Ruining Everything

[lillibet]

Last week on Last Resort a female character said to a male character grieving the death of another soldier in his unit, "You loved him." The male character responded "He was my brother." Jason commented afterwards that he liked the simple, non-defensive way the actor delivered that line. And I thought about it and agreed about the delivery, but pointed out that the line itself was problematic. The character couldn't just say "Yes," he had to justify his love for another man by contextualizing it as a familial relationship, reassuring himself and his listeners that there was nothing gay about it.

And I got to thinking about how I can understand people feeling that those who demand visibility and acceptance for homosexuality have made it harder for straight men to express their love for other men. Except wait, what? You can't say "I love him" because someone might think you're gay? And that's a problem because...? Oh, right, because our society has declared love between some adults acceptable and others not. And somehow that's the fault of...those whose love is condemned? How does that work?

I'm seeing a lot of this lately. That's probably a good thing. Just for starters (and feel free to add more examples and links in your comments):

- Rebecca Watson's Experience

- The Penny Arcade Dickwolves Incident

- The Anita Sarkeesian Incident...and that article lists several more incidents of women being vilified and attacked online for speaking out about sexism in our culture.

- and lest you think this is just about women, there's Race and the Halloween Mask of Ignorance and its accompanying slideshow on how to respond to 9 Bad Excuses for Racist Costumes. This year's hot topic in costume politics is actually not the standard racist ones, but whether or not its okay to mock Honey Boo Boo and her family.

I get it. It's hard to think before you speak. Re-considering your own actions from a perspective different than your own is one of the biggest tricks our minds have developed and it's not nearly instinctive yet. Thinking about how your attitudes impact people of different genders and colors and abilities and sexualities and faiths and experiences is difficult. It would be easier if we could all agree on acceptable behaviors and cultural contexts and play along and get the joke without taking offense or insisting that you use the big lump at the top for something other than a counterweight. But that's never been the world we actually live in--if you think otherwise you're just nostalgic for a time before those who are different dared to challenge your perspective and attempt to expand the horizon of your vision to include the people all around you who don't think your joke is funny.

I have had my own failures. Here is my most public one to date and it's far from my only one. But (for those of you who followed the link, or who remember that incident) you see what I did there? When someone brought to my attention a way that I might have hurt and offended others by failing to think my message through sufficiently, I apologized. I thanked them for bringing the problem to my attention. I promised to renew my efforts to think more effectively about these issues in that and every other context. And I took it as a positive example of engagement with my work, a sign that people care about what I'm saying.

I'm still learning--I will always be learning--but I've learned this much: when someone tells you that you're doing it wrong, it's not they who are spoiling things. In perceiving their comments as a threat to your way of thinking, your behavior, your community, and counter-attacking with violent words and actions, it is you who are ruining everything.

Comments

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying it. The stuff stateside has a tendency to turn soapy (thanks to one sadly miscast character, mostly) but the stuff on the island is mostly fun. And they get out in the submarine often enough to evoke good memories of Hunt for Red October. I don't know how long it can run, but for now I'm sticking with it.