|
WINDY CITY TIMES
|
|
|
Media Watch
by JIM EDMINSTER 2004-08-11
|
|
This article shared 2644 times since Wed Aug 11, 2004
|
|
Just the names alone make it worthwhile but the NY Times' report on Texas women's Roller Derby (8/1) delves deeper: 'They're 21 to 45, married, single, gay, straight, moms, teachers, every walk of life, tatooed and not.' These are 'Girls in leather and fishnet stockings beating the hell out of each other.' Some team names: Hotrod Honeys, Hustlers, Hell Marys, Putas del Fuego, and the Holy Rollers. Some individual's rink names: Whiskey L'Amour, Misty Meaner, Melicious, Vendetta von Dutch and Mau-Mau. (Taking some tips from Chicago's She-Devils?)
The Chicago Tribune (7/10) had a series on the people of the Loop and high-lighted street preacher Samuel Chambers who uses his microphone 6 to 7 days a week in that area. He has no income and reports people are sometimes hostile. What neither he nor the writer mention is that he is a frothing-at-the-mouth homophobe.
Some might say this next item ought to be in the 'Reaching Far' file but we have supplementary evidence. The new movie Collateral has, as far as one can tell from reviews, no homosexual overtones but you should see the print ads: (aptly named) Tom Cruise staring intently and gorgeously all the way across two pages at Jamie Fox who looks nervously back. A headnote reads, 'It started like any other night.' Seven out of eight people asked about this (in an unscientific survey) assumed the two men were going to end up in the sack. And a number of columns such as Glare in the Chicago Sun-Times (8/4) quote the Cruiser as saying, 'I will never be down with love. Ever. I'm the guy who loves relationships.' (In journalistic honesty he was talking about women. Still ...)
The NY Times Book Review(8/1) looks at Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theater, His Dance by Deborah Jowitt. Robbins, who was Jewish and gay, was conflicted about both all his life. He did manage when he needed to: declared 4F (disqualified) for the army in 1942 when asked if he'd had a homosexual experience. Yes, he answered. Last time, they asked. 'Last night' he answered. He was never able to finish a dance called 'The Poppa Piece' which combined lockerroom homoeroticism, the Holocaust, matzo ball soup, and the HUAC. (Possibly a good thing.)
Public Enemies by Bryan Burroughs is reviewed in the same issue as above. The book details the birth of the FBI under the '... lonely, brilliant, tormented and closeted...' J. Edgar Hoover who sent '... creepily flirtatious intergovernmental memorandums' to his agent Melvin Purvis.
You might check out the revamped 1927 silent movie Sunrise as reviewed in the Chicago Trib (7/31). Its director, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, who also directed the first vampire movie, Nosferatu, was openly gay.
|
|
|
|
This article shared 2644 times since Wed Aug 11, 2004
|
ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE |
---|
|
| | Media Watch 2009-09-09 - The New York Times Book Review (6/28 ) in its look at the new bio, Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love ...
|
| | Media Watch 2009-03-18 Special to the Online Edition of Windy City Times - From the "Top-of-the-25" file, Mental Floss magazine (March-April ) has picked gay author Randy Shilts' book And the Band Played On as the most influential of the 25 most important books of the past 25 years. ...
|
| | Media Watch 2009-02-25 Special to the online edition of Windy City Times - From the "History-Not-Mystery" file, Roger Ebert, movie critic extraordinaire, was a bit astonished in his question-and-answer column in the Chicago Sun-Times (Dec. 5) when a writer criticized him for spoiling the plot of Milk, which he ...
|
| | Media Watch 2009-02-25 Special to the online edition of Windy City Times - From the "Subculture-Merges-Into-the-Uberculture" file, a cartoon strip, "Sally Forth," from the Chicago Sun-Times (2/11) has this exchange between an office manager & his subordinate. Subordinate: "Just because Aria and I ...
|
| | Media Watch 2008-11-26 - From the 'Hooray-for-Bollywood' file, the Los Angeles Times (Nov. 19) reports that two of the biggest straight male hunks (and, yes, they are) in Indian cinema, Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham ...
|
| | Media Watch 2008-11-12 - From the 'MYOB' file, the Chicago Tribune (Oct. 9) quotes Queen Latifah: 'I don't have a problem discussing the topic of somebody being gay, but I do have a problem discussing my personal life. I don't ...
|
| | Media Watch 2008-10-29 - From the 'Transgender-Is-the-New-Normal' file, The Atlantic (Nov. 2008 ) , in an article called 'A Boy's Life,' tells us of the new attitude of parents, teachers and doctors toward small children who clearly exhibit the belief ...
|
| | Media Watch 2008-10-15 - From the 'MYOB' file, the Chicago Tribune (Oct. 9) quotes Queen Latifah: 'I don't have a problem discussing the topic of somebody being gay, but I do have a problem discussing my personal life. I don't ...
|
| | Media Watch 2008-10-08 Special to the Online Edition of Windy City Times - From the 'Media-Idol-as-Trojan-Horse' file, The New York Times (Sept. 19) , in a big ol' article, tells us that Oprah (by way of subtitles) has become the biggest thing for women on Saudi TV since ...
|
| | Media Watch 2008-10-01 Special to the Online Edition of Windy City Times - From the "Old-Dead-White-Man-But-He-Was-Gay" file, the Chicago Sun-Times (Sept. 24) says a revival of the play adapted from Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is "enthralling" and "crystal-clear." The theme and plot of Dorian seem ...
|
| | Media Watch 2008-09-24 Special to the Online Edition of Windy City Times - From the 'Of-Course-I-Can-Tell-You-What-Read' file: While Snopes has told us that the list of books circulating on the Internet that Sarah Palin ostensibly wants to ban is spurious, The New York Times (Sept. 14) did find that ...
|
| | Media Watch 2008-09-17 Special to the Online Edition of Windy City Times - From the 'Yay-Gay' file, The New Yorker (Sept. 15) has a cartoon of some clothing store clerks, one of whom is saying, 'It's gotten so customers won't take my advice unless they think I'm gay.' From ...
|
| | Media Watch 2008-09-10 - From the 'Rum, Sodomy and the Lash' file, the Chicago Reader's (Sept. 4) 'Straight Dope' column talks about 'rampant buggery' in the Royal Navy in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. In brief, it was there, ...
|
| | Media Watch 2008-09-03 Special to the Online Edition of Windy City Times - From the 'Which-Madonna?' file, one really, really tried not to comment on Ricky Martin (as reported in the Chicago Tribune, Aug. 21) and his twins 'via a surrogate mother.' This is all very confusing. Were the ...
|
| | Media Watch 2008-08-27 Special to the Online Edition of Windy City Times - From the 'Lest-You-Forget' file, the Chicago Tribune (Aug. 20 ) reports that in India one can get a cell-phone ringtone in which a professional singer chants, a cappella, the word 'condom' more than 50 times. Would ...
| |
|
|
|
|