Oh those wacky Polish children's rights watchers .... always a day behind and a dollar short. Remeber back in 1999 when Jerry Falwell deemed Teletubbie Tinky Winky a homo because he carried a purse (TW is the purple one)? Now Ewa Sowinski is on the same bandwagon. Well, she way until apparently someone reminder her of 1999 so she's off again.
"I noticed that he has a purse, but I didn't realize he's a boy. At first I thought that must be a bother for him," Sowinska told the magazine in an interview her office approved before publication. "Later I learned that there could be some hidden homosexual undertones."
Sowinska is a member of the League of Polish Families party, which is militantly anti-gay rights and anti-abortion. The party is a junior member in the coalition government led by Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Spokespeople from Sowinska's office have confirmed that they will not ask psychologists to examine the character.
Kacszynski has famously said, ""It's not in the interests of any society to increase the number of homosexuals, that's obvious."
I have a recurring dream that my father and I are on a long highway and we see a bridge that says "This way to Poland" and another exit that says "This way to France." For some reason, I always want to go to Poland. My father goes to France anyway. For the record, as a lesbian and a woman, I'd much rather go to France. Thank goodness for my Dad.
From today's Post-Gazette, I learned that the Three Rivers Arts Festival has recruited a talented young gay man as the associated director. His name is Chris Taylor, he's from Penn Hills and he describes himself as "single and looking for a domestic partner." Love that.
Taylor recently earned an M.A. in administration and policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since his last year of graduate school, he'd been director of community and cultural programs for the Center on Halsted, a Chicago gay and lesbian community organization.
Always nice when there is a bit of good gay news in the paper. Welcome back to Pittsburgh, Chris.
As we reported last week, Kennywood, the bastion of local family fun, was producing a pirate themed show that featured homophobic content ... lispy voice, gay kissing panic, you know the drill. In response to a complaint, Kennywood General Manager Jerome Gibis said he didn't find the content offensive and wasn't going to change the content without more complaints.
Intrepid Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force employee, Mary Hawk, brought the issue to the attention of Pittsburgh's gay community via email. Word spread like wildfire. And the complaints commenced. No numbers are available, but apparently the threshhold for "a lot" was surpassed by Saturday afternoon.
Mary received a call from Mr. Gibis, informing her that the offensive lines were removed. She shared the good news by email:
"I wanted to let you know that I just got a call from Jerome Gibis at Kennywood, who said they had removed the remarks we were concerned about from the dive show. Apparently, he got quite a few phone calls yesterday and today. Thank you all for forwarding the message, and to those of you who made calls."
Local queer advocate Ehrrin Keenan, owner the queer-events email list, got involved and sent me a transcript of her telephone conversation with Mr. Gibis:
> JG: Hi, I'm returning your call regarding your concern with the > content of our of our shows. > EK: Yes, hello. Thank you for calling. > JG: Can I ask how you heard about this? > EK: Sure. I received an email that was forwarded from an email that > Mary Hawk sent out to her co-workers after her conversation with you > about the homophobic content in the "Pirates of Kenny Cove" show. > JG: Yeah, I guess Mary told a lot of people. > EK: Yep. And, lots of other people told their friends, and friends > of friends, etc. You told Mary that you required "additional > comments" before you'd consider removing that content from the > show. I, and many others, wanted to make sure you received the > comments you needed. > JG: Well, it really was only about three words. I mean, it's > entertainment, and everyone has a different idea about what's > funny, so we can't change everything just because one person > doesn't like it
.> EK: I think Mary explain pretty thoroughly that it had nothing to do > with whether she "liked it" or not. It had to do with a particular > scene that was homophobia parading as comedy. She also explained > exactly why it was offensive, and who it could harm, and how it could > harm them. > JG: Well, everyone has a different idea of what's funny. > EK: Indeed. Some people find homophobia funny. Some people find > racism funny, too, but we generally recognize that those things > aren't acceptable, and in fact, can be very, very harmful. > JG: We removed it, so that was all I was calling to say.> So, yeah. He didn't remove it because it was the right thing to > do, or because he saw the point when someone brought it up to him, > but because he got too many calls and emails and wanted it to stop
I wonder if Jerome listened to Don Imus? Because he comes across like an ignorant oaf. I mean seriously, dude, how can you not recognize that a prancing, lisping gay pirate offering to perform mouth mouth resucitation is homophobic? The whole point of the "joke" is to mock homosexuals. I fail to see how a man bright enough to run an amusement park could miss that point. Obviously, Kennywood needs to work on their cultural sensitivity training. Or their management training.
