It's gonna be interesting to see how this one unfolds.
Today Show host Meredith Vieira who has been a visible gay rights ally in the past is catching the ire of quite a few people in the gay community over an interview with the cast of best picture winner 'The Hurt Locker'.
Vieira had this to say to actor Anthony Mackie's in response to his overt display of affection with fellow cast members upon learning 'The Hurt Locker' had nabbed the best picture prize.
"When the nominations were announced you hugged him pretty tight I must say in the moment. There was a lot of man-loving going on last night as well. Do I have reason to be worried"?
Mackie handles the slightly homophobic question with grace and humor responding:
" At the end of the day what we went through was a grown man bond. And at the end of the day we went through that desert and made a movie that not to many people can say they made. And we transcended the idea of filmmaking...we transcended the idea of acting. And when you make art you can stand up and hug another grown man and say I love you".
Jeremy Hooper over at Good As You offers this food for thought:
Because we have so many of our supposedly liberal friends who will be so nice to our lives and our loves when confronted directly with them, yet will so often go for these cheap and, frankly, stupid jokes that traffic solely in anti-gay "worry." In doing so, they foster the idea that same-sex affections are icky, a fear fomentation that's not negated by their niceties when dealing with actual gay people.
Regardless of how much the purveyors of this mindset may disconnect these abstract denunciations from actual LGBT human beings or contribute to our cause, the reality is that they're cultivating in the minds of the American public the exact kind of casual heterosexism that keeps people voting against us and then justifying it by saying "some of my best friends are gay," keeps civil unions on the table as acceptable alternative to full marriage equality, and keeps many would-be allies apathetic to the pro-equality fight because they see gays as this odd "other."
While she probably doesn't mean to, Meredith is essentially telling young gay kids that there chances of winning an easy, benign shake at this game of life is even slimmer than their chance of winning an Oscar. That's bad. We cannot let this casual stuff pass anymore than we allow the organized anti-gays to get away with their deliberately detrimental nonsense.
Watch the interview below. Thoughts?
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