In this week's show, we talked about ladies who make us laugh. Stacey and I made passing mention of the controversy surrounding that photograph of Kathy Griffin and what looked like Donald Trump's decapitated head. So, for this week's blog installment, here's something I wrote about that incident in the days after it occurred. (NOTE: This post originally appeared at Medium on June 1, 2017.)
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In the last few days, comedienne and gay icon Kathy Griffin has found herself in a spot of controversy. Together with photographer Tyler Shields, Griffin created an image that depicted her holding the decapitated head of a man, covered in blood, and with a hairstyle unmistakably reminiscent of President Donald Trump.
The backlash was almost immediate. Angry tweets were tweeted by the likes of Chelsea Clinton, Griffin’s personal friend Anderson Cooper, and Trumphimself, who noted that the image was very upsetting to his 11-year old son in particular. The consensus reached by both sides of the political spectrum was a sandstorm of outrage, offense, and condemnation. Liberals insisted that such violent imagery has no place in civilized debate, while conservatives predictably used the incident to indict the “hatred” they see as synonymous with liberalism, and wondered how liberals would have felt if someone depicted a violent death of Barack Obama.
Actually, we don’t need to wonder about that since violent images, often reminiscent of Jim Crow-era lynchings, depicting a violent death for Obama were all-too-common throughout his Presidency. And yet, liberals argued, two wrongs don’t make a right. Just because they did it, doesn’t mean we should follow suit. When they go low, we go high. In less than 24 hours, Griffin apologized. In a video, posted to Twitter, she said, “I’m a comic. I crossed the line … I beg for your forgiveness. I went too far. I made a mistake, and I was wrong.”
I couldn’t help but notice that in a political landscape so polarized that both sides have all but given up hope that we would ever agree on anything ever again, Kathy Griffin brought the entire country together in a matter of hours, with a single image, without ever saying a word. But it was difficult for me to celebrate this feat of momentary peacemaking, because I wasn’t so sure that I agreed with the masses on this one.
I will admit, firstly, that I’m a fan of Kathy Griffin; more often than not, she makes me laugh. I will also admit that I’m no fan of Donald Trump. As such, I should have been the perfect audience for this particular artistic creation — but something about it didn’t work for me. It didn’t make me laugh, or even smile. It didn’t inspire me to #RESIST, politically or in any other sense — it certainly didn’t fan any latent urges toward violence. Mostly, it just numbed me. I sat in front of my computer screen, taking it all in, mouth agape and eyes growing ever wider. “Wow,” I thought. Not much more than that, just … “wow.” (And not really a good wow, but more of a “WTF” wow.)
I noticed the look on Kathy’s face — not defiant, certainly not jubilant — but slightly panicked and somehow both manic and depressive at the same time. I noticed her oddly formal, bordering-on-frumpy blouse, which I was later reminded has a particularly named feature: the pussy-bow. I noticed the sheer amount of fake blood used to decorate the prosthetic head. And I reflected on the fact that I really, really dislike Donald Trump, and yet — I had to ask myself if I was okay with this. And the answer came slowly. And it was … no. No, I don’t think so. No, I don’t like this.
And yet, I’m not eager to condemn Kathy Griffin and Tyler Shields for creating this particular work of art, even though it makes me uncomfortable. I believe that many works of art, certainly this photo, are meant to make its viewer uncomfortable. And I can’t deny that this image taught me something about myself. It tested my limits; as a result, I learned that there’s a line I don’t want to cross. And I’m not upset at Kathy Griffin for crossing that line for me; in many ways, that’s an artist’s job.
Art is not a luxury. Art isn’t something to enjoy once life’s necessities have been taken care of. Art, even really bad art, has a purpose. Art, at the very least, has something to say. At its best, art is a vessel wherein the viewer learns something, not about the artwork, but about him or herself. And by that barometer, this shocking photograph is surely art. It might not have been a smart decision for Kathy Griffin to create this particular work of art; in fact, it’s already come at a financial cost. It might not have been politically savvy; many are suggesting that the photo gives Trump supporters license to dismiss any of his critics as violent hatemongers. It might not be in good taste; more to the point, it was likely never meant to be.
