Vic, and Emmett are generally interesting, and though I have been dubious at times at the way Justin was written, he has really grown on me.
Perhaps the most compelling reason to watch the show is Brian Kinney. He is an insufferable, hyper-masculine, arrogant, selfish jerk, but he says and does interesting things, and is cohesive and engaging as a character. He is in some ways the most defiantly gay of the main characters, and espouses and practices his "gayness" in a way that is assertively anti-assimilationist as well as extremely individualistic. At the same time, he also exhibits some very traditionally masculine traits more strongly than many of the other characters -- inability to express emotion, obsessive and objectified way of relating to sex, a certain kind of strength, and a resolute hardness, both sexually and in his character. He is not someone that would be easy to know or easy to like as a person, but I find him very (and I'm sorry to use this word yet again) compelling as a story element.
At heart, I think my affection for the show comes down to the fact that it tells stories about non-mainstream ways of being. These stories rarely have obviously politicized content, at least politicized in any sophisticated way, but they show a range of ways to live deliberately contrary to our inherited narratives about relationships and community. These kinds of stories are sufficiently rare in the broadcast media that I'm going to enjoy them where I can, however flawed and limited they might be.
Monday, July 05, 2004
Farenheit 9/11 Briefly Revisited
Saw the film again today, this time with my partner and a long-distance visitor, because neither of them had seen it. Can't say my analysis really changed that much.
Generally I have been trying to avoid reading or seeing too much material about the film -- most of what I have read has either been mainstream or conservative commentary that is critical in a way that is ill-informed and hypocritical, or progressive or leftist commentary that is critical in a way that is smug and holier-than-thou. However, I have come across one article by Robert Jensen, a professor of journalism in Texas and an active ally in anti-racist and other struggles, whose critique I think is worth referring people to.
Generally I have been trying to avoid reading or seeing too much material about the film -- most of what I have read has either been mainstream or conservative commentary that is critical in a way that is ill-informed and hypocritical, or progressive or leftist commentary that is critical in a way that is smug and holier-than-thou. However, I have come across one article by Robert Jensen, a professor of journalism in Texas and an active ally in anti-racist and other struggles, whose critique I think is worth referring people to.
Sunday, July 04, 2004
First Parenting Post
I noticed the other day that, despite the fact that I was hoping to use this blog as an excuse to write and a means to publish material that combines the personal and the political (or sees the personal through a political lens, or the political through a personal lens), I have not posted a single, solitary thing about my biggest time commitment these days: parenting. We have a 10.5 month old baby called Liam, and I am his primary caregiver from 8 am to 5:30 or so pm every weekday, and co-primary caregiver any of the rest of the time that I am not holed up at my desk writing or working on my oral history project. I suppose not writing about this represents a bit of a failure on my part to fully engage with something, though I am unsure whether that something is the political aspects of parenting specifically or if it is a sign of ongoing partial disconnection from grounding my politics in my own experience. Probably both.
Anyway, I will include one observation on gender and parenting, though it isn't a particularly recent one.
Obviously gender has a lot to do with expected roles, socialization, and societal patterns related to parenting. One manifestation of this surprised me in the lead-up to our move here. In discussions with two different women about my hopes and fears about my pending role as primary caregiver, I received what seemed to be a distinct lack of sympathy. This kind of surprised me, because both women in question are people with whom I share fairly profound emotional intimacy, and with whom the mutual sharing of support is fairly central to how we relate to one another. In addition, both are quite conscious that I am not unaware, at leaset at an intellectual level, of the oppressive gender bias in how caregiving roles tend to be assigned.
On reflection, I think it is fair to say that "lack of sympathy" is an excessively harsh way of characterizing these reactions. They were, rather, responses that were less expressive than I might have expected due to differently gendered socializations on our respective parts, but still entirely supportive. Wrestling with issues of having time for myself, being able to establish activities and identity outside of the home, fear of the mind-numbing boredom and lack of intellectual stimulation that can come with childcare provision -- all of these things and more were and are relatively novel to me. However, though one of the women I was talking to is relatively new to parenting herself and the other has no children, they both have been forced by social expectations to deal with the potential of having to invest large parts of their lives in childcare since they were essentially children themselves. I suspect that this diffrence led me to talk about the issue in a way that was based in but did not problematize the fact that it was, for me, a deviation from expected privilege rather than a long-expected challenge. This is true even though it is a role I have been expecting to take for 6 or 7 years -- expecting in an intellectual sense, but, as I said, not really internalized until recently.
They both are extremely supportive of me and my experiences in this area, of course, and I don't want to disrespect that. Also, I know that I have it easier than most women who are primary caregivers during "business hours" because my partner is much more willing than most men would be to take a significant portion of the responsibility the rest of the time; in fact, though "eager" would be perhaps a bit of an overstatement some of the time, there certainly seems to be an element of internal compulsion to her taking the little dude while I work that I think would be much less in most 9-to-5 working Daddies (probably including me) if the roles were reversed.
So there you go. I'll try to keep myself involved in political reflection on this topic in the months and years ahead.
Anyway, I will include one observation on gender and parenting, though it isn't a particularly recent one.
