The potential of performance.

Pride 2009

This weekend was Bakersfield’s 6th annual Pride event. Chris and I had been working nonstop for 3 months gathering our work to display for potential customers. We had purchased booth space and were hoping to launch our design company and my political blog into an audience of likeminded people. The day was scorching for a while and I left with a healthy tan, located mainly on my face, so I have the sun to thank for that. The experience was enjoyable for the most part, even though we had wished more people would have approached the booth. Near the end of the day, I turned to Chris and said “Take off your pants and stand in front of the table, I am sure we will get at least 3 more people over here. I hear Bakersfield is full of chubby chasers.” I thought it was hilarious, but quickly stopped laughed when he quipped back, “Well if that’s the case, why don’t you stand up front and bring the whole festival over here?”

Well played asshole, well played.

As the evening progressed, the sun was slowly setting, as it tends to do and we were seeing a slow increase in booth action. At one point a fellow Facebooker came by and asked what we were up to. After explaining the blog to him, he replied, “You mean all that crap you post on Facebook? Now you are going to make even more people read it?” Once again, the original jokester laughed,  until moments later when the joke was returned. “Well, I may post political crap, but your wall is nothing but Farmville, Hot Men and quizzes about how you like to screw. So, my opinions may be sarcastic and in your face, but at least people will remember me for my views and not my current score on Bejeweler, or whatever the hell it is that you play while you collect unemployment.”

I have yet to hear back from said friend… after numerous phone calls. Oops.

My mom came by and some point, took some pictures and made some awkward lesbian jokes. After about 15 minutes she left, bummed that no lesbians had hit on her. She later told me that she had removed her wedding ring in the hopes that, some Portia De Rossi look alike, would make her feel pretty again. So sad… just so so sad.

We sat for a while and laughed until we broke in the face of an impending miracle.  Far into the distance, I saw the familiar face of an old friend, a woman who had promised she wouldn’t be attending the event. I will keep her name off the records, as she is still a friend of mine on Facebook, plus she is bigger than me and could probably break my arm.

I had spent the last few weeks, trying my hardest, to convince her to show up at the event and give “gay culture” a chance. My friend, is in no way a hateful bigot, but she has very conservative views and admits she only knows one gay person. Me. We have had many discussions about marriage equality and religions place in politics and she is solid in her views, but willing to cross the divide to see my point of side of the debate.

Now, it’s no secret that I dislike most of what traditional “gay culture” consists of. I don’t enjoy drag queens, club music and our cultural obsession with sex and genitalia leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  It wasn’t until several months ago, that she admitted it was my view of these things that allowed her to reach common intellectual ground with me. She had assumed all gay men were flamboyant, sex obsessed drag queens. Was she ill informed? Sure.  Ignorant?  Yes, maybe…  but I can’t blame her entirely, because we do very little to paint a broad picture of what the gay community actually consists of. Most of us are boring suburbanites.

Knowing her personal views, you can imagine my shock when I saw her walk through those gates. She walked around for a short while, until she found our booth and it was then that I realized she had brought her son with her. I shuddered a little, only because there were some things about that I didn’t feel were necessarily appropriate for children, but he was young enough to ignore the lube ads and vagina posters. She seemed slightly uncomfortable, but did a great job of directing his attention towards Chris and myself and made a b-line straight to us.

I asked her what it was that convinced her to come to Pride and why she hadn’t told me. Her obvious response was that she came to support us, but what came out of her mouth next surprised me.

She was here to give the gay community a chance and see how much in common they had with her and her family.

It was me, after all, who had spent months telling her that our families were just like hers. She was here for the proof.  Moments later we were interrupted by the sound of speakers and commotion.

My friend smiled at me, then walked to one of the tables and sat down. I prayed, and we all know how religious I am. “Please zombie Jesus, don’t let them be offensive, just let it be a normal, drag performance. I am trying to win one to our side!”

The first few minutes were great, I even saw her laugh once or twice, but it was a fleeting moment of enjoyment. Moments later, another drag queen took the stage and exploded into a tirade of “Cunt, fuck, twat, dick, pussy” that lasted for nearly 45 seconds. She was, of course, lip syncing to a song (if it could be called that) and it just got worse and worse. The gist of it was, “I am a strong woman and I can sniff out a man with a little dick and my pussy don’t like no little dicks. You know a bitch like me don’t fuck no one with no little ass dick.”

She was frozen. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t even think to cover her child’s ears; she was so appalled from shock. I felt horrible. Her face slowly turned towards me and her mouth dropped and my heart broke. It wasn’t a look of, “Wow this is a little too much” , but a look of “I trusted you. You told me this was a family event and this is what you bring me?”

I felt like crying. Here is a woman who went WAY out of her comfort zone to see things from “our angle” and this is what we show her.

She walked over to me, ignoring the continuing performance, if it could have been called that and not a recitation of public vulgarity. She stood there silently and as I was about to speak, she said it.

“This is why middle America will never understand or relate to gay people.”

I tried to jump in, at least attempt to tell her I didn’t condone that type of crap and it was not in my control, but she didn’t let up.