But it is art, nonetheless. And I am, ever so slightly, different than I was because of it.
In the past few weeks in America, oh now let's see ...
Actual neo-Nazis marched through the streets of Charlottesville and killed someone.
Transgender servicemembers are being banned from the military for seemingly no reason.
Hurricane Harvey became the single largest rain event in our country's history, burying our fourth largest city in a trillion gallons of water.
Recipients of the DACA program have learned that the program is being ended, and if Congress takes no action, they'll likely face deportation.
Hurricane Irma has strengthened to a Category 5 storm and is headed straight for Florida.
It's times like this when I sometimes pause and wonder why Stacey and I spend so much time watching movies and TV shows so that we can meet on the weekends and have long extended conversations about them. I mean, the nominal "leader of the free world" is a spray-tanned toddler and the planet is apparently trying to eat us alive, and this is what's important to us?
And you know what? Yes. Yes, it is.
For starters, I love movies. I love good television. Additionally, I love books and theatre and music. I have a love/hate relationship with awards shows, but I still end up watching them and caring who wins. I grieve (in my own way) when young artists die too soon and older artists leave behind a stunning legacy of work to inspire the next generation. I believe that pop culture is art. And I believe that when art ceases to be important, we're in real trouble.
Your hosts. And wine.
Also, if you haven't already noticed, most of the POPeration! episodes we record are basically me laughing hysterically. Stacey has always been able to make me laugh, no matter the topic, and so no, I won't give up the hours we spend together planning the next episode, fighting over which movies and TV shows we need to watch the following week, and recording our conversations; it's just too much fun.
And I need a little fun right now. I need some joy in my life. I suspect I'm not alone.
It can be very easy during troubling times to resist those things that bring you joy, but I believe it's a huge mistake. Yes, you should watch the news, if you can stand it; I do. Yes, if you feel so moved, you should protest; I did, and I probably will again before too long. But no, you should not stop doing things that make you happy. Walk your dog. Watch the game. Knit. Play a round of golf. Lose yourself in a good book. Travel. And if you're like me, see a movie you loved as a child or binge the latest must-see show on the streaming service of your choice.
Above all, laugh. If you don't have a Stacey in your life, you should get one. Vent about the state of the world if you need to, but at least tell a joke while you're doing so, and then change the topic eventually and do something that makes you happy.
Also, podcasts. Podcasts are good. I know of a really excellent one you should try; we're on Apple and Stitcher and Google Play and iHeartRadio and YouTube and ... okay, you get my point.
There’s a great scene in Blake Edwards’ Victor/Victoria between Robert Preston and Julie Andrews. She’s at
the end of her rope, both financially and emotionally, and is sobbing
uncontrollably in his arms. “There have been times I’d have given my soul to
cry like that,” he says. She whimpers back, “I hate it.” He smiles, pats her
back, and replies, “You wouldn’t if you couldn’t do it anymore.”
There’s something about crying that presents a puzzle to
anyone who studies popular culture, even as a hobby, and it is this: We tend to
avoid crying in life, or at least those situations that would call forth tears.
And yet, some people don’t mind, even seek out, movies or television shows that
cause them to weep in response to fictional characters and situations.
In a completely unscientific bit of research earlier this
week, I asked my community of Facebook friends to weigh in on the movies that
never failed to make them cry, and I learned a few things – about my friends,
mostly … but also about me, and why we go to the movies, period.
Several of my friends named movies they had initially seen as children. Bambi was, of course, mentioned, as well as It’s a Wonderful Life and Old
Yeller, which my friend Fay goes so far as to label “abusive.” An example
mentioned several times by several friends was Disney’s classic Dumbo. In particular, the moment where
Dumbo’s mother, caged and branded a “mad elephant” because she wouldn’t
tolerate cruelty toward her beloved child, reaching her trunk through the bars
of her cage, and cradling little Dumbo in her trunk to the strains of “Baby
Mine” was a significant source of trauma for many of my friends. As my friend
Ellen noted, “She
every mother trying to protect her son from all the hurt in the world and it
can't be done.”
