On Monday, in class, we watched a couple clips from "Dawson's Creek" that was centered around homosexuality. Now, I must admit, I've NEVER watched a minute of Dawson's Creek, and obviously, for GOOD reason. As far as the show alone, I thought it was terrible. It was corny, boring, and the characters that we were able to watch really annoyed me in more ways than one!! But, anyways, that wasn't the point.
Afterwards, we sorta talked about the representation of homosexuality on television. Then, Ellen asked us if we knew any gay people, and if we did, who did they act more like: the gay football player or the nerdy, weird gay guy!! I wasn't able to answer this question, however, because I can't say that I know any homosexual people. Then, one boy, I forget his name, spoke up and said if there ARE gay people who watch those types of shows to see how they should act, they have bigger problems than their sexuality. I couldn't agree MORE!!
I think it was really silly how that particular episode of Dawson's Creek displayed "gay" behavior, I guess. I mean, if you want to be gay, that's cool; and if you want to be straight, that's cool with me too!! I don't think a person's sexuality should determine how they're treated at all. Unfortunately, people are ridiculed if they're homosexual; and Dawson's Creek taught me that "popular" gay people aren't well-liked by "not-so-popular" gay people. All in all, I was quite confused this week in class!!
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People's sexual development, queer or not, is an incredibly complicated issue. The comment the student made in class was incredibly uninformed. For many young people, developing a sexuality is difficult enough, but imagine how you might feel if yours wasn't developing in the same way as the other boys you knew. Imagine that your best friend is talking about how much he wants to make out with the cute girl across the room, but you're thinking that your friend is cuter than that girl. Imagine how isolated you might feel, or how guilty, or how you might think there was something wrong with you.
Then imagine that you see, on television or in a film, someone struggling with the same issues you are. For the overwhelming majority of queer men, their first contact with queerness--the first time they get the message that other people are going through the same things that they are--is via television or film. For them, those "bigger problems" your classmate talked about are that they don't understand what they're feeling, they don't know how to react to their feelings, they get the message that their feelings are wrong, they don't know that other people feel the same way that they do, or they are getting only messages telling them that what they feel is wrong.
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