Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Queering the Icon: Marilyn Monroe, Dean's Scotch and Yasumasa Morimura

The image of Marilyn Monroe standing above the subway grate as a gust a air blows her dress up high is an American cultural icon of the 20th Century. Nicholas Roeg's film, Insignificance, opens with the the filming of this famous scene in The Seven Year Itch re-imagined from the POV of the film crew — and the man under the grating who turned on the fan. Roeg's film, far from camp, is among other things a meditation on the prison of sexism: my favorite scene in that film is when Monroe, with the aid of toys bought at F.A.O Schwarz, explains the theory of relativity to its author, Albert Einstein.

In the ad below, this image is appropriated once again, in the service of selling Dean's Scotch:

Created by a team at Scholz & Friends NRW in Germany, their explanation, at Adsoftheworld.com notes that:

"Dean’s Whisky is especially mild. Which is why it appeals not only to rugged guys. The advertisement’s unusually humorous, feminine look and feel are designed to arouse the interest of a new target group and raise awareness of Dean’s Whisky above and beyond its loyal customer base."

Arouse the interest? Who is this new target base? Is this ad running at gay magazines in Germany? In women's fashion magazines? Inquiring minds want to know.

Scotch is one of the few hard liquors that retains an aura of masculine privilege. This might have the effect of undermining their image with the base customer. This isn't to say that I don't like the ad. I think it's hilarious and playful. The image of a man in a regimental kilt uniform is hardly fey. There is every possibility that the core consumer for this product is secure enough so that if they saw this ad they'd laugh. Then again, because this is a "mild" Scotch, it might not have very much of a base with the traditional Scotch drinker, so that an effort like this won't hurt.

I wonder what Marilyn would make of it though. Or what she'd make of the photographs of Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura. I first saw an exhibit of his self portraits at the Saatchi Gallery in London: images of the artist in drag as Marilyn, Audrey Hepburn, Garbo, Liza Minelli. You can see the photos on the gallery site, where the question is asked:

"Morimura is more than just art's most famous drag queen. Dealing with issues of cultural and sexual appropriation he is constantly exploring ideas of image consumption, identity and desire: Can Brigitte Bardot be as innocently flirtatious with angular Japanese features? Would Marilyn Monroe be as sexy if she was Japanese - and a man?"

Having lived in Japan where I both enjoyed and endured drag acts where these Western film icons were portrayed by Japanese men, I was less interested in the questions posed above than the questions around Japanese identity and the effect of Hollywood and American cultural dominance on the traditional Japanese sense of beauty. I am curious about what the reaction to images is in the debate/discussion about the feminization of Asian men in the West within the Asian and gay Asian communities.

Within the discussion of constructed femininity, Morimura throws a light on the minstrelsy of Marilyn; how her image was just as much a creation out of the fantasies of men as Thomas D. Rice's blackface Jumpin' Jim Crow was a creation out of the fantasies of white men in the 19th Century of black men. 

Good grief, I hope to God I am not turning into a queer theorist. Ewww.

Sunday Morning Short Film: Facing A New Age

For this the month of another birthday in my marvelously queer 50s, here's a sweet and smart little film that was presented in the Documentary Shorts section of NewFest this last June. If you like this film, be sure to join NewFest and come to events throughout the year as well as next year's lgbt film festival in NYC. As one of the founding members of Gay Youth of NY, it's interesting to reconnect with the alumni and watch each other grow old, those that us who have survived. And this film raises many important issues for us and our community.

Ang Lee and Taking Woodstock, Elliot Tiber and Queering Woodstock

Ang Lee’s film of Elliot Tiber’s book, Taking Woodstock, is set to open next weekend. This will be the third Ang Lee film with a gay man as the gay character. Elliot Tiber was a semi-closeted designer living in NYC during the week and running his parent’s failing motel upstate on the weekends. And his memoir of how he used his position as head of the chamber of commerce in White Lake to bring the Woodstock festival from Bethel to his benighted community is a wild ride through the summer of 1969, starting with the Stonewall uprising.