“You and your community have obviously framed this as a family event. You have a day care here and there are children everywhere. Far be it from me to call into question their parenting skills, but how many of those parents stood up to object to this vulgarity and nonsense? I am not one to think children are supposed to be protected from the world, but this is over the top. How in the world are people like me supposed to understand the gay community when it seems all you are is a bunch of sexual t shirts and men dressed as woman, doing horribly offensive portrayals of us, while cursing and glorifying this type of tacky trash? I came here to support you, to see if maybe you were right, that gay people had a lot more in common with our families than I had thought. If this is what your families consist of, then there is nothing about this that I support. I will admit I had to stop myself from being bothered by seeing two men kiss, but that’s my issue and I know it’s ignorant. I do, however, feel children are innocent here and this type of trash should be above the gay community.” She paused, only to start up again.

“Are you trying to give the other side ammunition? Can you imagine the public backlash if the news did a piece on this event and showed all of the children and families here, only to cut away to some drag queen cursing and singing about “her” vagina? Do you guys not see how horrible this is for your cause? You are lucky that few people in this town care enough about Pride to put it on TV, or you would be ruined. ”

She was visibly upset. I didn’t know what to say and if you know me, you know I always have a comeback for everything.

I looked down at my brochures and took a deep breath.

“Look, I agree with you.”

I spoke slowly and tried my best to verbalize my understanding of her concerns. “Is that type of performance trashy in the presence of children? Yes.  I agree completely. If I had known they were going to do this, I would have told you so. I had no idea you would even show up. I am so sorry. There is no excuse for this… this type of thing is totally inappropriate, especially when there are children around. But there is nothing I can do. That doesn’t represent me anymore than it does you. I have spent a great many years being ridiculed and marginalized for speaking my mind about these sorts of things, which is mainly why I don’t have many gay friends… but… I would just feel horrible if you were to walk away and this is what you felt about the gay community. It would be a great loss if you felt this represented anything other than cheap entertainment.”

She looked uninterested and even more upset. She spoke, only after a full minute of awkward silence.

“So, is this it? Is this what you are all proud of? Proud of how you prefer to have sex? Proud of your genitals? The only non sexual booths I see here are Costco, the Episcopal Church and Frito Lay. It’s no wonder you don’t have any major supporters here. This type of stuff is horribly offensive and to be on video being performed in front of children… well it’s just bad business. Do you think that Spanish cultural festivals celebrate how they screw or how much they enjoy each other’s nudity? What would you think about a bunch of Christians, throwing a celebration and singing about sex and perverse sexual acts, while sitting in front of children? Would you not look at that with disgust, walking away feeling like you have nothing in common with them?”

What was I supposed to say? I agreed with most of what she was saying, but she was on the war path. I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to diffuse the situation.

“We are a community of VERY different people, but you can’t judge all of us by the actions of others. There are plenty of Christians or Republicans who act like complete fools, but that hardly represents you. The same goes for me. Sure, there are things about typical gay culture I do not enjoy or approve of, but there are a lot of great people in this community, who do great good for people.” I was about to continue, when she jumped in.

“Anal sex is not a culture. A culture is something built on generations of families, music, food and communal ideals. Being homosexual is not a culture, no matter how hard you try to make it one. And to be fair, I don’t go to events where Christians are acting like hateful fools and I don’t attend Republican events where there is outright racism.”

She had me there, but she still didn’t understand. She looked as if the conversation was over in her mind and there was little I could do to stop it.

“Justice, I love you and I always will. I completely support you and your rights. I can understand, from our months of communication that this does not represent you, but if it were not for our previous encounters, I would have no idea. That is what you should all be worrying about. There are millions of Americans who know nothing about gay people and when this is all they see, you are starting out with a losing hand. This may not represent you, but if I didn’t know that, I would assume this summed you up completely. If you want to change people’s minds and show them how your families are just like theirs, you don’t do it by having children around drag queens who are screaming about pussies and dicks. There is no class in this, no respect. If you are nothing more than clowns,  what’s the point in equality?”

I didn’t fully understand that final statement, but I got the gist of it.

“I am so sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I am just so sorry.” I felt stupid, stupid and ineffectual. Me, the man with all the words and comebacks was speechless.

She walked away and then turned around for one last zinger.

“If  the only support you guys can muster is a lube company, you lost a long time ago. I will see you later.”

My heart was beating so hard, it felt like it was about to jump out of my mouth and fall dramatically to the ground in a glorious death spiral. She shut me up and made me feel about 3 feet tall.

Do I agree with some of the things she said? Yes, without a doubt… but not all of them. However, as much as I tell myself I didn’t agree with her on everything, the fact that I was unable to come back with a response may show just how much I secretly do agree with her.

The rest of the night feel into discussion about homophobia, both external and internal. Chris shared his views and we went back and forth about how best it would have been to convince her otherwise. We couldn’t reach any final resolution. She knew full well all the good that the gay community had done and that there were great people involved. I still don’t know if it was the community she had a problem with, or the image we were projecting. I have convinced myself it was the latter of the two.

So what do I do? What do I say? She makes a lot of good points. I have long rallied against stereotypical gay icons that I consider outdated and un necessary, but what do we do about the continuing image we are showing the outside world? How do we affect change in the polar opposites of ourselves, when all we have to offer is drag, lube and dildos?

Obviously that last line is satirical, as I am well aware of the great works and deeds of those in our community. Nothing can change that, but what worries me is this.

Do those good deeds become overshadowed by the images we place into the world? If they do, what is more important to our cause? A self obsessed feeling of “staying true to who we are” or actually being true to who we are?

I don’t know anymore. I do however know one thing.

We lost a potential supporter last night and that is the only things that ever matters.