My first blog post. A rather unconventional way of starting out a blog intended for a wide variety of audiences, but I just couldn't resist letting out my thoughts on this particular controversial topic. And for all the purists out there, to clear your confusion, here gay refers to homosexual, not gay as in happy, lame or dorky.
Back to the question. My first insight into humor pertaining to gay-ism was probably when one of my friends pushed me away when I approached him to give a friendly hug. Well this could have been for a number of reasons, had he not mentioned that the hugging "was gay". I never really understood as a child why someone would be compelled to term this affectionate, benign action as a subset of the set of activities performed by only gays. But now it seems a bit clear to me, that the urge to make a gay joke is inherently linked with a medley of reasons like peer-acceptance, sounding cool and the culture of television, music and movies to which we are exposed, which make statements like "that's so gay" sound okay.
Well, If you were to crack a practical gay joke on me, my first thought would be: Is this guy insecure of his own sexuality? If you were a teen I probably wouldn't doubt you with the question because of the simple reason that you probably were following the same pathetic trend that your friends do. But if you were post-18, then I seriously would expect a certain level of maturity from you and my doubt would be valid. Gay-humor maybe okay if done occasionally in a frivolous manner(Gay-right activists would probably kill me for this) but if gay-humor is the forte of your comedy, I feel sorry for you.
Dostana. Good film, many would say, it truly was an art which openly and blatantly cracked jokes on the gay community without sounding offensive. Karan Johar says it is a clean comedy and all in good fun, What do you think? The intent might have been good, to show the gay-related issues in a positive way but the trailer of Dostana and the whole movie made it clear to me that homosexuality was nothing more than a joke in the film. But why do we care? We all ended up laughing and enjoying...more importantly laughing on gays and enjoying the rude, abrasive humor portrayed in the film. Is this trend turning for the worse? Little to early to say that. But give me five more films like Dostana in a span of three years and my answer would be a yes.
A perfect example to show the serious implications and ramifications of this continuing trend would be the Nazi-Jews situation. The Nazi's did not start off directly by rounding of Jews in concentration camps and exterminating them, they accomplished this with an incremental strategy. The Nazi's first started out acting superior and making the Jewish race feel inferior, leading the people to believe it was fine to discriminate the Jews through a systematic devaluation process, which included propaganda, fliers, movies and images depicting the Jews as rats(the implication being that they were to be exterminated like the rodents infesting your home). It is not about being funny, and taking things lightly, it is about giving respect to the GLBT community and not setting the stage for jokes on gays to be an acceptable part of the culture because it would, by extension, imply that intolerance for gay people would be the norm. And thus bullying would follow.
You still may not be convinced with my argument, so I urge you to google "gay bully suicide" and see how many results you get. To close off on a lighter note this is a harmless gay joke one of my friends forwarded to me:
What will 2 gay men tell each other when they see a really hot girl?
.
.
.
Yaar ladki aisi hai to bhai kaisa hoga?
Back to the question. My first insight into humor pertaining to gay-ism was probably when one of my friends pushed me away when I approached him to give a friendly hug. Well this could have been for a number of reasons, had he not mentioned that the hugging "was gay". I never really understood as a child why someone would be compelled to term this affectionate, benign action as a subset of the set of activities performed by only gays. But now it seems a bit clear to me, that the urge to make a gay joke is inherently linked with a medley of reasons like peer-acceptance, sounding cool and the culture of television, music and movies to which we are exposed, which make statements like "that's so gay" sound okay.
Well, If you were to crack a practical gay joke on me, my first thought would be: Is this guy insecure of his own sexuality? If you were a teen I probably wouldn't doubt you with the question because of the simple reason that you probably were following the same pathetic trend that your friends do. But if you were post-18, then I seriously would expect a certain level of maturity from you and my doubt would be valid. Gay-humor maybe okay if done occasionally in a frivolous manner(Gay-right activists would probably kill me for this) but if gay-humor is the forte of your comedy, I feel sorry for you.
Dostana. Good film, many would say, it truly was an art which openly and blatantly cracked jokes on the gay community without sounding offensive. Karan Johar says it is a clean comedy and all in good fun, What do you think? The intent might have been good, to show the gay-related issues in a positive way but the trailer of Dostana and the whole movie made it clear to me that homosexuality was nothing more than a joke in the film. But why do we care? We all ended up laughing and enjoying...more importantly laughing on gays and enjoying the rude, abrasive humor portrayed in the film. Is this trend turning for the worse? Little to early to say that. But give me five more films like Dostana in a span of three years and my answer would be a yes.
A perfect example to show the serious implications and ramifications of this continuing trend would be the Nazi-Jews situation. The Nazi's did not start off directly by rounding of Jews in concentration camps and exterminating them, they accomplished this with an incremental strategy. The Nazi's first started out acting superior and making the Jewish race feel inferior, leading the people to believe it was fine to discriminate the Jews through a systematic devaluation process, which included propaganda, fliers, movies and images depicting the Jews as rats(the implication being that they were to be exterminated like the rodents infesting your home). It is not about being funny, and taking things lightly, it is about giving respect to the GLBT community and not setting the stage for jokes on gays to be an acceptable part of the culture because it would, by extension, imply that intolerance for gay people would be the norm. And thus bullying would follow.
You still may not be convinced with my argument, so I urge you to google "gay bully suicide" and see how many results you get. To close off on a lighter note this is a harmless gay joke one of my friends forwarded to me:
What will 2 gay men tell each other when they see a really hot girl?
.
.
.
Yaar ladki aisi hai to bhai kaisa hoga?