Obviously gender has a lot to do with expected roles, socialization, and societal patterns related to parenting. One manifestation of this surprised me in the lead-up to our move here. In discussions with two different women about my hopes and fears about my pending role as primary caregiver, I received what seemed to be a distinct lack of sympathy. This kind of surprised me, because both women in question are people with whom I share fairly profound emotional intimacy, and with whom the mutual sharing of support is fairly central to how we relate to one another. In addition, both are quite conscious that I am not unaware, at leaset at an intellectual level, of the oppressive gender bias in how caregiving roles tend to be assigned.
On reflection, I think it is fair to say that "lack of sympathy" is an excessively harsh way of characterizing these reactions. They were, rather, responses that were less expressive than I might have expected due to differently gendered socializations on our respective parts, but still entirely supportive. Wrestling with issues of having time for myself, being able to establish activities and identity outside of the home, fear of the mind-numbing boredom and lack of intellectual stimulation that can come with childcare provision -- all of these things and more were and are relatively novel to me. However, though one of the women I was talking to is relatively new to parenting herself and the other has no children, they both have been forced by social expectations to deal with the potential of having to invest large parts of their lives in childcare since they were essentially children themselves. I suspect that this diffrence led me to talk about the issue in a way that was based in but did not problematize the fact that it was, for me, a deviation from expected privilege rather than a long-expected challenge. This is true even though it is a role I have been expecting to take for 6 or 7 years -- expecting in an intellectual sense, but, as I said, not really internalized until recently.
They both are extremely supportive of me and my experiences in this area, of course, and I don't want to disrespect that. Also, I know that I have it easier than most women who are primary caregivers during "business hours" because my partner is much more willing than most men would be to take a significant portion of the responsibility the rest of the time; in fact, though "eager" would be perhaps a bit of an overstatement some of the time, there certainly seems to be an element of internal compulsion to her taking the little dude while I work that I think would be much less in most 9-to-5 working Daddies (probably including me) if the roles were reversed.
So there you go. I'll try to keep myself involved in political reflection on this topic in the months and years ahead.
Friday, July 02, 2004
LAPD And The Miller Beating
LAPD officers beating on a helpless Black suspect, and getting caught on video -- Rodney King more than a decade ago, yes, but also Stanley Miller just this year. Read this article by Anthony Asadullah Samad to learn more about how ineffective ten years of police "reform" have been.
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Farenheit and Journalism
Apparently, lots of commentators are taking potshots at Michael Moore's new movie, Farenheit 9/11. The once plucky underdog Moore has become sufficiently well-known to make it chic to tear him down rather than admire his tenacity, and he has developed influence with the public that most of these commentators have only in the wettest of their dreams, which makes him a target of jealousy. According to a friend who lives in Toronto, even Canadian pundits are having a go at Michael.
I don't feel bad for him, though. He made a powerful, intelligent movie that is playing to a large audience, triggering debate, and actually bringing some anti-Bush facts to a lot of people that might not otherwise see them. And he's rolling in lots of money with which to make his next movie.
The wearily predictable nature of the rain of criticism is a bit irritating, however. It is middle-class liberal arts snobs who care more about form than about the real world pointing out that the film is not great art, which of course it is not. It is everyone from Bush apologists to so-called progressives who prefer their politics less engaged and more erudite -- even that rather sad figure, Christopher Hitchens, is having a go -- pointing out that Moore has left stuff out, which of course he has. After all, documentaries that are composed like an academic dissertation may win points for completeness but they tend to be deathly dull. With the exception of the few nitpicks mentioned in my previous post on the subject, I didn't see any gaps that are substantive, considering the overall state of the media environment.
What seems to be missing from mainstream commentary, and even much progressive commentary that I have seen, is a recognition of an important implication of the relatively massive interest in this film: It offers something the public knows it hasn't gotten from the mainstream media, and this shows the lie of the media claim to present all relevant facts and a healthy range of analyses. Farenheit's success is a sign of the mainstream media's failure to live up to their own hype. This failure is nothing new, and has been documented time and time again, but it is the fact that significant chunks of the general public seem to be agreeing (as they vote with their movie-going dollars) rather than just easily dismissible dissident eggheads that has put the twist into the knickers of mainstream pundits.
I don't feel bad for him, though. He made a powerful, intelligent movie that is playing to a large audience, triggering debate, and actually bringing some anti-Bush facts to a lot of people that might not otherwise see them. And he's rolling in lots of money with which to make his next movie.
The wearily predictable nature of the rain of criticism is a bit irritating, however. It is middle-class liberal arts snobs who care more about form than about the real world pointing out that the film is not great art, which of course it is not. It is everyone from Bush apologists to so-called progressives who prefer their politics less engaged and more erudite -- even that rather sad figure, Christopher Hitchens, is having a go -- pointing out that Moore has left stuff out, which of course he has. After all, documentaries that are composed like an academic dissertation may win points for completeness but they tend to be deathly dull. With the exception of the few nitpicks mentioned in my previous post on the subject, I didn't see any gaps that are substantive, considering the overall state of the media environment.
What seems to be missing from mainstream commentary, and even much progressive commentary that I have seen, is a recognition of an important implication of the relatively massive interest in this film: It offers something the public knows it hasn't gotten from the mainstream media, and this shows the lie of the media claim to present all relevant facts and a healthy range of analyses. Farenheit's success is a sign of the mainstream media's failure to live up to their own hype. This failure is nothing new, and has been documented time and time again, but it is the fact that significant chunks of the general public seem to be agreeing (as they vote with their movie-going dollars) rather than just easily dismissible dissident eggheads that has put the twist into the knickers of mainstream pundits.
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