Yes, as Tiber tells the story, he was at the Stonewall that fateful night in June. So we get another eyewitness story. But what makes Tiber’s story compelling reading is his own self-examination and his willingness to explore the relationship between internalized homophobia, sex addiction and sado-masochism. It’s explosive reading, and don’t expect to see this in Ang Lee’s film. After all, Woodstock is the ultimate feel good story, and in Tiber’s memoir, the combination of Stonewall and Woodstock are what began his liberation from internalized homophobia and a life of sex without love — but along the way, it’s not very pretty. Tiber doesn’t shy away from telling about his experience with sex at the trucks, in 42^nd street theaters and in back room bars.

Rather we can expect Liev Schrieber in his role as Vilma, the ex-marine dominatrix drag queen, perhaps the most memorable character in the memoir, apart from Tiber’s quite seriously disturbed mother, for shock value. Schrieber may do much for the cause gender transgression and the wisdom of boundary crossing, since this character is a true wizard, magically running off bigots and opening minds. And Tiber’s experience was clearly amazing.

My experience of Woodstock was somewhat less liberated. While there were banners for the nascent Gay Liberation Front in the campsite where I was staying, most of the young men there were very touchy about what there affectional orientation might be (and thus not so willing to be touched). Some guys beat up one guy I know because he was verbally open about expressing his attraction to men. No, Woodstock was not Paradise for everyone. But that’s not why I am writing about the book.

I think Tiber’s memoir is extremely important, and shouldn’t be forgotten in the rush to see the movie. Every gay man (and lesbian and transperson) should read this thoughtful exploration of how our expression of love can be stunted and twisted by the self-hate we take in with the mother’s milk of our culture, so much so we can be completely unaware we are victims of it.  

Tiber went on to become a novelist, a teacher, and most importantly for many in our generation, a happy gay man who found love. More than Ang Lee, I’d love to hear an interview with Tiber following the movie about what was included and what wasn’t.

That said, I’m really looking forward to the movie. But if you’re reading this, definitely go read the book. And let me know what you think of each.

Meanwhile, I just want to say that Ang Lee has made more interesting movies with good gay characters than Gus Van Sant. Interesting and good being the operative words.

Sunday Morning Music Video: Fagette

Saw this delightful pansexual romp as part of the short musical films at NewFest this last June. The singer has a boyish charm that reminds me of Ty Greenstein from Girlyman (my boygirl crush, go figure). Enjoy:

The Colbert Report, Jim Fouratt and Queering the News

Steven Colbert just gets more amazing every week. He went to Iraq and stood before a cheering crowd of soldiers as he made fun of Don't Ask Don't Tell — proof positive that the troops on the ground are more than ready to end this shameful charade perpetrated by successive administrations, Obama included.

And last night, he had as a guest on his show (after mercilessly hitting Obama for cowardice and duplicity in "stonewalling" the lgbt community) Jim Fouratt, veteran of GLF, GAA, former proprietor of Danceteria - the great 80s disco. (This Danceteria bit made Colbert's comment on surviving the Disco Inferno all the funnier, though if 5% of the audience understood the reference I'd be amazed)

Colbert usually interrupts his guests and they rarely get a chance to really deliver their message. That didn't happen last night, and Fouratt got a chance to tell the story of the Stonewall Uprising as it actually happened (as opposed to the mythology of the event) to a national TV audience (even if it's cable!). Colbert isn't mere satire, he is queering the news. Here is the interview:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jim Fouratt
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Mark Sanford

Taking the Precepts: Queer Monastics in Thailand

It is customary in Thailand for a young man to enter a monastery for some time. It brings honor on the family, and it's considered good training for the mind. Of course, like any society, the custom can devolve and become meaningless form. Just look at the vast majority of bar mitzvah parties in the United States. However, the issue has reached the media's attention in Thailand, as novices who in their secular lives are gay or transgendered, don't leave their sexuality, like their shoes, at the temple door.