In fact, lots of people mentioned mothers. Like Stacey, Terms of Endearment was an immediate
pick for my friend Franc, for a very particular reason. “I watched it … with my
mother. My sister died from cancer and viewing this movie with Mom, still so
lost in her grief at the time, just gutted me. Anytime I have ever watched it
since, I can't separate that memory and sense of loss from the film.”
Any kind of mother seemed to elicit tears, even the gorilla
mother of a human child. My friend Dennis noted that “when [Tarzan’s] mother sings, ‘You’ll Be In My
Heart’ … my daughter just gets the tissues out for me.”
And of course, there’s Steel
Magnolias. I told my own story in this week’s episode, but my friend Kathy
sees that final scene in the cemetery from a slightly different perspective
than I. “No
parent can watch that scene without tears,” she says, “seeing Sally Fields try
to grapple with her daughter's death.”
My friend Kyle had a pick I wasn’t expecting. “As a kid, it was a VHS
we had of Danielle Steele's Fine Things.
It made me cry every time, mostly because it always made me think of what it
would be like if I were to lose my mom.”
And the dads got to join the party, too. My friend Brent
(who just happens to write the best dad-blog
ever) mentioned Finding Nemo,
particularly the scene “at the end, where Marlin realizes he has to let Nemo grow up and
experience life on his own. As a dad, I'm so not ready for that [talk].”
And my friend Steve had a similar reaction at the end of Field of Dreams. “The last scene when his father says, ‘want to have a catch?’ … I
start peeling onions.” My friend Leticia picked The Little Princess. “especially when she sees her father after being told that he's
dead and he doesn't remember her! And then when they are finally reunited!”
(She was clearly crying as she typed this.)
Familial bonds aside, stories about friendship were
mentioned a lot. Beaches was a
popular pick, as was Babette’s Feast.
There were also some surprises in this category. My friend Erick remembers a
scene from the end of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (and no, he
wasn’t crying from sheer exhaustion, as I was). He notes, “when Sam says to Frodo
on Mt. Doom, ‘I may not be able to carry the ring for you, but I can carry
you,’ and hefts him up and climbs. What a heroic gesture, what an amazing
friend, what an amazing bond between them.”
And then there’s my friend Jeb, who teared up at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, of all things.
“Remember when
the ship was crashing and Groot decided to weave his tree-like body around the
group as a last-ditch biological protection? Rocket starts crying and asking
Groot, his ONLY friend, ‘Why are you doing this? You'll die!’ Groot gazes into
his eyes and simply says... ‘We are Groot.’ … That physical embrace and
emotional union is something I cherish whenever I can find it with friends in
my life, probably because I grew up in a culture that taught men not to be
affectionate and not to say what is really in their hearts.”
It might not surprise regular listeners to learn that there
are a lot of gay men in my Facebook feed, and some of the choices reflected
that as well. Latter Days, a film
I’ve actually not seen, was mentioned by several friends. Jon wrote, “I really related to it
and felt really lucky that I was never tortured at one of those conversion
places. Never fails to get me when they are putting him in the ice bath and
dunking his head under.” As pleasant as that sounds, I think I do need
to see this film, given the sheer number of mentions it received.
Other LGBT films mentioned were Brokeback Mountain, Boys
Don’t Cry, Freeheld, Longtime Companion, Philadelphia, and several votes for It’s My Party. “[I cry] for so many different reasons,” wrote my friend Eric. “The
"what ifs: What if they hadn't broken up? What if they'd gotten back
together sooner? The love story is so heartbreaking.”
Finally, there were some political choices. “When Yvonne
starts singing the Marseillaise [in Casablanca]
and the tears run down her face, I'm right there with her,” wrote my friend
Katherine.
And my friend Dan remembered the scene in Schindler’s List, “where Schindler looks at his Nazi pin and says ‘How
many more could this have gotten?’” At the movies as in life, the political is often personal, too.
I admit that I had a similar experience recently, watching
the national tour of The Sound of Music
at Washington DC’s Kennedy Center. When the Captain got choked up halfway
through “Edelweiss,” he was singing at the Kaltzberg Music Festival in front of
four enormous swastikas, I could feel hot tears streaming down my face. And I
wondered if I had seen this same show last year, if I would have cried.
