Any LGBT's Out There?
The Screen Actors Guild, one of the unions I'm required to belong to, has sent its 2010 diversity census form to its members. There are just four questions, numbered 1, 2, 3 and (I swear) 3. The first Question #3 is: Do you identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and/or Transgender (LGBT)? Two additional questions leaped immediately to mind. I'll call them questions number 1 and 1. First, and/or? The mind boggles at the and possibilities. Second, what does the parenthetical LGBT mean? Is that one of the "and/ors?" Well, it turns out (and, heck, you probably knew this) it stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. So it was just restating the options; a kind of internal redundancy (like ATM Machine--Automated Teller Machine Machine or PIN Number--Personal Identification Number Number).
Being somewhat sheltered, apparently, I was surprised to learn there was a catch-all abbreviation for the alternative lifestyles crowd. Like LOL and BFF, I can now add LGBT to my personal lexicon. It was a little like when a smarmy Anderson Cooper introduced me to the term "teabagging" on CNN. You're never too old to learn.
But I digress. The SAG census form explained that, "In order to best serve you, we must identify the demographics of our diverse membership." However, inasmuch as a talented member of that fine guild should be able to portray several letters in the LGBT category, I don't quite understand the point. Nor do I understand how I'm being served better.
By the way, for those of you wondering about it, Question #1 asked us to identify our race; Question #2 asked about our disabilities; and the second Question #3 asked us to identify our primary zip code. I have to think about answering that last one. After all, there's such a thing as privacy.
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Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
You're the best, Pat. Where have you been all my life? Well, other than ... you know, on that show.
May '10
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
You can't imagine how embarrassing it was to watch MSNBC with my mother-in-law last night and hear Rachel Maddow discussing "teabagging" and its sexual connotations. Each time I hear an anchor repeat this phrase with a little glimmer of self-satisfied "hipness," I become uncomfortable. In fact, it makes me sick. My mind can only wonder what it will be next. Must they pervert the meaning of everything? Can you imagine journalists of the 60s and 70s sayings such things during their newscasts?
My mother-in-law told me she doesn't want to know what it means (thank goodness, because I didn't want to explain it, either). But that's the difference between my generation and my parents' generation--I think sometimes my generation fails to see the beauty and necessity of omission.
May '10
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
Well, we male lesbians (H/T, Rush, about 20 years ago), as with all lesbians, are exclusively interested in females, and now demand our share of the diversity booty. Female gays who are thus romantically interested only in men should also demand your benefits.
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
Dating possibilities are growing exponentially!
May '10
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
Beginning to doubt if there is such a thing as privacy anymore, Pat. It seems to have eroded in the same way so many other things I value have. Amazingly, few seem capable of keeping intimate details privy these days, with social media acting as the big enabler. They used to call it "spilling your guts," I think-- and for a reason! As to the rest, I must have joined the ranks of "Old Fogeydom," because I still don't know what "teabagging" is, but I know I don't want to know. Prager enlightened me to the meaning of LGBT. Hey, ya gotta band together so as to carve out special rights and benefits, right? Anyway, so pleased to see you contributing here!
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
Thanks, Mark. What I find fascinating about the erosion of privacy is that we weren't forced into it; we've marched off the cliff voluntarily. If the government had forced us to divulge the kinds of things we're freely spreading, we'd be marching in the streets demanding our right to privacy. Imaging going to high school kids twenty years ago and saying, "I have an idea. Let's go to the art supply store and buy some poster board. You can paste your picture on it along with details about your life and lives of your friends, and people can write messages on it and post their own pictures and thoughts. And we can hang that poster in the hallway at your school. Whad'ya say?" I believe they'd say we were nuts.
May '10
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
Who'd have thought Ricochet would have so much union representation?
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
Pat, being a perpetual smart aleck, I suggest the following answers:
1. Race: If you were born in the US, I'd write "Native American."
2. Disability: "My association with SAG."
3. Primary Zip Code: Any group of prime numbers will do.
3. I'm in the same camp as Duane on that one.
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
The current president of the Screen Actors Guild--which is to say, the successor of the likes of Eddie Cantor, James Cagney, Ronald Reagan, and Charlton Heston--is Ken Howard. What would happen, Pat, if a SAG member wrote a very respectful letter to Howard, asking why SAG, founded 1933, was able to represent its members without inquiring into their sexual orientation for more than three quarters of a century but finds itself unable to do so now?
Just wondering.
May '10
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
Maybe they're trying to figure out the bathroom arrangements at SAG HQ. The LGBT members have never known where to go, but now they're tired of acting.
I bet Hollywood bathrooms have bigger mirrors.
May '10
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
Boy, that LGBT is so out of date and non-inclusive. Haven't they heard it's been extended to LGBTTQQ?
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
I'd like to pause, for a moment, and mark the titanic shift in a culture -- and honestly, I don't think it's such a bad one -- that allows SAG -- the Screen Actors Guild! -- to blithely and directly ask such a question of its members, some of whom, until very recently, would have done anything, said anything, married anyone, hired PR flacks and studio goons, paid off tabloid reporters and gossip rags, joined Scientology, and even committed murder to avoid answering that question at all.
A lot of them still will, which is why the idea of such a survey is so laughable. Seriously, Pat, don't you think that whatever number they come up with, they should add about 30%? I mean, these are actors.
But I haven't stopped laughing at the two questions numbered "#3" -- SAG, like my union, the Writers Guild, is always making idiotic mistakes like that, which is why SAG and the WGA are always outsmarted by the studios and producers during contract negotiations. Ever read a mailer put out by the Directors Guild? They're flawless. Which is why they always win in those negotiations.
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
Well, Rob, Number 1, you're right. And Number 1, you're right.
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
I just can't help imagining the late, great Paul Lynde -- or for that matter, Rock Hudson or Montgomery Clift or...well, let's stick with the guys who can't hire libel lawyers -- opening up that SAG mailer and thinking, Are you kidding?
In fact, for the past five minutes I've heard Paul Lynde in my head, in his loopy staccato, shrieking If you think I'm answering tha-aat you've lost your miiii--iiinndddd."
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
Pat what does the union plan on doing with the results of the "diversity census?"
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
That's a very good question. If the results show "sufficient" diversity, they'll probably put out a press release. If not, that's probably the last we'll see of it. What is sufficient diversity? You'll just have to wait for the press release to find out.
May '10
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
I bet there are people who felt disappointment and maybe even shame at having to answer "no" to question 3 the first.
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
I decided to answer yes, but with an asterisk, and an explanation to "see attached sheet." I, of course, did not attach a sheet. I figured it would arouse their curiosity.
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
As I never tire of pointing out, LGBT solidarity unthinkingly and unfeelingly excludes those who identify simply as Queer. And this is to say nothing of the so-called Curious, or indeed straight Allies. The list, we can be certain, goes on. As none less a sexpert than Andrew Sullivan points out, the unpronounecable acronym is the love slave of ever more fractured and cupiditous sexual subdivisions. Inevitably, these will outstrip the restrictive heteronormativity of our twenty-six-letter alphabet, and we will be required to resort to more exotic symbol systems, the squiggly contortions of which more and more faithfully depict our increasingly inventive physical and ideological couplings. Paging Thomas Pynchon...
May '10
Re: Any LGBT's Out There?
Some of the farm boys in Iowa had their category, too. It's all OK, as long as it's between two consenting mammals.