The Bangkok Post reports that a "guide to proper behavior" is being promulgated to counter:

"reports of unconventional behaviour by monks in public, including using cosmetics, carrying pink bags and readjusting their robes for a fashionable look.

Some allegedly even had sex in their sleeping quarters, a severe sin under the code of conduct which incurs forced defrockment.

The course will be taught as a prototype at the Triam Sammanen school - the country's first Buddhist missionary school, located in the compound of Wat Krueng Tai in Chiang Rai's Chiang Khong district."

When a monk or novice takes the precepts, celibacy is one of the agreements. A young novice joins a monastery for three months. Similarly, when one becomes a monk, the hair is shaved, and one takes the robes — it involves an erasing of a kind of individuality as  a way of learning humility and to tame the ego. This is the practice.

Makeup. Fashion. Sexual expression. That's for outside. Inside, it's time for inner exploration and taming the mind's wildness, taming the ego's sense that it is all there is.

There have also been some rather scandalous goings on — abbots having affairs for example. Of course, this is nothing new anywhere in the world. Clerics are, after all, human. Great teachers from Krishnamurti to Trungpa Rinpoche are known to have suffered from these failings, not to mention the more hypocritical among them, the Haggards and his ilk.

When hyprocrisy is the order and boundaries are violated, it is a serious issue. But we all struggle, and no one can judge.

The Divine Feminine Meets 21st Century British Music Hall Rock & Roll Comedy

Easy now fuzzy little man peach, Old Greg is in the house. This is beyond description. If you've never seen The Might Boosh, or this particular episode, The Legend of Old Greg, you're in for a very wild ride that combines British music hall tradition comedy, rock & roll chaos comedy, the divine feminine and glitter rock plus funk and hallucinogenic insanity meeting the dark comedy of folktales. There, that was suitably incoherent. But I am not about to get into a scholarly deconstruction of something I love so much, it would only be vivisection, and Old Greg wouldn't like that at all. It's all here, and very very funny. I am only including parts 2-4. You can find it all on youtube of course, where you can also see a live version of the "hit single" from this episode, Love Games. Trust me, you want to see all three videos below. It will change your life forever.


Quick, make an assessment.

The NFL Super Bowl meets Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo

The Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo has been doing their amazing parody of Swan Lake for years. Did you ever think you would see the concept adapted for a Super Bowl tv commercial, complete with NFL players in the role of swans?

In the background, much like the Trocks, the players are in tutus. After years of homophobic ads broadcast to subconsciously defuse the homo-eroticism of the games, this spot is a welcome departure, if a shameless rip-off.

Queer Jubu Hero: Pieter-Dirk Uys — See Him In Darling! At The Jewish Film Festival

You have only two opportunities to see a film about the most politically subversive and influential drag queen in living history (if not all history). Don't miss it — "Darling! The Pieter-Dirk Uys Story" will be part of the 18th Annual Jewish Film Festival, at the Walter Reade Theater on January 29th. 

Uys is best known in the guise of his alter ego, Evita Bezuidenhout, the Most Famous White Woman in South Africa.  During the later apartheid years, as Evita, Uys appeared regularly on television and in clubs satirizing the evil of the apartheid government. When people who spoke out and challenged the government directly were imprisoned or worse, Uys managed to speak truth to power without finding himself disappeared. Nelson Mandela himself has said that Uys is one if his heroes.

Allow me a tangential discussion of the Mattachine Society here, which Harry Hay named in honor of medieval buskers who appeared in masks and whose performances were often satirical jabs at the ruling classes. Jesters if you will, who have always had the ability to couch the truth humorously, for the most part without penalty. Clearly Uys is a living example of this tradition. And while the horrors of apartheid are over, as Evita Bezuidenhout, Uys continues to perform in schools throughout South Africa, teaching children about how to protect themselves from AIDS, something the ANC government, with an HIV denialist health minister, has most strenuously not done.

