Helter Skelter, baby

California State Corrections Officials have released a new headshot of Charles Manson, the former Beach Boys collaborator who is facing a life sentence for threatening Dennis Wilson after not receiving proper royalty payments for music he had and eventually driving Brian Wilson to madness as a result.

That is why he’s in prison…right? Or maybe it had something to do with that whole “‘Helter Skelter’ foretells of a coming race war” thing he had going on. Either way, it doesn’t really matter.

What does matter is that The Boston Globe filed the article under “Arts & Entertainment: Theatre/Arts.”

So a recent photograph of a convicted mass murder/cultist/unofficial Beach Boy/Beatles Conspiracy Theorist…is apparently entertaining. Dare I say, theatrical! I don’t think I really have to point out to you all that is hilarious and wrong about this, although I’m sure there are a number of jokes about conspiracy cover-ups and media manipulation that are inherent in the situation.

That, or they confused the real-life Charles Manson with his stop-motion puppet counterpart:

Thanks, Boston Globe. And you wonder why you’re reportedly losing $1 million A DAY (which also makes me wonder why you’d publish your own article about the fact that you’re losing $1 million a day, but I guess that serious journalism comes at a serious cost)…

It’s fun to stay at the F-R-A-T, It’s fun to stay at the…

This is one of those moments where you think, “Uh…thanks? Cool? I guess?” In case you can’t quite tell what’s going on, the University of Chicago chapter of Alpha Delta Phi took it upon themselves to piss off Ted Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church aka These Fuckers Almost Make Hitler Look Like a Care Bear (Except That They Haven’t Committed Any Acts of Genocide As Far As I Know, So That’s Actually a Terribly Unfair and Moderately to Extremely Tasteless and Ignorant Comparison, But I Hope It Drives the Point Home Regardless) by imitating the Village People and dancing like big gay stereotypes. So way to go, Frat Boys*, for combating prejudice and stereotypes by…reinforcing stereotypes.

The Westboro Baptist Church once similarly protested a performance of The Laramie Project in Boston’s South End, and in case the pink borders on the South End wiki website didn’t make it clear, the only way to avoid being the gayest thing since gay came to Gaytown is by actually being Gaytown; enter the South End (I mean, if you really want to enter the South End, that’s cool with me. Really. I won’t judge you. Hell, I lived there for 2 years. They have lots of nice gardens, and all of the bars make very strong drinks despite the apparent lack of women in their demographic). See, the WBC believes that the killing of Matthew Shepherd in fact had nothing to do with his sexuality, but rather, it was a strictly gang-related act of retaliation for some drug deal in which he was involved. The mere fact that it was said to be a hate crime is, apparently, further proof of the vast, insidious conspiracy known only as The Homosexual Agenda. Unfortunately for the Westboro Baptists (is that like Southern Baptist?), only about 5 people showed up, as opposed to the 250+ Counter-Protesters. Even better is that, in an effort to undermine the efforts of the church, a number of gay philanthropists have started pledging money for every minute that these protests continue. In the end, these 5 lonely homophobes spent a mere 45 minutes raising $5,000+ for pro-LGBT causes. GO TEAM. Way to stick it to the (gay) man.

*Then again, what do I know? I am, by most definitions, a “Frat** Boy” myself. Except that mine is a co-ed professional arts/communication fraternity, which means that more than half of my fraternity consists of chicks, and that more than half of the remaining are gay themselves. We once prided ourselves on being the only fraternity that could spoon without being too gay.

**And it’s called it a FRATERNITY. Would you call your country a cunt? Didn’t think so.

Horns and Homos

I just took some stupid test online that informed me that I have a “moderate automatic preference to Straight people compared to Gay people.” The interweb determined my “moderate homophobia” by testing my response time: it first showed me images of “Gay” and “Straight” things and made me hit a designated key depending on which orientation the image fell under. Then it did the same with “Good” and “Bad.” And then it combined the tests, showing images/words that are “bad”, “good”, “straight,” and “gay.” The first time, “bad” and “straight” were the same button; the next time, “bad” and “gay” were the same button. Apparently, according to my response time, this makes me a moderate homophobe; the fact that my brain hurts from this numbing test, or that my eyes hurt from staring at a screen all day, or that it took my brain a second to process which button was which, are all clearly irrelevant detail.

GAY.