(Probably, but I did wonder.)
Other tear-inducing films that weren’t mentioned above
include Avalon, A Beautiful Mind, Beauty
& the Beast (2017), Big, Brian’s Song, Broadway Danny Rose, A
Christmas Carol (1951), The Champ,
Cinema Paradiso, Cooley High, The Deer Hunter,
A Dog’s Purpose, Empire of the Sun, The
English Patient, Ever After: A
Cinderella Story, The Fault in Our
Stars, Forrest Gump, Fried Green Tomatoes, Fur, Ghost,
Greyfriars Bobby: The True Story of a Dog,
Harold & Maude, Heartburn, The Hollars, How to Train
Your Dragon, The Ice Storm, Imitation of Life (1959), Inside Out, Lawrence of Arabia, Life is
Beautiful, Little Women (1933), Love Actually, Love Story, Madame X, Me Before You, Moana, Mulan, The Notebook, Pretty Woman,
Pride & Prejudice, Rudy, A Star is Born (1954), Stepmom,
Toy Story 3, The Trip to Bountiful, W;t,
and The Wizard of Oz. That’s a lot of
Kleenex, right there.
Sometimes we cry about things that are sad. A parent or a
child (or worse yet, a dog) dies, lovers are parted, people are lonely. Sometimes
we cry because the joy we feel witnessing a long overdue reunion or the birth
of a child is so overwhelming that we start to leak. Sometimes we cry because
people – or hobbits – are wonderful and capable of so much good that it makes
our hearts swell.
But in every case, I believe, we’re not really crying at
hobbits, or clownfish, or a broke Buildings & Loans manager at
Christmastime, or a girl from Kansas lost on the Yellow Brick Road. We’re
crying because we see something of ourselves up there. It’s probably not a
coincidence that everyone in my Facebook thread who mentioned Latter Days was at one point in their
lives a young gay man afraid to come out, or that everyone who mentioned Beaches was a woman who could tell me a
story about her very best friend that she’s known for years. Crying at the
movies is basically the same thing as looking at yourself square in the mirror
and telling yourself that it’s going to be okay … or that it’s already better
than okay … or maybe just that you’re not alone in the world. (Or that if the
Von Trapps could smuggle seven kids over the Swiss Alps, we’ll survive Donald
Trump.)
I believe that we throw ourselves up there on the silver
screen whether we’re watching an action movie, a silly comedy, or a maudlin
tearjerker. That’s why we’re willing to give two hours of our lives to people
and situations that don’t even exist. When a movie is just okay, it lets us get
away from ourselves for a little while, but when a movie is fantastic – or just
the right movie at the right time – it allows us to find ourselves.
It’s a common stereotype that all gay men love musical theatre, and the show-tune-loving queen who knows all the lyrics that Sondheim ever wrote is a particularly powerful trope, because let’s face it, we’ve all met that guy. I prefer to think that gay men love musical theatre just as much as EVERYONE ELSE loves musical theatre, only we’re not constrained by the toxic masculinity that plagues straight men and so are free to admit it freely and without shame. But, I happen to love musicals, so of course I would say that.
And, I’m fully aware that this particular stereotype, accurate though it may be in many cases, is still limiting and harmful. It’s one more piece of data that allows our heteropatriarchal society to take us less seriously. Musicals are fantasies — nobody spontaneously breaks into song with a full orchestra behind them in real life. Like our obsessions with fashion, film noir, and Britney Spears, it speaks to our fascination with surfaces, and therefore reveals our lack of depth. Except that what’s on the surface can often tell you a lot about what lies beneath. I see a lot of musical theatre — whenever I can, which is pretty often — and last month, I had the pleasure of seeing a local community theatre production of Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret. Like most community productions, some of the performances were better than others, but nevertheless, the story impacted me in a way it never had before. It’s difficult to reduce this or any work of art down to a single sentence, but one way to look at Cabaret is that it’s about those who work and surround a seedy nightclub in 1930’s Berlin, so obsessed with having a great time that they fail to notice the rise of the Nazi Party all around them. But of course, the first time a character strolls onto stage, blithely sporting a red armband with a swastika, we can’t help but notice. (But never mind; fashion is super shallow.)
