Liberals Have Turned Trump Into a Gay Villain Because Our Worst Villains Must Be Gay (Slate)
"Now that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have met in the flesh, our obsession with imagining the president as a gay man has reached a climax. Frank Bruni used his Thursday column in the New York Times to publish a work of fan fiction, Donnie and Vlad: A Love Story, about the irrepressible, unrequited, and ultimately gross affection of the commander in chief for the leader of Russia. As the men talked behind closed doors for over two hours at the G-20 summit, Twitter got to work:
The joke is not that old, but it feels ancient. The Lithuanian mural atop Brunis piece of Trump and Putin kissing went viral over a year ago; Trump smooched a shirtless Putin on Saturday Night Live in November; and Stephen Colbert was assailed for calling Trump Putins cock holster in May. In the press, where its generally untoward to tease a president in explicitly sexual terms, Trump is said to have many bromancesattempted, budding, ongoing, and failed: with Tom Brady, with James Comey, with Rodrigo Duterte, with Andrew Jackson (d. 1845), with Morning Joe, with Kim Jong-un, with Narendra Modi (actually a romance, no b), with Rupert Murdoch, with Elon Musk, with Benjamin Netanyahu, with Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, with Xi Jinping. And with Qatar Airways CEO Akbar El-Baker. And, of course, with Putin. (Trump has not, according to the press, had a ro- or bromance with Peter Thiel, who is gay and just his tech pal.) These references occur regularly in straight news coverage as ostensibly neutral descriptions. Theyre also very, very popular with political cartoonists.
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The trope is deployed not because it is novel but because it is not. It is hammered like a schoolyard taunt, with a smug assurance that Trump has been duly trolled. Like a lot of liberal comedy right now, it serves a fantasy of resistance through snark. (Think of Seth Rogens dumb Twitter messages to Donald Jr., recently glorified on Colberts show, or the newsecstatically received in February and then chronicled as legend only three months laterthat Melissa McCarthy had humiliated Sean Spicer.) Sexual politics aside, our glee in calling Trump gay says more about us than it does about him.
As for the sexual politics: The joke is a caricature of homoeroticism, descended from century-old stereotypes about gay men and power. Yes, most of the participants are angry liberals, idly imagining how cool it would be to make Trump sadbut Trump is not in the audience (most of the time), and he doesnt seem to care a whole lot about homosexuality anyway. So why is this particular image the weapon of choice?
American homophobia has gone through multiple stages, each leaving a lasting mark on the culture. When we encounter homophobia today, its often in the form of undisguised, visceral disgust: at anal sex, at promiscuity, at disease, at gender nonconformity in general and effeminacy in particular. Sometimes, that disgust is swaddled in religion, as warnings against deviancy from nature and the breakdown of the family unit. In the political sphere, these religious ideas areusuallydefended without reference to their content, on the abstract basis of religious freedom or tradition.
More:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/07/10/jokes_about_trump_being_gay_draw_on_deep_rooted_stereotypes_about_gay_men.html?wpsrc=newsletter_tis&sid=589dfd6ebcb59c58118b45d5
mahatmakanejeeves
(56,896 posts)Don't worry about us. We can take it. I've been through lots worse than this.
I'm not at work now, so I can say this:
I'm sixty-six years old. I've dealt with total assholes every day of my life. On a one-to-one basis, up close and personal, in your face.
I've been kept out of the career I should have had. I've had to pack up and move. I've been fired by evangelicals. On the way out the door, I was handed a Jack Chick bible tract. I love those Jack Chick comics. I think they're a hoot.
they're not so funny when you're handed one as you've been fired.
***** thinks he's tough, but he's just another blowhard. He's something you step in and have to scrape off the sole of your shoe. He's just another in a long line of assholes.
If he wants a fight, we'll give him one.