Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 03:59:52 -0500 (EST) From: Seth Bookey Your message: >That a kid will turn to sociopathic behavior and homicide >because he's afraid he *might* be gay, and because one girl has gay >baited him during a failed bout of making out in a car, is pretty >over the top, and frankly, antiquated. Sorry to complain, but I was really bothered by the above section of your "Apt Pupil" review. For one thing, I don't think that there is anything wrong with this issue being brought up in the film. Seeing as how this is a psychological exampination of an adolescent male, this actually makes perfet sense. Teenage boys (such as myself) do worry about these things and I definitly don't think that it is homophobic to present this in a film. >The homophobia in the movie is offensive and disturbing. And this is the statement that *really* bothered me. I already said above why I didn't feel the film was homophobic (perhaps the scene with the drifter brought up some issues that didn't *need* to be introduced but I felt that was a minor point) and your use of that word really upsets me because I think that this is just the kind of petty, oversensitive nitpicking that just ends up trivializing *real* issues of homophobia when they arise. Again, I'm sorry for complaining and I hope I don't come off sounding like a jerk but, as I said, I am disturbed by things like this. Jer ------------------------------------------------------------------------- My response: Most adolescent males don't become psychopathic killers who hang out with genocidal war criminals. Sorry. If you know anything about the horrors of Auschwitz, you would know that it's not normal to be *attracted* to the behavior. Upset, hurt, angry, yes. Homophobic, yes. I am sure you heard of the sickening killing of Matthew Shepard. He was just one of many. If you need any first-hand accounts of the calculated genocide of Auschwitz, look at my family history home page (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8588/testimony.html) for my grandfather's cousin's trial testimony of his enslavement at Auschwitz. He was forced to burn the bodies from the gas chambers. He saw his own brother marched off to his doom. He saw his prison guard shoot an 11-year-old boy. The character was shown to have made a true, detailed study of the death camps. To be attracted to any of this is a true mark of a mental disorder. Yet he seeks him out and makes him his only friend, excluding his old friends. If you need information on institutionalized homophobia, go to www.wiredstrategies.com/shepard.html. It has collected a lot of information not just about the killing, but on the state of affairs some people in this country have to live with, for no good reason. If you need to realize that there is a century of homophobia in the movies, go read Vito Russo's *Celluloid Closet*, or rent the documentary with the same name. Showing a homophobic kid is one thing; showing it in this stilted and hyperbolic manner is typical of Hollywood showing gay people as sick and depraved. The movie showed a disturbed teen who was attracted to torture, control, and genocide, a Nazi who had "gay" overtones, and an HIV+ drifter who was shown as an effeminate hustler, and who is subjected to not one but two horrible beatings, and is also killed. I have heard the word faggot enough in my own life and at the movies to know homophobia when I see it. Cinematically, it starts with the fag joke, and often ends in complete tragedy or misrepresentation. The kid moves on to gay baiting his counselor. The *mere accusation* of gayness is used in an insidious way. The homophobia of all the situations is implicit. Teenage boys have a major lesson to learn: If you're striking out with girls, going and striking (and killing) gay men or lesbians is not an appropriate response. Being accused of being gay is often taken to be the "worst possible insult in the world" for boys and teen males. Guess what? There are worse things in life than being gay. In fact, being gay is possibly the one thing in *my life* that makes life worth living. Being set apart by society puts a lot of things into focus about that society. It makes you a bit more objective. It's set me free from a lot of the crap our society hold up as "the Truth" and let me examine them well. Think about it for a minute. What's would insult you more, being accused of being a serial killer, or being accused of loving someone of the same sex? What hurts more, being called a "rapist" or being called a "faggot"? So I urge you to go and read and talk with people, and figure out why homophobia is considered an appropriate response. Homophobia does not make "perfect sense," and a more appropriate response to a girl gay baiting her boyfriend would have been a quip like, "Perhaps I find you completely unappealing." The key to the word homophobia is phobia--irrational fear. Many find violence the natural response to fear; no one ever seems to think "why am I afraid of this?" Of course, there would be no movie, and of course, it is just a movie. But it is also yet another movie that makes gay people, effeminate people, and people accused of being gay worthy of poor depiction. And gay people are getting very tired of that dark, twisted mirror Hollywood keeps holding up. So the kid winds up killing someone, and uses homophobia to his advantage when the counselor threatens to expose him. He doesn't suffer too much. The implication is that the kids a winner. He essentially gets away with murder, and is the class valedictorian to boot. And I found that *very disturbing." They easily could have found another way to threaten the counselor (like he sees him with underage girls), and he blackmails him with that. But in the language of the movie, the counselor patting his