Ehrrin makes an excellent point about the motivation for the change -- nothing to do with righting a wrong or addressing homophobia. Rather, it was simply a matter of appearsing a vocal minority. Kennywood doesn't give a damn about inciting gay bashing; they just want the homos to stop calling.
Nonetheless, the queer community should be very proud of this small success. Stamping out offensive language that could potentially harm our children (and the children of straight folks) is an important thing and kudos to everyone who took the time to make those phone calls.
OK, this just strikes me as weird. The Tribune-Review sent a reporter to OUTrageous Bingo to do a story on the lack of a lesbian scene in Pittsburgh. "Lesbian scene" should always be read as "no lesbians bars," but we'll get to that in a moment.
OUTrageous Bingo is a mixed event - gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered men and women, old people, young people, etc. Why not send a reporter to an actual lesbian event (or a queer women's event) where it more likely you'll find a diverse group of people who are a little plugged in and can say with some authority what's missing?
Anyway, I personally get really tired of people moaning that there is no lesbian bar in Pittsburgh. Good grief. Of all the types of lesbian-friendly places I can conceive, one covered in smoke soot and encouraging women to consume alcohol is not high on my list of lesbian friendly ideals. I could take us on a little trip down the wonderful world of lesbian health to see the disproportionate impacts of alchol abuse and nicotine addiction in the lesbian community, but I'll restrain myself. It always strikes me as ironic that women who so enthusiastically support the ESTHER project, a lesbian health project, are the ones complaining about the bar situation.
Now that I got that off my chest, I have to say that the women profiled in the story made some excellent points about many projects and events being dominated by gay men, the small group of the same people who show up for everything, etc. And it is interesting how the younger women are picking up the mantle to get new kinds of things with an old twist organized. Sarah Claire, for example, organizes dance parties at the smoke free Ava Lounge in East Liberty. Cool. Ehrrin Keenan organizes lesbian book club and game nights. Very cool. Kat and Rowan got the potluck up and running smoothly. Awesome. We need to keep that kind of initiative flowing.
Now see Ledcat and I would do all of those things. Except we haven't. Because life gets in the way. Maybe part of the issue is that women have pretty full plates so a once a month or once every other month outing to a lesbian-centric event is enough. Maybe we've integrated as lesbians into society enough that our social needs can be filled outside of a lesbian bar.
Maybe its no longer about retreating to a lesbian-centric space as claiming our own spaces as lesbian-centric. Isn't that what we've been struggling for all these years? I'm not saying we don't need lesbian oriented places. But maybe they aren't bars. Maybe it's the fact that I can walk into Cafe Beleza on teh Northside, holding Ledcat's hand and call her honey without thinking twice about it. Or maybe that we can go out to dinner at the Square Cafe, staffed mainly by lesbians, and do the same thing. Or fly a rainbow windsock on my porch on a street with one other gay couple. Or that I have her picture on my desk at work.
Maybe this is an opportunity to generate a new sense of space and community.
To be fair, the article missed some pretty big things, namely the Dyke March and Celebrate the Night. It missed the queer performance events and the queer arts scene almost completely. It completely missed the Burghosphere.
It also missed the ongoing tension between gay men and lesbians over power and control of LGBTQ resources. This dynamic is at play whether its bar owners complaining about lesbians who drink water all night or the debate about the misanthropic content of drag queen shows.
The sidebar article sums up why this piece was not a hallmark step forward for the lesbians in Pittsburgh. The editor helpfully included a list of contact information for the events described in the main story, which is especially good for those lesbians in the hinterlands that aren't sure how to go about finding these resources. Kudos to the Trib. However, the title of that sidebar? Where the girls are.
