Silent Homophobia

David Philip Norris As an anglophile, its embarrassing to admit that it wasnt until my late twenties that I discovered the BBC television show Doctor Who. A friend was shocked that I wasnt familiar with it and introduced me to the 2005 reboot of the series. I was instantly hooked. The first time I watched the show, David Tennant was starring as the Tenth Doctor, with his companion Donna Noble, played by Catherine Tate, a one woman comedic tour-de-force who is well-known in Great Britain for taking on a wide range of hilarious personas. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show, a companion is a character who travels with the Doctor and shares his adventures, acting as an audience surrogate (Wikipedia, 2008). More than the other companions in the series, Im drawn in particular to Donna. Unlike the others who are fearless in alien battles (e.g., Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman) or who use dimension cannons to move between parallel universes (e.g., Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper), Donna comes armed only with a powerful will, a quick tongue, and a huge heart, all of which make her a force to be reckoned with. She continually insists that shes nothing special, as she does in the episode Turn Left, even though other characters notice the universe literally bending around her (2008). But that doesnt stop her from fighting for the people she loves, and its perhaps that quality that makes her so easy to identify with. Prior to her role on Doctor Who, Tate portrayed a Northern Irish mother in The Catherine Tate Show (Ep. 1, Series 3, 2006), who is a little too accepting of her gay son John, asking him for fashion advice and for his opinion on photographs of men while he watches a football match. Have you heard about our John? she glowingly asks her neighbors. Hes a gay man now. More than just sketch comedy, here Tate satirizes social perceptions of homosexuality and stereotypes of gay men. We expect the feisty Irish Catholic grandmother to disown her grandson, but instead she gives him money for a rent boy (British slang for a male prostitute). And to make matters worse, three thuggish young men show up at his door for fashion advice, asking whether their turn-ups [jean cuffs] work with these boots. Johns nightmare is living with the campy expectations of his friends and family, and their enthusiastic acceptance is almost enough to drive him back into the closet. Not all families are as happy to have a non-heterosexual child, and Tate explores that actuality via comedy. Comedy as social criticism has a long history, starting with the satirist Jonathan Swift, according to French writer, poet and Surrealist Andr Breton (da Silva, 2005). In Swifts 1729 essay, A Modest Proposal, he highlights the desperate economic conditions in then-British colonial Ireland by suggesting that impoverished Irish parents could sell their children to the English aristocracy as food. The American television show M*A*S*H, which ran from 19721983, was a situation comedy about a mobile army surgical hospital in the Korean War (19501953). While the show largely centers on the antics of the medics, the writers, beginning in the eighth season, used their comedic platform to Copyright 2013, David Philip Norris. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or part without the express written permission of the author.

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explore serious and even political issues. In the series finale, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen (1983), a woman smothers her baby to prevent its cries from giving away the position of a group of refugees who are fleeing from enemy soldiers and certain death. In her honors thesis (2012), Abigail Jones writes that comedy is a vehicle for subtly (or not so subtly) addressing [social] injustices by mocking the social norms in the hope of slowly changing the masses beliefs about the inequalities. Anyone who has come out as non-heterosexual would be fortunate to have a mother who is fiercely proud of her child. For many of us, the opposite is sadly the norm. My boyfriends family isnt quite as extreme as Johns in The Catherine Tate Show but they unreservedly accept us as a couple. Negative responses to my coming out have been rare, but that may be a Midwestern anomaly an extension of Minnesota nice. Usually Im met with what feels like over-excitement, an almost desperate attempt to sound accepting and tolerant. While well-meant, I usually end up feeling more singled out and uncomfortable. Worse is when my female friends want to go boy-watching or take me shopping as their personal fashionista. The trouble with these situations is that Im usually looking for very different things in men as a man, and (much to my boyfriends chagrin) if left to my own devices, I will typically dress like a lumberjack. Im fortunate to live in a relatively tolerant and liberal city where I can hold hands with another man in public without too much fear of being hurt or killed, and have been lucky to work in places that are open and affirming. However, there are more discreet forms of discrimination. Thanks to a wedding and the various people it brought together, I was recently able to catch up with several friends who I havent seen in a while. We graduated from a small Christian liberal arts college, and for some time my social circle consisted mainly of Evangelicals. Im now an atheist and dont make my being gay a secret either, so while we were able to reminisce and talk about what weve been up to, there was one topic that wasnt discussed: my private life. There are two subjects that are bound to come up at any wedding. For singles, the burning question on everyones lips is Have you met anyone? If youre married, the question of the day is When do you plan to have kids? I came out in 2008, and for the first few years afterwards I found creative ways around that first question - since I wasnt dating girls. Id say that I was too busy, which was true. At the time I was holding down a full-time job, several freelance music gigs, as well as teaching piano lessons at a Christian school and attending a conservative Baptist church. It was almost a fulltime job to ensure that my public life never collided with my private life. Now I relish in answering frankly when asked if Ive found a nice girl yet. Oh, my boyfriend couldnt make it, Ill say, or, Hes over at the bar getting us drinks. Then, depending on how conservative my audience is, Ill take a moment to enjoy them squirm as they attempt to formulate a response. At the wedding, my college friends spoke freely about their spouses, their kids, their church, about mutual friends, and about who just had another baby, and so on. They asked about the projects Im working on, where Im working, which graduate programs Ive applied to, and where Im living. But

