[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Not that I believe in polls exactly, but there was an interesting
> survey showing last year showing that homophobia truly is the last
> bastion of open intolerance in America. The authors did in-depth
> interviews with hundreds of very average middle-class people across
> the country, found them much more open-minded about race than anyone
> expected (tons of them brought up family members who were in
> interracial couples as a factor that made them reevaluate prejudice),
> but quite virulent in opposition to homosexuality.
I find this quite hard to believe. In fact it seems from my vantage point to
be quite the opposite, in terms of having family, friends, co-workers or
whomever who are gay than having such in interacial relationships. I wonder
what this very average sample is. There are certainly large and virulent
pockets of anti-gay sentiment, most notably conservative religious sorts who
see purple gay teletubbies behind every bush.,
> Though most of them
> stopped short of hate-mongering, or even saying it should be a crime
> etc, they did honestly think it a sin. And disgusting too of course.
> That'd pretty much be the soccer-mom demographic country radio aims
> for, and I'd be pretty surprised if a gay or lesbian country star can
> break through before this changes.
Deanna Carter is a lesbian. Well, I have no idea. But if we start spreading
the rumor, will she go away? But there is a complex set of issues behind this
so-called soccer mom issue and potentially gay country performers (or I should
say, gay country potential performers?). One is the urge for normalcy,
complacency, and the rest of the suburban fantasy of middle landscape clean
white idyll that so much of corporate radio is programmed to. The other is the
disruption alternative sexualities pose to this constructed weltanschauung.
So, no, I don't expect a big push from the big labels/radio in breaking a gay
country star. The idea is to sedate and comfort, manufacture the audience,
and sell it to Wal-Mart or Applebees Neighborhood Bar and Grill.
> (Which I foolishly imagine it will
> by the time today's late-adolescents are grown, because no reasonably
> educated kids I meet now seem to be shocked by homosexuality anymore.
> But y'never know.)
I meet those kids too. But I also run itno those shitless about it and will
replicate in some way the fear-world of their parents (join the local suburban
christian coalition church perhaps--hell, not perhaps, that's where I bump into
them)
All in all, I'd agree with Jon's assessment that it's still a lot better than
it was in terms of outright hostility and violence. But I have my doubts about
thinking it's progress rather than mutation into yet another virulant form.
