Talk shows and homophobia

I saw the video below on Towle the other day. In the video we see Ellen talking about a boy who was killed because of homophobia -- the video sandwiches a clip from an appearance of comedian Harland Williams on Conan O'Brien:

The story Ellen talks about is precisely the reason why I started this blog.  I continue to firmly believe that the often negative portrayal of the gays in the media can cause many damages to our lives, it causes gays to stay closeted and out gays to suffer, be killed.  Things need to change.

Male, white, heterosexual talk show hosts vary the degree of negativity with which they refer to gays, but they are invariably negative -- damaging to us. The leader in the nasty homophobic jokes circuit always seemed to be Jimmy Kimmel.  Case in point: his latest lame attempt at comedy, which sadly got the support from major stars.

(You can read more and watch the Kimmel video at Towle). 

But Jimmy is not alone, and his Ben Affleck stint is not even amongst his worst homophobic bits -- do you remember his nasty comments about Brokeback? Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno and David Letterman are all together in making homophobic jokes.  David Letterman, who I sometimes think is the least damaging of them, the other day said he was happy that the Spitzer incident at least did not involve an airport restroom.  I guess he could just be jabbing at the Republicans with the reference to the Senator Larry Craig story, but his comment could very easily be seen as "at least he (Spitzer) is not gay"...

Hopefully those comedians will change soon, especially Conan and David -- both have talent and are better positioned to negatively influence people and instill greater homophobia in society. Conan, for example, could have said something to Harland after he was done with his "joke."  Kudos to Ellen and the maker of the Ellen video above for shedding some light on the issue of homophobia.

Comments

[thesp467]

get a life

[Jonathan]

Sadly, a lot of people do not see how this topic is so harmful, yet they could see how the omission of Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans (or even stereotypes of those groups) could be harmful. The discourse used in the media influences the way people view the world -- it is important to watch for and take a stand against the negative portrayals we see!