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no one asked whether Id met anyone. While Im not shy about my private life, Ive learned that when it comes to discussing it with this particular group of friends, the conversation will inevitably trail off - until someone uncomfortably changes the subject. So I usually end up quietly leaving those details out. Unless accompanied by the terms healing or leaving the lifestyle, homosexuality is still a spiky subject in most Christian circles. I learned from a friend (who attended the same college that I did and who is now also an atheist) that several former classmates who were in attendance at the wedding currently struggle with same-sex attraction Christian code for homosexuality. These guys came alone, or with girlfriends who believe its their God-given mission to help their men be straight. While I and others often wondered about our classmates and their orientation, no one ever talked about the sin that dare not speak its name. If you were male and Christian, you were presumed to be heterosexual or working on it. So Im unsure how to feel about my reluctance to talk about my personal life with my friends when they cavalierly volunteer theirs. Is it latent internalized homophobia? I can hardly be faulted for wanting to avoid becoming the focus of ire or prejudice. No matter how old the friendship, you can never be sure how a person is going to react to the news that youre gay. Some of it is habit, survival techniques to avoid questions or judgment. Some of it is trying to prevent what should be a pleasant reacquaintance from turning into a terse debate. But dont my friends also deserve to know who I truly am, and to meet the special man in my life? As much progress as weve made in the United States toward furthering gay rights, we still have far to go. We have a President who openly supports marriage equality. There are more gay characters than ever on network television (Oldenburg, 2012). Crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity are punishable offenses in many places (Wikipedia, 2006). Yet teenagers are still mercilessly bullied in schools for merely being perceived as gay. Lawmakers propose bills funded by extremist religious groups to make LGBT Americans second-class citizens. Only nine states (plus Washington, D.C.) have legalized same-sex marriages, and, as of right now, twenty states have constitutional amendments limiting marriage to relationships made up of a man and a woman. Living closeted is no longer the status quo, but neither are we at a place where the reaction to coming out is: So? It will take time. Acceptance of interracial couples didnt happen right away just because the Supreme Court declared laws against it unconstitutional in 1967. It was a struggle then, and it will be a struggle for the LGBT community now. But we can no longer afford to be politely complicit in the brand of silent discrimination that seeks to render us powerless by keeping us invisible. A person could learn to live with copious amounts of affirmation. But its much harder to live with being the elephant in the room.

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References: Alda, A. (writer & director) (1983). Goodbye, Farewell and Amen [Television series episode]. In B. Metcalfe (producer), M*A*S*H. New York City, NY: CBS. Companion (Doctor Who). (2008, December 8). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 10, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Companion_%28Doctor_Who%29&oldid=527181640. da Silva, J. B. (2005). A Lusitanian dish: Swift to Portuguese taste. In H. Real (Ed.), The reception of Jonathan Swift in Europe (p. 90). London, U.K.: Thoemmes Press. Davies, R.T. (writer) & Harper, G. (director). (2008). Turn Left [Television series episode]. In P. Collinson (Producer), Doctor Who (Series 4). London, UK: BBC. Hate crime laws in the United States. (2006, September 4). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 12, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime_laws_in_the_United_States. Jones, A. (2012). How does context shape comedy as a successful social criticism as demonstrated by Eddie Murphys SNL sketch White like me?. Honors thesis, University of Maine, Orono, ME. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/honors/58. Oldenburg, A. (2012, October 12). GLAAD: More gay TV characters than ever. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/2012/10/05/glaad-more-gay-characters-thanever-on-tv-this-fall/1615115/. Tate, C. (Writer), & Anderson, G. (Director). (2006). Series 3, Episode 1 [Television series episode]. In G. Perkins (Producer), The Catherine Tate Show. London, UK: BBC.