I am presently directing my first professional theatre production, a 10-minute play that is pretty much the gayest thing since gay came to Gaytown and gayed. It’s about a gay couple named Top and Bottom, and I think that’s all I really have to say (hey, I didn’t pick the show!). Now, the play is kinda funny, and a lot of fun to direct, but as early on as our first rehearsal, I found myself concerned about offending my cast members (both of whom are gay). As you can probably ascertain by the character names, the show is quite satirical and absurd, so I tried to play it up as much as possible–often by directing my actors to oversexual even the slightest entendre, be more fashionable and flaming, and finding every opportunity to insert a penis joke (ever see a 45-year old man get cockslapped by a dildo gun? Fucking priceless). Fortunately, my actors find this all just as hilarious as I do; so far, so good.

For our last rehearsal, I was contacted by the playwright, who asked to sit in, possibly offering his input or feedback. I had no problem with this, as I heard he was quite the congenial guy, and he was. During a break in rehearsal, we spoke for a moment, and while he was pleased with our production thus far, he did admit to me that he was still having some difficulty wrapping his head around the “hetero” approach to his show. I was aware, and he insisted, that he meant no offense to this–rather, it was just a jarring, and somewhat unexpected detail.

We talked about this for a moment, and discussed how the play (*SPOILER ALERT* LOL–Top becomes Bottom and Bottom becomes Top at the end. Ravenous gay sex ensues) is really more about a power struggle between the two. I echoed his sentiments, saying that the word choices I made in my directing were more aimed at exploring and inverting much broader archetypes (knight in shining armor and a damsel in distress, for example), and insisted that even though I’m not intimately familiar with the dynamics of gay relationships, some aspects of human interaction are undeniably universal. Agreed, we carried on with rehearsal.

While the playwright was pleasant as can be about it, it got me thinking: I come from a very, very gay world (fuckin’ eh, I work in theatre). I graduated from a college that was 60% homosexual, and I was a part of a co-ed professional fraternity which was about 2/3 female, with half of the remaining males playing for the other team (that’s the gay team, bee-tee-dubs). A friend of mine with whom I used to work once referred to me as “the token Straight” (also “World’s Only Straight Male FagHag” but I try not to spread that one around too much. It’s awkward). To me, people are people, and friends are friends; who you fuck is your own business. As a result of this gay social life, I’ve got at least a decent idea of how homos’ heads work (hint: not that much different than heteros), which is why I figured this show was no big deal. But for some reason, it’s apparently weird and jarring for a straight man to even be mildly interesting in anything gay.

OH HEY SOCIAL ROLE REVERSAL HOW ARE YOU TODAY–BESIDES GAY!

The arts and entertainment industries in general are chock full o’gay; but does the fact that Bryan Singer fucks (a lot of) men affect my appreciation for how he directed X-Men 2? Does his sexual orientation change the dynamic between Wolverine, Cyclops, and Jean Grey? Maybe Cyclops really wanted to bang Logan, OMG (side note: do you think he comes red forcebeams?)! Hell, maybe Bryan Singer and Ian McKlellan had a secret gay agenda they were trying to push, thinly veiled by the mutant metaphor! ZOMG! GAYS! No wonder Frodo and Samwise seemed so cozy in The Lord of the Rings. So how come people accept it when Tom Cruise or Vin Diesel play hyper-masculine roles in films like Top Gun and The Fast and the Furious? Oh right. Bad example; they’re both still in the closet as far as the general public is concerned. WHOOPS. Sorry guys!
(me to a gay co-worker as I write this: “Is Sean Penn gay?” “I don’t know. I haven’t slept with him.” Case in point)

So why is it that a straight man directing a gay play is so shocking? Am I not allowed to appreciate Angels in America for being a damn fine work of theatre, just because it focuses heavily on homosexual relationships? Last year, a theatre company with whom I work produced a season in which every show except for one was explicitly about being gay. They didn’t just feature gay characters–homosexual identity was the pervasive theme of every show. When I say that none of these shows interested me at all, I’m not being homophobic; I’m just being honest. But this is why, as a straight man, I can appreciate shows like Angels in America: to me, the show speaks to universal truths and features human characters (and angels), interacting like real human beings (and angels). It’s the difference between DC Comics’ publicity-stunt introduction of Batwoman in the Summer of ‘06 (which preceded her appearance in the actual comic by nearly two months) and Marvel Comics characters such as Northstar, Anole, Hulking and Wiccan (as known as “Asgardian.” Tee-hee). It’s characters versus agenda. It’s good drama.