An email message has been circulating the Internet for the past 24 hours, claiming that the newest entertainment at Kennywood has homophobic content and asking the community complain about it. I've been unsuccessful in contacting the individual, an employee of the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force, but have received several copies of the message from credible leaders in the LGBT community who obviously know this woman enough to put their name behind her story. Thus, I've opted to go ahead and post about the rumor.
According to her email, she recently visited Kennywood and caught the newest dive show performance:
>> I was at the dive show, which this year is pirate-themed. The >> scenario is that the captain of the pirate crew is drowning, but > his >> crew members reject the idea of giving him mouth-to-mouth >> resuscitation. However, one of the crew members runs up, gives a >> swishy flip of his wrist, and says in a lispy voice, "I'll do > it, >> sweetie!" To this, the Master of Ceremonies replies, "Hey, hey, >> we'll have none of that here!" How homophobic and unnecessary.
Typical stupied homophobic humor. You would think after Johnny Depp's performance as a fey pirate, they would have enough sense to use a little wink, wink swish to make their gay references. Fortunately, they are stupid enough to be blatant which means they got caught. A ha!
The author took action and contacted Kennywood management.
>> After a couple of calls to Kennywood, I finally got a call back >> from the general manager, who said that he didn't pick up on > the >> content as being offensive, in fact didn't even think about it >> until he got my message and then went to see the show again. He >> basically said he was not concerned about it, and generally they >> don't change show content until they get numerous complaints. > As >> such, is going to leave the show as it is. (I could tell he thinks >> I'm crazy, which I may be, but not about this.)
Thus, content is not offensive unless they get a critical mass of complaints. Then it is still not offensive, but might cost money so they'll consider pulling it. Overall, things ain't gonna change at Kennywood if people don't complain.
The rumors that Kennywood is not gay-friendly have been circulating for years. I've had very credible LGBTQ community members share stories about management resistance to a "Gay Day" at Kennywood. Apparently, we are welcome to come spend our money as long as we aren't too flamboyantly gay. That's reserved for the pirates. However, when Ledcat and I are in line, we notice dozens of homos, coupled and not. None, to my knowledge, have attempted to convert the innocent children running amok without parental supervision -- if anyone should be banned from Kennywood, it is children dumped by their parents for 8 hours and a few $20 bills.
And make no mistake about it -- the kids know we are gay. They aren't stupid. They see gay people at school, on television, in the movies and on the Internet. They probably know the coded gay behaviors better than most gays. Kennywood isn't protecting them from anything other than lessons in tolerance.
So now throw a gay pirate into the mix. How original! Why not take a group of sugar hyped unsupervised teenagers and infuse a little gay-panic into the mix? Cause the kid they all pick on for being a sissy -- he's probably somewhere in the park, maybe with his kid sister. And when they track him down, will the pirates come to his rescue? Will the sweeper chicks use their pans to defend him? Will anyone even care as long as he doesn't bleed in front of Kiddieland?
Our on the scene correspondent has a few more thoughts:
>> I then pointed out to him that a majority of our local population >> may not find these comments offensive, but that this doesn't > make >> it right to continue it. I also said that many individuals who are > >> indeed offended by it may not be able voice their concerns, for > fear >> of having to identify themselves as gay and or being perceived as >> gay. I also said that the young, gay teen who is watching the show > >> and is hurt by those comments, will certainly not complain to >> management. I further encouraged him to do the right thing for the >> voices that can't express themselves. However, he said he is >> going to leave the show as it is unless he gets any additional >> comments.
Amen, sister. He's being a stupid homophobic ass.
The general manager of Kennywood is Jerome Gibas. I left a message asking for a comment. No response thus far.
Please pick up the phone and let Kennywood know this is unacceptable. It is stupid pandering to the latent homophobia in their audience and just absurd content for kids to view. Family friendly my ass. Why not hoist a giant Rosie O'Donnell balloon and let kids go to town with paint ball guns?
The park phone number is 412-461-0500. You will need to select Guest Relations from the menu and ask to speak with Jerome.
