"I remember my first gig. It was at the White Party in Palm Springs three years ago. That was the most exciting night of my life. I had no idea what to expect. I am not gay and had not ever really been around 6,000 hot gay men before. However, they made me feel so comfortable and so at home that I had the best time performing that I ever have." Disco singer Erin Hamilton, Carol Burnett's daughter, to Boston's Bay Windows, Feb. 17.
"One night in the autumn of 1987, in Little Rock, Ark., a boy named Austin Fulk smelled his own death. He was 17, too young to drink in the bars, so he often hung out in a park that was popular among gay teenagers. ... A car drove past very slowly, sped up, turned around and came back. Someone inside yelled something like, 'Fucking faggots, get AIDS and die!' Fulk's companion returned the compliment. The car slammed to a stop and four young men piled out, one with a baseball bat, another with a crowbar or tire iron. 'I thought I was about to die,' says Austin; but he is alive, and that is because his companion reached into the truck and whipped out a pistol from under the seat, leveled it at the gay—bashers and fired a single shot over their heads. All at once, their courage deserted them. They ran back to their car and drove away." Writer Jonathan Rauch at Salon.com, March 13. Rauch, a columnist for National Journal magazine, is a contributing writer for the Independent Gay Forum.
"If it became widely known that homosexuals carry guns and know how to use them, not many bullets would need to be fired. In fact, not all that many gay people would need to carry guns, as long as gay—bashers couldn't tell which ones did. Suddenly, what is now an almost risk—free sport for testosterone—drenched teenagers would become a great deal less attractive." Rauch.
"I hadn't seen a film out there that really celebrated what I was celebrating, my love and being in my relationship [ with DeGeneres ] . That was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wanted same—sex couples to begin to feel they could celebrate, and to hopefully open up a space for other people to celebrate us. This movie is part of the process of helping people to understand ( homosexuality ) . ... I think discrimination comes from not being familiar with it." Anne Heche on HBO's If These Walls Could Talk II.
"One of the confusions about lesbian relationships is that it's two women hanging out and they have a lot of fun together and they're best friends. But I certainly wouldn't have gone gay to be a best friend to Ellen. The passion is equally important as it is in any relationship. I thought if we didn't show that, we weren't being truthful to why I wrote the story in the first place, which is to say our relationship is the same as any other." Heche.
"I had no idea that people would even blink at me falling in love with a woman, and I know that was my naïveté. I didn't understand the concept that when somebody's life is being fulfilled for them that people would resist that." Heche.
"What with so much going on these days in Media World, it would be easy not to notice. But something of seismic significance has happened on prime—time television, something that has nothing whatsoever to do with game shows cause enough for celebration. The Big Deal is this: The funniest character on television is no longer a spike—haired boy whose name is an anagram for 'brat.' That crowning distinction now belongs to a hiply snipped boy whose name is an off—color verb and a slang expression meaning 'nothing.' It's the end of one era and the beginning of another. Out with old and in with the new. King Bart is dead; long live King Jack. TV's former funniest is, of course, Bart Simpson of The Simpsons. TV's fresh funniest is Jack McFarland of Will & Grace. He hasn't yet achieved young Bart's brand—name recognition, but he will. Jack and Bart have a lot in common. Bart is a mischievous anarchist; so is Jack. Bart is adored by the people he most annoys; so is Jack. Bart is a boy trapped in a cartoon body. Jack is a boy trapped in a man's body㬙—year—old actor Sean Hayes', to be precise." Tom Maurstad writing in the Dallas Morning News.
"When I first read the Boys Don't Cry script, I wanted to be part of the project in any way. ... I am asked to audition for characters whose descriptions are female stereotypes at best, and indicate to me the screenwriter's removal from his/her characters' humanness. Boys Don't Cry was the opposite representation of this removal, especially in the case of the first character I auditioned to playthe role of Brandon Teena. ... I had imagined Brandon as a sort of tough homeboy with a deep sensitivity and sense of self. But my audition left Kim Peirce and the casting agents in the room laughing in hysterics. .... Soon after, I got a call from my agent, asking me to reread the script, focusing this time on the role of Candace. ... I arrived in Dallas and was driven to a hotel outside the city, located on the bank of a busy freeway. ... My first day of shooting, I was taken to a bar located a half—hour outside Dallas. I quickly learned that Candace felt most comfortable in nylon stockings and skirts that were a few sizes too small for her. ... From my bar perch ... I noticed a handsome young man noticing me, and realized that it would be love at first sight for Candace, effortlessly. Hilary [ Swank ] was a striking Brandon, so striking that it became clear that such a man had never before graced Falls City, Neb., or Dallas, Texas, for that matter. Later in the shoot, I confided to Kim that I felt Candace was so excited at Brandon's arrival in town, it made her own life seem fresh and new, whether or not he shared in the love she had for him. It was this energy that Hilary—as—Brandon gave off that ultimately justified Candace's unrelenting devotion to Brandon, even after he had fallen in love with her best friend, Lana." Alicia ( Lecy ) Goranson, "Becky," the older sister on the Roseanne sitcom, speaking at a GenderPAC forum in NYC with Swank and director Kimberly Peirce.
"Hilary Swank says she's truly saddened hearing the reaction from Teena Brandon's mother JoAnn following Swank's Oscar acceptance speech, in which she thanked 'Brandon Teena,' her character in the film. 'It makes me sad,' Swank told me. 'She ( JoAnn ) can't see what Brandon has done for everyone in our society. But my heart goes out to her, to lose a daughter!' Swank says, 'I never tried to define her as a lesbian.'" Variety magazine.
"The movie is a gay polemica coded indictment of heterosexual marriage. The only characters it views in truly positive terms are two males involved in a gay relationship. Other males in the film are essentially repressed homosexuals who have failed to come to terms with their own nature. What movie are we talking about? Would you believe the Oscar—winning American Beauty? One of the most fascinating aspects of the American Beauty phenomenon is that it has spawned an accelerating debate about the film's true intent. That debate has manifested itself most prominently on the Internet, and much of itfocusing on the sexuality of the various charactershas triggered angry exchanges. " Calgary Herald March 30.
"Many gay viewers of [ American Beauty ] immediately recognize this 'journey' as a thinly veiled 'coming out story' transferred onto a straight character." Roger Kaufman, a gay clinical psychologist and family therapist, about Kevin Spacey's character in the film ( written by a gay man, Allan Ball ) to The Los Angeles Times.
"I THINK it's significant that there was little if any hazing in the armed forces in World War II. It seems like a post—Vietnam era phenomenon, as the military got separated from the mainstream of society. Insecurity drives hazing and there are sorts of homosexual undertones to much of this sort of hazing. And therefore you have this sort of irony of kind of going through a homoerotic experience to prove you're not homosexual." Charles Moskof, author of The Post Modern Military, in a March 19 New York Times Magazine report on hazing.
"Another hate murderan especially gruesome onetook the life of 19—year—old Steen Fenrich. In the eyes of his killer, the Long Island teenager deserved to die because he was guilty of two unforgivable crimes: He was gay and he was black." New York Daily News, March 30. Fenrich was killed and dismembered by his white stepfather.
"There can't be a doubt that racism and homophobia are involved in this dreadful, horrible case. This is a hate crime. It can't be called anything else." Openly gay New York state Sen. Tom Duane on the Fenrich murder.
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