Posted on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 10:19 AM
Funny discussion today (yesterday?) at The Bilerico Project, a site I can recommend for keeping abreast of gay issues in the US with emphasis on California. Yes, a lot of reflection about the Prop 8 fallout as you can expect, and to a non-American some of the issues can seem a bit remote at times. I’ve been reading the blog regularly over the last few months, and find most of the items thought-provoking. The intelligent gay activist is fast becoming an endangered species in Europe as we sit back and enjoy our own weddings and victories. But it may be time we take courage from our American brothers and sisters, and start taking up the struggle once again. There is still a frightening amount of homophobia in certain EU countries (not to single out the Catholic dominated countries by name), and a lot still needs to be done.
But anyway, having plugged TBP in general, this posting, and especially the comments and discussion, tickled me this morning. Under the title Social Commentary or Socially Irresponsible: You Decide , Scott Kaiser reports on a certain Mr.Megatron who is closing down his T-Shirt business due to excessive complaints. Go have a look: Mr Megatron’s offending T-Shirt slogans are hilarious (for example “It's not gay if you beat them up afterwards") and the ensuing discussion about when a statement starts being “offensive and/or socially irresponsible” vacillates between funny and thought provoking.
There seem to be 2 issues at stake here: the effectiveness of irony as a tool for emancipation, and secondly, what constitutes free speech. Both these issues seem to have been with us since the invention of the printing press, yet both seem especially relevant to the 21st century.
So what’s my take on it?
Well, with regards to the first issue, I think people underestimate the effect of irony. An ironic message can last a lot longer than any sermon. True, the gay bashers themselves will remain oblivious to it. But no slogan or sermon will change those positions anyway, they are far too psycho-pathological for that (which is the point of that slogan itself). It might however reach the majority of people who do have the seeds of moral behaviour, but find it too painful to nurture them, so they rather just mouth the received opinions and vote yes on 8, the sort of silent majority of enablers. Some of the comments have expressed the fear that the ‘wrong’ people might buy the T-Shirt and misappropriate it’s message. But seriously people, there is something just so Pythonesque about the idea of a straight wearing that T-Shirt while shouting abuses at me, it will almost be worth the beating afterwards.
Which brings us to the free speech issue, especially relevant here in the Netherlands as our own neocons are trying their best to import American notions in their attempt to defend Wilders. On this issue just one thought for today: you do realize that in American capitalism, “free” usually implies “of lesser quality”?