Tag: gay is not a synonym for something negative

WTF Out magazine? Katy Perry as musician of the year? Are you JOKING?

Well, Out, you’ve gone and pulled another “WTF” moment on us with your recent choice of Katy “UR So Gay” Perry as MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR!!!!?!?!?!??! Regular readers know that I was been pissed at them before for outing celebrities (one of which has come out on her own since), so I guess that I should just expect stupid shit from one of the only gay magazines that we have in wide circulation. Seriously Out, what is going on with your writers and staff that has them so in the dark? Do you not realize that Katy Perry is perpetuating (without apology!!!) a negative gay stereotype; one that I am sure many of you had to overcome and deal with as kids in school? I just don’t get blatant stupidity like this. I have made my opinion about Perry known before on this blog, and it is still getting attention (thanks to links on wikipedia… wtf!?). I can only wonder where things will go now that I am calling spades again on Ms. Perry?!

After seeing the cover and reading the awesome post over at Dorothy Surrenders, I had to go and see what saving grace Out was sure to have in it’s interview with Perry; surely, they would confront her, right? Well, they didn’t (figures), but out of everything I read in the interview with Perry, and this was a gem for me:

Some of the opinions are just from people who are unhappy in their lives, or critics that wanted to be musicians but never fucking made it. We all know that. Unless there’s an amazing, legitimate journalist I respect, I don’t really take any of that shit to heart.

REALLY Katy? So you know what it is like to be a gay youth who gets called “gay” and “faggot” every day at school, and how that fucking hate and verbal abuse leads many gay youth to commit suicide? You know all about that, and we are all just bitter bitches, right Katy? Fuck you. FUCK YOU and your self righteous “I’m an artist so I don’t have to be socially responsible, and I don’t have to apologize for what I say” bullshit. You don’t deserve your 15 minutes more than anyone else, and I for one will be glad when the light dims over your pathetic career.

Shame on you, Katy, and shame on Out magazine for picking some dumb bitch like you as their freaking musician of the year (because clearly, there are NO LGBT artists out there worthy, right?). This is just one more reason that I will NEVER have a subscription to that piece of fluff “all about the abs, and all for show” Out Magazine. Clearly, they have their heads so far up their own asses that they are willing to just hop in bed with the same fuckers that picked on them on the playgrounds; all while laughing off the harassment that was slung at them.

I just want to say that I personally feel sorry for anyone that has to endure the bullshit that people throw at them in the form of verbal abuse; especially when it uses a word that describes them as a synonym for bad. I went through HELL in school, and I wouldn’t wish that one anyone, not even Katy Perry. Katy Perry perpetuates that very same hateful mentality in her song UR So Gay (I even gave her a lenient benefit of the doubt for I Kissed A Girl), and after hearing that she doesn’t give a fuck about what she is saying, I want that bitch to know that people like me aren’t just unhappy with our lives, or just “didn’t make it” like “she did”; we went through a fucking LOT to get where we are, and we don’t need more bullies out there being told that it’s okay to make fun of the gay kid, because hey, it’s funny anyway, right? Fuck you Katy Perry, and fuck you Out Magazine. It’s more than annoying when our own community turns a blind eye to those that will make fun of us to our faces, and then say it’s no big deal when confronted with the accusation; especially in a time that we are fighting for our rights. Way to accept second class citizenship guys… seriously. Ugh.

what do you have against gay people, Katy Perry?

If you don’t know who Katy Perry is, she is the chick that has made a hit out of kissing a girl (even though Jill Sobule did it many years ago, and unlike Perry, didn’t seem to have any issues with it) and then telling the world about it. As much as I wanted to like the song “I Kissed a Girl” (currently #2 on iTunes) by Perry, I initially didn’t feel like it was a good message. She sings about how it feels “wrong”, and even worse, she says that kissing girls isn’t what “good girls do”. However, after looking at the song from a different perspective, I figured that maybe she didn’t mean that at all; in fact, perhaps what good girls don’t do, is cheat on their boyfriends… and in that case, this song is playful, and not grounded in hate at all.

However (and a HUGE however), after checking her out further, and really trying to give her the benefit of the doubt with her “experimentation” with homosexual kissing, I found something that really makes me scratch my head and wonder if there is some problem that Katy has with gay people. She has a song called “Ur So Gay”, which has been called the “ultimate kiss-off” to a boy that was too “full of himself” to give her the time of day. In the song, she describes everything “wrong” with him, building to the conclusion that he must be gay, even though he doesn’t like boys (which, is the actual only ACCURATE use of the word gay… that which is glaringly absent from her song).

While many will see this accurately as a joke, the underlying message is too clear to ignore; Katy sees being gay as wrong, abnormal, and most importantly, as an insult that she uses to make herself feel better for being dissed. What’s wrong with that, some of you may wonder? Well, the underlying message is hate speech, and here again, I can’t believe that we have yet another example of someone using the description of a person’s sexual orientation as a slur of any kind.

Katy dear, this is 2008. We need to stop using gay as an insult; being gay is normal. If you use “gay” as synonym for bad, negative, horrible, stupid, or any of the many other derogatory words it has been used in place of to place insult, then you are propagating and continuing the underlying bigotry that is so fervent in this country. Continuing this form of “hidden” bigotry is just intolerable, and I for one feel like I must continue to speak out against it.

“Artists” like Katy Perry should be confronted with the fact that their “silly, harmless jokes” are grounded in hateful, shameful, and derogatory feelings that only further the bigotry against gay people in this country. It isn’t “cute” or “funny” that she kissed another girl, it is normal; whether or not she can deal with her homosexual feelings is her problem, not ours.

If you don’t see this as a big deal, ask yourself: would it be cute or funny if she wrote a song about how weird it was for her to kiss a black person?? How do you think that would that go over? Additionally, if she were to write a song about how awful a boy was because he was so “stereotypically black”, how would that sound? Well, I know how it would sound, in one word: RACIST. So I want to know why is it okay to apply that same sentiment to gay people?? Clearly, it isn’t, and I honestly can’t believe that this type of message is still put out there; yet here it is.

Shame on you Katy Perry. Grow up. Become more than that stereotypical playground bully. Gain some intelligence (clearly, that is lacking, because being gay means “liking boys” if you are male, and she doesn’t seem to put two and two together in her song) and perspective, and realize that, even in a “joking” manner, that using the term “gay” to insult someone is causing harm to the gay community in perpetuating the very hate and indifference we are fighting so hard to get rid of. I always cling to the hope that people can be better than they are, but it is people like Katy Perry that continually let me down. Unfortunately, there are people out there that are just waiting to gobble this crap up, and morons like Perry are ready to give them more. I have to ask myself, can there truly be a time when we can all stop the name calling, and just see each other as equal? Can their truly be a time when gay people can be treated as the normal people that we are, and not continually insulted and have our lifestyle continually used as a form of degradation? Little things like this really make me wonder if people are truly capable of that at all, unfortunately.

Sigh. Hopefully, she will fade into the distance soon, and people will rightfully forget about her ignorance; even though it is bound to pop up somewhere else.