The Word of the Day is "Androgyny"

The other day, my Russian housemate showed me a ballet video online.



It's a very interesting piece of modern choreography. I like it from a dance perspective, because they do some unusual things and the fast pointe work is incredible. But it's also interesting from a gender perspective, because it explores relationships. Different people dance together in different ways, and at one point, two female dancers are dressed as men. Before that point, though, during what I thought was a more conventional scene, my housemate asked me a strange question: "Is that dancer a man or a women?"

I told her it was a woman, because the likelihood of a man doing such intricate pointe work is almost nil. (I have seen men on pointe, in the "ballet trocadero," but I have to say that the pointe work was pretty blunt. In my experience, most male dancers don't pursue pointe training at all, so would not be able to perform it with such a high degree of skill). So I told her that the dancer was a woman, but the woman was androgynous.

"How you call this? An-dro-gyn-ous?"

"Yes. Androgynous."

It led me to think about dance in general, how girls from an early age are taught to move in an exceedingly light and delicate mannner, feminine to the extreme. They are also taught to starve their bodies, so that they don't develop a shape with many feminine attributes. Therefore...when a female dancer ceases to move in the typically stylized "feminine" manner traditional to ballet, if she begins to move with force and strength, she automatically becomes androgynous, because neither her movements nor her shape indicate "female." This phenomenon is completely unrelated to her own gender identity. It's simply a matter of gender presentation, which normally goes one way and confuses people when it goes another.

I also find it interesting that of all words I should be teaching people in Russia, "androgynous" is one of the first. I'm not out here and I'm not planning on coming out, but gender is something that seems to follow me. I'm one of the people who notices gender ambiguity in the world, and this means that I end up talking about it to unexpected people, even if I don't talk about its relevance to my personal life.

We didn't talk any more about androgyny, my housemate and I, we just watched the ballet. But I'm happy that one person in Russia now knows the English word for ambiguity in gender.

It's Milk!

My girlfriend and I watched the Academy Awards last night. It's not something I'm inclined to do normally, because I live under a metaphorical rock and have usually never seen most of the movies up for awards. This year was much the same except for one notable exception: Milk. The film was a biography of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to a public office in the United States. It was incredibly well made, offering up a story known mostly to people in gay culture and making it accessible to a wider audience. How wide is debatable, since it wasn't one of the more widely distributed movies of the year. When my girlfriend came to visit me in Florida we had to drive for over an hour to see it at the one theater in the area where it was listed.

It was worth the drive.

We both agreed that Sean Penn deserved an Oscar. He became Harvey Milk, so much so that clips of photos from the '70s interspersed with footage of the film were almost indistinguishable. That Penn as an actor could create a character who was clearly gay without once approaching the line of stereotype is nothing short of a miracle, one that everyone in the gay community viewed with both relief and applause.

The film drew several Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Original Screenplay. It won two, Best Actor and Best Screenplay, both well deserved. The movie was incredibly well-written, told in a series of narratives and flashbacks that highlighted the most important aspects of Milk's life. And Sean Penn, as I said before, was simply amazing.

Both Penn and Dustin Lance Black, the writer, alluded to Prop 8 in their acceptance speeches. It's an important reminder that while Milk died thirty years ago, the issues he worked hard for are still timely in our society today.

Black's Speech:



Penn's Speech:



My thanks to both of them for making this amazing movie, and for recognizing its importance in our country today. Hopefully their statements and these awards will raise consciousness for those who still haven't figured out that people are people, no matter who they love. Blessed be.

Fidelity

Courage Campaign, a liberal California org, teamed up with Regina Spektor to create this video protesting Proposition 8. The Supreme Court will hear arguments about Prop 8 on March 5, with a decision expected within 90 days. I'm not often in favor of bandwagons, but in this case...
Watch the video. Sign the petition. Spread the word.



Petition at http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/divorce

That's So Gay

I recently found on the GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network)website a set of ads geared toward teens to discourage the use of the phrase "that's so gay." Not sure how well it will work, but I do like the idea. Apparently the campaign was launched in October, and has won awards for creative and sensitive handling of the issue, which is good. Now the question is, will people listen?

There are three videos, each one featuring a different celebrity. Hillary Duff, Wanda Sykes, and, my personal favorite, Laurel Holloman of "The L Word."

Laurel Holloman's video is below. For the others, go to
http://www.thinkb4youspeak.com/

Prop 8, the musical

Most people have seen it at this point, but I'm posting it because it's great. The best way to deal with the politics you hate is to make fun of it, and this video is the perfect example.

Enjoy!

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... from Jack Black