shoulder makes the kid nuts. He's clearly uneasy by an innocent physical contact from that man; yet he wants to hear all about how Zyklon B killed people in the gas chambers. Affection freaks him out and killing turns him on. The drifter could have been a woman. The drifter could have been portrayed as a heterosexual man. When the drifter says he knows something about the Nazi and the boy, it is clear that there's a double meaning. It's possible he's figured out the Nazi angle. It's more likely that after seeing Dussander in a Nazi uniform, that he thinks the boy and the Nazi have an gay S&M thing, and uses that knowledge as a threat to get himself lodging for the night, and some booze. Of course, putting the drifter in feminine clothes just echoes the facts: drag queens and effeminate men are the most likely to be attacked. The weak are deliberately attacked--that's what convicted prisoners, killers of gay men, have said, on film and in newspaper interviews. People like Matthew Shepard--105 lbs and girlish looking--are the ones who are the most likely to get attacked by armed, insecure young men. Hardly a good "American" fair fight. It's rarely guys in their thirties or forties who kill or attack gay men and lesbians. It's people your age. They often get away with it too, and they leave a lot of broken lives behind them. Matthew Shepard's family had an empty chair at the table this Thanksgiving. They always will. It's been eight years since Julio Rivera was killed, and his family is *still* broken by his killing. They always will be, forever. And why are they dead? Because they were gay. The toll exacted on gays in this society is extreme, and immoral. There's something very wrong with that; but it's typical. Americans demonize sex (look at Clinton's predicament) and love violence (everyone's dying for us to attack Iraq). Matthew Shepard was killed with the butt of a gun. Killed because of which sex he would love. That's disturbing! That should disturb you; not my calling the homophobia in *Apt Pupil* for what it is--disturbing. It disturbs me that you still, after all this explanation, might not see what I am trying to get across. The *real* issues of homophobia are reflecting in our entertainments. Sorry if you don't like this tirade, but if you can figure out why society demonizes its gay segment, you will figure out a lot about what's wrong with this society we live in. What's wrong with it is its intolerance to difference, to nonconformity, and to elements it has not even bothered to try to understand. So go, read, talk, do--do something that makes you understand your feelings, rather than just rationalize them. Perhaps you don't deserve all this "advice." Perhaps you even know gay kids and are friendly with them. Get to know them better. It's not catching, you know, and no one can "recruit" you. The only danger in sight is expanding your horizons and getting an understanding of people so clearly outside the system. Getting that understanding is dangerous to a lot of people--possibly your teachers and parents among them. Get to know these issues, and one day, when your *own* kids have questions about things, you can teach them more appropriate responses than rationalizing phobic behavior. If you have questions, go to the library, and start reading. Michael Bronski's *The Pleasure Principle* is a good place to start. It hits all the nails on the head, and sorts out how we--all of us--got to where we are, and how things got so messed up. I suggest the library because I don't want to to get into a back-and-forth with you over this. It's obvious I take this stuff very seriously. Perhaps you don't agree with a lot of what I have to say, but that is my experience, and I was an adolescent male once myself. My experience was pretty different from the usual. No, you are not a jerk. Sorry if I have seemed harsh, but I am almost twice your age, and I've been through more in this life than you will probably ever know. So thanks for letting me share a fraction of it. You do have a lot to learn about the other side of things. Things are not going to change until more heterosexuals start questioning our social norms that punish love and glorify and absolve death. What's required is a complete epistemological shift. So go and learn, and good luck. I hope you found this worthwhile. Sincerely, Seth On Tue, 1 Dec 1998, jer fairall wrote: > >That a kid will turn to sociopathic behavior and homicide > >because he's afraid he *might* be gay, and because one girl has gay > >baited him during a failed bout of making out in a car, is pretty >over > the top, and frankly, antiquated. > > Sorry to complain, but I was really bothered by the above section of > your "Apt Pupil" review. For one thing, I don't think that there is > anything wrong with this issue being brought up in the film. Seeing as > how this is a psychological exampination of an adolescent male, this > actually makes perfet sense. Teenage boys (such as myself) do worry > about these things and I definitly don't think that it is homophobic to > present this in a film. > > > >The homophobia in the movie is offensive and disturbing. > > And this is the statement that *really* bothered me. I already said > above why I didn't feel the film was homophobic (perhaps the scene with > the drifter brought up some issues that didn't *need* to be introduced > but I felt that was a minor point) and your use of that word really > upsets me because I think that this is just the kind of petty, > oversensitive nitpicking that just ends up trivializing *real* issues of > homophobia when they arise. Again, I'm sorry for complaining and I hope > I don't come off sounding like a jerk but, as I said, I am disturbed by > things like this. > > Jer > > ______________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com >