GAY MEDIA OUT OF TOUCH WITH GAY AMERICA

Today I wrote this article for a group of men and women that produce gay-oriented films. I wonder if any of you guys agree with me. Post your comments by clicking on the comments link below.

GAY MEDIA OUT OF TOUCH WITH GAY AMERICA
by Victor Rook (February 8, 2006)

As I sit here today, after having a brief online conversation with the managing editor of The Washington Blade, I think it's time that I speak for the millions of gay men and women that feel that the gay media does an extremely poor job of representing us. It doesn't take but one or two looks at the headlines of some of these publications to realize where they like to put the spin. Recently, I caught a blog entry from this same editor criticizing 'Brokeback Mountain', and its actors, from not publicly announcing that this is a gay movie. To him, he felt they were alienating the gay community. I watched this editor, over the weeks that Brokeback garnered many awards and acclaim, still hang onto that chip on his shoulder with every new post.

So this is what you have, a young editor, who has no clue about how important this movie is in changing perceptions of the public. The fact that these men are not swishing around is monumental in itself, and I applaud them for not promoting the movie as a gay movie, because it isn't. It's a movie about two men that have both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. So many in the gay media feel that everything must be labeled gay, or compartmentalized to be either a "gay" thing or a "straight" thing, they miss out on the big picture. They latch onto that 'g' word as if their lives depended on it. Of course, that may be the case. If they can't divide every story into a gay or straight story, they wouldn't have a publication. The world is just not that simple, sexuality is not that simple, so much so that maybe it's finally time to throw out those labels, or at least tell stories about real men and women, who identify as gay, who don't fit the stereotypes that these publications constantly promote.

And so I had a very short conversation with this editor of the Washington Blade. Three weeks prior I had sent him a press release on a documentary I produced on the first openly gay pro wrestler in the history of the sport, entitled "CHANGING PERCEPTIONS: Profile of an openly gay pro wrestler." A true story about a man who, in line with the Brokeback Mountain men, does not exhibit the stereotypes so often promoted in the gay media. Of course, this is about a real person, named Simon Sermon, who has wrestled for nearly six years in the most rural of areas in the southeastern U.S., and has changed those audiences perceptions of what it is to be gay or a gay athlete. There are no feather boas or pigtails with Simon. He goes out there and kicks ass like every other wrestler. This is truly historical when you consider the decades of false "gay" characters that professional wrestling has exhibited to us, played by heterosexual men.

Is this man worthy of coverage? Absolutely. Here's how my conversation went with the Blade editor. "Hi, what does a guy have to do to get coverage in the Blade. (smile)" Response: "How did you get my AIM name?" My response, "I opened an email I sent to you and saw you were online and took a chance at contacting you." "I don't remember getting that, resend it to me." "OK," I said. Then he blocked my IM.

You can watch a trailer for CHANGING PERCEPTIONS at gayprowrestler.com.