PREMIER
PinkPaper.com reports that the new Margaret Thatcher biopic, The
Iron Lady, won the number one spot at the box office over the
weekend. The flick, which stars Oscar favourite Meryl Streep, took
over £2.1million - nearly three times the box office achieved by
The Queen when it opened in 2006. Directed by gay woman Phylidda
Lloyd, the film has caused controversy among the community: "Many
PinkPaper.com readers have expressed keen interest in seeing it,
while others claim it should be boycotted in remembrance of Section
28 - local government legislation enacted by Thatcher to limit
discussion of homosexuality in schools."
I don't know. I've not been able to take any of it seriously since
seeing the promo material featuring Meryl-Thatcher with that stupid
grin on her face. Enjoy it as a piece of fiction I say, and nothing
more. Historical document it ain't.
Pinkpaper.com
AGONISING AUNT
If the Daily Mail were a person, just imagine what an utter
killjoy we'd have on our hands. First off - as the Mail boasts of
having a large female readership - let's say she's a woman. Aunty
Mail. She rarely contacts you, but parts of your family do actually
engage with her, so you can't ignore her completely. Now, due to
her narrow-minded, negative and supercilious attitude, Aunty Mail
makes a terrible dinner guest. Most of the time, she avoids being
explicitly rude, yet she always seems to find a way of looking down
her nose at you and your lifestyle. She'll be polite, perhaps even
articulate - if somewhat clichéd. She might start off by making an
observation about something in the news, for example: "The first
lesbians to ever compete in a Miss California pageant lost out on
the title to a straight model" - here she will pause, and raise her
eyebrow - "and failed to even make the finals." Then comes that
smug face of hers. You feel you should respond, so you ask: what do
these girls look like, Aunty? Turns out one of them has a
"distinctive Howhawk hairstyle". You know she really means
"distinctly lesbian". But what type of pageant was it? Oh, Aunty
says, "It is a traditionally conservative event, with girls who
have given birth to a child or who have been married or divorced
unable to compete". Isn't Aunty funny? We usually just say "sexist"
for that sort of thing, these days. And what's with the "given
birth to a child" - like, what else would a human female give birth
to? You don't say as much to her, mind you, but you think these
things whilst clearing the plates away and ordering her a cab.
She'll no doubt moan about the expense, and tell you how much
cheaper everything was in the 50s, but your conscience insists that
you don't let her take the bus. She's out of touch and not entirely
sure how everything works nowadays. Poor luv.
dailymail.co.uk
GAY GAY GAY
Finally, if you think the Daily Mail is bad, spare a though for
our American cousins, who have the disgraceful Fox "news" to cope
with. Rupert Murdoch's network is well known for its right-wing
bias and lack of journalistic standards. It's no use saying "people
don't have to watch it!" either, because some clearly do, and this,
like Aunty Mail, affects the way they see, and treat, everyone
else.
So, Fox is crap. And that means that, when you're homophobic
whilst being interviewed for Fox News, and the reporter suggests
that you might have come on a bit "strong", you've almost certainly
come on a bit strong - as Chicago's Roman Catholic leader, Cardinal
George, recently discovered. Speaking about a dispute over a
potential pride march route, the Cardinal compared the gay
community to white supremacists the KKK: "You don't want the gay
liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan,
demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism". The
WashingtonBlade.com reports that, when asked if the comparison went
too far, the Cardinal clarified his analogy: "The rhetoric of the
Ku Klux Klan, the rhetoric of some of the gay liberation people.
Who is the enemy? Who is the enemy? The Catholic Church." Many
people were understandably upset by the Cardinals, ahem, rhetoric,
and condemned the inappropriate remarks. Two weeks later he issued
an apology via the Chicago Tribune: "I am truly sorry for the hurt
my remarks have caused, particularly because we all have friends or
family members who are gay and lesbian. This has evidently wounded
a good number of people. I have family members myself who are gay
and lesbian, so it's part of our lives. So I'm sorry for the hurt."
The apology seems to be in keeping with Catholicism which, as I
understand it, has a strong element of confessing one's sins and
seeking forgiveness. And it's also kind of cute coming from a
Cardinal. Ah, bless him!
Washingtonblade.com
