How a homophobic idiot was suddenly changed
source: http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1081457
I'm ashamed to admit this now, but when I was in high school, this was a joke I told a classmate about gay rights: "I'll give them rights - the right to die."
Did I really believe that? No. Back then, I was an 18-year-old insecure student trying to be macho by putting down gay people.
I thought that was the way I was supposed to act, and, sadly, at my school in Mississauga, a lot of people were like me.
While some teenagers today feel comfortable enough to come out of the closet, it was pretty much unheard of almost 20 years ago. You wouldn't want to be called gay after seeing the way homosexuals were portrayed on TV and in movies in the 1980s. Gay men were usually the limp-wristed, secondary characters with high-pitched voices who were the punch-line of a joke, never the leading man.
Take one of my favourite films growing up: 1984's Revenge of the Nerds. It featured a gay man named Lamar Latrell. In one scene, the nerds make a special javelin designed specifically for Lamar's limp wrist in order to beat the jocks in a contest.
And it was common for actors to put down other people by calling them "queers" or "homos."
Hollywood taught me being gay was an insult. And degrading gay people was something I'd watched on TV hundreds of times. So I did it too.
Did I really believe that? No. Back then, I was an 18-year-old insecure student trying to be macho by putting down gay people.
I thought that was the way I was supposed to act, and, sadly, at my school in Mississauga, a lot of people were like me.
While some teenagers today feel comfortable enough to come out of the closet, it was pretty much unheard of almost 20 years ago. You wouldn't want to be called gay after seeing the way homosexuals were portrayed on TV and in movies in the 1980s. Gay men were usually the limp-wristed, secondary characters with high-pitched voices who were the punch-line of a joke, never the leading man.
Take one of my favourite films growing up: 1984's Revenge of the Nerds. It featured a gay man named Lamar Latrell. In one scene, the nerds make a special javelin designed specifically for Lamar's limp wrist in order to beat the jocks in a contest.
And it was common for actors to put down other people by calling them "queers" or "homos."
Hollywood taught me being gay was an insult. And degrading gay people was something I'd watched on TV hundreds of times. So I did it too.
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- tags:
- GLBT, Lesbian, Homophobia, Gays, 1 more
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Paulathesurfmom
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Now here is a good story from a former homophobe
- 3 years ago
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Paulathesurfmom