As musicals go, Cabaret is pretty dark; everybody knows that. And yet, people still spontaneously break into song with full orchestra accompaniment. It’s a fantasy, but it portrays something very real. Bob Fosse’s film version had an indelible effect on me as a teenager; Liza Minnelli became my first object of diva worship, and the scene where Michael York’s Brian reveals his queerness hit me like a ton of bricks, even if I wouldn’t come out myself for another decade. Its effect then was far more personal than political. After all, it’s not like the Nazis would ever come back in my lifetime … right?
But in a town hall turned into a makeshift theatre in November, 2016, that proverbial ton of bricks hit me again: This is now. This is us. These happy rebels singing all about sexual freedom will be dying in the camps in three or four years, and the Ku Klux Klan is currently celebrating the election of a candidate that based an entire campaign on hate, division, and by the way — the most explicitly anti-gay platform in GOP history. This is happening today, right now.
Okay, so I’m not the first one to equate Trump and the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe. Had I given it a moment’s thought before seeing Cabaret, I might have expected my reaction. I was more honestly gobsmacked last weekend, however.
I spent last Sunday at DC’s Kennedy Center with a gay couple, eating brunch (because of course we began with brunch) and seeing a musical. John and I had seen it before, but this was the first time Sidney had seen Wicked, the musical by Winnie Holzman & Stephen Schwartz. Based on Gregory Maguire’s novel, Wicked tells the “untold story” of Elphaba, better known as The Wicked Witch of the West. In it, Elphaba discovers long before Dorothy Gale that the heralded “Wizard of Oz” is a phony, and it frames her opposition to him in terms that we can empathize with. It proves the old adage that there are two sides to every story, but it does so with music that ranges from cute to touching to bring-the-house-down-power-diva-heaven.
But there’s a lesser-known song in the larger piece. It’s called “Wonderful,” and it’s all about how the Wizard crafted his image. In it, he sings, “I never saw myself as a Solomon Or Socrates/I knew who I was, one of your dime-a-dozen Mediocrities/Then, suddenly I’m here, respected, worshiped, even/just because the folks in Oz/needed someone to believe in,” aaaaand, cue that ton of bricks again.
This is him, I thought. It’s Trump. He continues, “Does it surprise you, I got hooked/and all too soon/What can I say?/I got carried away, and not just by a balloon/Wonderful, they called me wonderful/So I said, ‘Wonderful, if you insist/I Will Be Wonderful’ and they said, ‘Wonderful!’/Believe me, it’s hard to resist!”
This was not supposed to be a history lesson, I thought. This was supposed to be a morning of escapism, about a green girl in a made-up world who wears a pointy hat and belts high notes to the second balcony. And here I was watching Donald J. Trump sing a show tune. Dammit.
But as I continued watching, my eye moved back to Elphaba. She’s different. She’s been bullied and ostracized her whole life. But she has power, and she knows it. The Wizard is offering her words of kindness, something she’s been starved for her whole life, but she’s smart enough not to fall for it. If he’s Trump, I thought, then she’s me. Or she could be, if I’m smart enough, and brave enough.
Rather than being a flighty afternoon of escapism, my Sunday matinee performance of Wicked became, for a moment, a mirror of the world that I actually live in, and an inspiring call to action. With fabulous gowns and soaring melodies, but still.
In the years ahead, we need to get serious; I’ve no doubt about that. And part of that, as counter-intuitive as it may be, is to experience art. We must support artists, and we’ve got to feed our soul. Some of it will surely be an escape from the real world, and that’s okay; we need to seize our joy when we can find it. But we need to seek our reflections as well. If you’re averse to people who spontaneously break into song with a full orchestra behind them, then go see the new Star Wars movie, get lost in the new seasons of Orange is the New Black, or Game of Thrones, and don’t be afraid to notice when a scene is all about race or sexuality, even if race or sexuality are never mentioned. Art is a uniquely human way to learn about ourselves, and about the world around us.
In this new era of American history we’re embarking on, we’ll need as much of that knowledge as we can get. And if you can sing along to it, all the better.
