Mon 18 Nov 2013 In: Our Communities View at Wayback View at NDHA
As a proud constituent of the gay world, I am unsettled by our de facto leader’s frippery –and I think there are some others out there who feel the same way. Open your favourite queer tabloid or drive past the right billboard and you’ll be met with a ballet of triviality and egotism rivalled only by the Christmas season’s Nutcracker. Could you put name to Mr Gay World’s stance on Sochi, or explain what he’s accomplished in anti-suicide activism? Well, I bet you know what he looks like without a shirt on! I know, I know…you’re thinking, “Oh come on, he’s probably a great guy! And it’s just a beauty contest! You’re just being super bitchy, Paul!”…which is the stance I assumed up until recently after reading one of his more recent blog posts. It was only after this that I realized there is a harm in these proclamations of unadulterated normativity. This is the harm that occurs when these banal clichés meet our community’s vulgar paucity of strong idols: it is the very harrowing possibility that some (especially the more virginal among us) might take this man’s words in earnest. There are two separate but not separate categories to my grievances which I’d like to address: the problem of privilege and the problem of body image. “It’s funny when I meet people who would like to credit my success in life to my steely abdominals. Or mention that I had every opportunity because of my blue eyes. No one knew that I had to work really hard for myself to be this way.” This excerpt artfully encapsulates the unconsciousness of privileges that pervade our Dear Leader’s rhetoric. It is reflective of a general unconsciousness of privilege within gay, white, Western, communities. I might point out that indeed, Mr Gay World was born with blue eyes and white skin –that isn’t something one works hard for. In fact no amount of strength training is going to change the very different experiences that gay men of colour, poorer gays, and/or effeminate gays face in quite different terms from their upwardly mobile, white, muscle-bound brothers. Mr Gay World, do you think the answer for homeless takatapui is to work harder? Do you think that black and latino voices were absent from the “It Gets Better” campaign in America because they were simply too shy for the camera? Would you say that black gay South Africans don’t face discrimination from white gay South Africans –that these communities are truly post-apartheid? To pretend like it gets better for all of us, like we all have equal access to opportunity, is a great injustice to the truly downtrodden. I don’t mean to minimalize the pain Mr Gay World experienced growing into his young homosexual self, but one must be grateful that it wasn’t worse. Negotiating the way out of a heteronormative world is something that every young gay has to do; it’s painful and jarring for every single one of us. I was also violated by religion, harassed by my big brother’s jock friends, I was also teased for being chubby and have been imprisoned by depression. But when I think of my queer ancestors, those who were strung up to die, were beaten and raped and were taken young by the plague –when I think of those whose lives are compounded by those other categories of marginality besides being gay –I can only feel grateful that I’ve had it so easy. And I do not diminish their sacrifices by pretending I am a victim. My other concern is the extent to which Mr Gay World’s conception of healthy body image is normative in the most destructive sense imaginable. The congruence between the self-congratulations of musculature and condemnation of obesity leads one to believe that if we only take his fitness classes we’ll be no longer be “angry, fat and confused”! I would like to know what it is that made Mr Gay World so unhappy about his fat body in the first place. Surely he has considered the notion that one could potentially become comfortable with the non-bodybuilder bodies they have –I think that’s actually what every single episode of Glee is about. Isn’t it media’s daily visual bombardment of swollen biceps and pert bottoms which privilege a certain kind of body over others? An example are the many PG-13 rated images of Mr Gay World we’ve recently seen in the media: do they truly inspire those young, chubby boys out there? I argue they do the exact opposite: reproduce a standard by which we all might feel a little more ashamed about our muffin tops. We’re fortunate to be born gay in many ways, especially in terms of our history of accepting non-normal bodies: we have femmes, chubbies, bears, and otters and whatever you are, a man will love you for it! At least, that’s how it was –it seems increasingly challenging to find men who aren’t pressured into bench-pressing, getting that “short on top, shorter on the sides” hair cut that everyone gets, and entering “straight acting” into the bio section of their Grindr profile. If only we had role models which showed us that there is no shame in looking different. If only gay media wasn’t saturated with straight-acting gays. If only Mr Gay World as a fitness instructor didn’t profit monetarily from people who are insecure about their bodies. I don’t believe this letter will do much to encourage Mr. Gay World to reconsider the self-congratulatory focus of his reign. On the contrary, I think we can only expect more of the same normative drudgery going forward, especially as summer heats up and an endless number of opportunities to be seen in tiny swim shorts present themselves to our monarch. But realize that you have a choice in your role models, my gay comrades. I, for one, will be sticking with Angie Bassett. -Paul Kramer is a PhD student in Politics at the University of Auckland. Mr Gay World Chris Olwage will respond in a piece tomorrow. Got something you want to get off your chest? Or something positive you want to share? We welcome submissions. Email them to news@gaynz.com Paul Kramer - 18th November 2013