This documentary film follows Uys as he goes from school to school. It gives something of his life story (we learn half way through, just as Uys only learned as an adult, that his mother was a Jewish refugee from Berlin).

In some ways, the making of this documentary is also an amazing story. The director, Julian Shaw, a native New Zealander, saw Uys perform on a trip to South Africa when he was 15 years old.  He went up to Uys after the performance and said he was coming back to make a documentary film about him. Uys was nice to him, but didn’t think he’d ever see the boy again. Except that two years later, Shaw showed up, camera in hand. For the next two years he shadowed him, capturing footage in schools, performances and at home. Another couple of years of editing later, and the finished film has won honors at documentary film festivals in Australia. 

Truth be told (though I am not in drag and you wouldn't want to see it) the film is far from perfect. But the story of Uys is compelling, as is the story of Shaw deciding to film him. I wish there had been more about Uys in the apartheid days, and more about Shaw’s life and his need to make this movie.

Quibbles. This film is a must see — and a mirror to what the gender clowns (this is meant very respectfully) in New York should aspire to.  The closest we have is the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, whose true charity work is masked by the drag clowning and whose serious challenge to organized religion is made more acceptable by the fact that men have feminized themselves.

There are all kinds of questions I have: does drag take away a man’s power and thus make it safe for him to speak the truth. Or is it the taking on the the feminine power that enables them to speak the truth? What do you think?

What’s even more interesting to me as an advertising copywriter is Uys appearance in a recent commercial for Nando’s, a fast food chain in South Africa. In this clever spot, Uys as Evita delivers a sell for a special meal deal, while setting up a very pointed political barb that comes as a stinger at the end of the spot. While such a jab at the current government (Uys is an equal opportunity satirist) is no surprise coming from Evita, I am amazed that the advertiser was willing to chance government disapproval. Certainly no advertiser in the U.S. would make such an obviously negative statement about either the Democrats or Republicans in a commercial. The spot runs below:

From Deeper Dating to Depth Psychology Dating: The Divine Androgyne

Dating and the pursuit of the perfect partner — it's the Holy Grail of modern urban life, straight or gay. It's why there are so many organized meet-uo dating events out there. Deeper Dating is one of the best. Because it takes people beyond the snap judgement of appearance to a really deeper place. But in the ad for a British online dating site below, it gets down to the depth of Jungian psychology and archetype:

The image is of two people sliced together brings to mind the image of the Divine Androgyne (or for those less psychologically inclined, the half man/half woman carnival attractions of yore) found in alchemical texts. These texts were coded instructions to opening up to the inner feminine in order to experience divine unity within. Shel Silverstein made the point in his brilliant little book for adults and children alike, The Missing Piece, that one doesn't find completion in a partner, but within. And the mystic's path in many traditions, has emphasized this search for the Lost Princess that can only be found in one's own heart.

Heterosexual men seek this in the project of their inner feminine on the women they love. Gay men may take in their inner feminine and be open to a spirtuality that takes them deep quickly. But since our culture denigrates the feminine, divine and human, it is equally easy for a gay man to manifest the Demonic feminine, or celebrate it (hence the love of Joan Crawford). Or just as a straight man does, a gay man may project his inner feminine out and in order to integrate it, find himself attracted to men who are fey. Or there is the inner homophobia and misogyny that leads men to an almost Spartan celebration of the masculine to the obliteration of feminine qualities.

Then there is the whole issue of drag as a spiritual path that celebrates the inner feminine -- and drag as misogyny where performance of comedic femininity reinforces division rather than unity. I will write about this dynamic later this week in the review of a new film about the most politically astute and influential drag queen of the last 100 years.

See what happens when a gay Jungian Jewish Buddhist advertising copywriter sees an ad for a dating service in a British newspaper. Now if I could only get a date.