Let’s play… lesbian (for everybody who is still willing to watch)

I know I have already written about (supposedly) straight women kissing (supposedly)straight women (http://playanthropologist.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=12&action=edit) but somehow for people this never gets old – especially since Sandra Bullock decided that it’s something she likes to do at award shows.

Gawker has written about it (http://gawker.com/5557451/), afterellen.com’s Heather Hogan has picked it up (http://www.afterellen.com/blog/stuntdouble/afternoon-delight-tuesday-june-8) and now I find myself thinking about it again.

(Yeah, I know Penelope and Gwyneth are not kissing but let’s face it, this pic is too good to not put in here.)

I still think that kissing is on the whole a good thing and if you have to do it for your self esteem, or for a few more points on the ever-present popularity scale… sure, do it. Kissing makes happy and if it’s two girls it’s usually not just them being happy.

What irks me is Miley Cyrus (and I mean, constantly, but especially in this case). For her song “Can’t Be Tamed” on Britain’s Got Talent she fake-kissed a girl and later said that she didn’t do anything wrong because she was not really kissing the female dancer… hm, Miley, do you mean to say that kissing girls is wrong then? I know she is young, and she may even be Christian or stupid or something, but I think even young, stupid Christians should think before they speak.

Sandra Bullock is a completely different case. She is not young and I don’t think she is stupid (and I frankly don’t care if she is Christian). And she kisses… I should not say girls, we are talking Meryl Streep and Scarlett Johansson… women at award shows. That would not be such a big deal if her private life was not center of attention of the journalistic profession (and I guess the blogosphere). But she just happened to have seperated from her husband, Jesse James.

Now, let me be frank. I have never been a fan of Sandra Bullock. Still, I have watched most of her movies at the movies. I like her, she’s not complecated. And honestly, she always seemed gay to me. If you want to make a big deal out of this, do. This should not be a big deal. It is not an insult, it is not meant to stir people’s emotions, it’s just me own humble opinion and nobody has to share it.

So, the way I see her kissing those two incredibly talented actresses, Meryl Streep and Scarlett Johansson, is not just for show but something she might enjoy doing… who knows. Maybe it is a clumsy way to say: I like girls, y’know, no big deal. And it really shouldn’t be.

It is really strange, though, all this girl-on-girl action lately. And I do not quite agree with Gawker’s list. I think, you have to differentiate when and why women kiss. For example, putting Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning on the list seems off since – as far as I know – they kissed for their movie “The Runaways” (or have I missed something?). It’s interesting to note that people are always talking about the fact that they are both female and not about the fact that Dakota is only 16 (was only 15 when the scene was shot). Seems that as far as age is concerned Dakota is considered a professional actress, when it comes to her kissing another woman, it’s just that: two women kissing, i.e. hot, i.e. a sin, i.e. whatever gets you more publicity talking about it.

Well, I don’t quite agree with Gawker’s assessment of why some celebs kiss other celebs in public. I like to think that deep down inside they do it because they really like it. Call me naive, I am. We should all do some more kissing and less talking about it, I guess.

So, kiss on!!! (and make it count)

Define… not-so-literally gay-ness

Now, what does that mean? Not so literally gay-ness. Well, I sometimes feel that language is quite limiting and then I have to discribe something with a word that may not fit literally but maybe in a broader sense. And I am not the only one doing it: during one of my classes we read Kate Chopin’s brilliant novel “The Awakening” (what, you haven’t read it yet? do.). We read it in a context of New Orleans literature, history, politics and culture and had so far read mostly history. So, to compare some of the uglier instances of history (i.e. Slavery) we had to conduct a common ground, thus we referred to Edna Pontellier’s marriage as a kind of “slavery.” The word is not fitting if you look at the distinct markers of slavery, but we have yet to come up with a better word. So, I guess we could refer to not-so-literally slavery to make everybody happy – except for the woman in it. (I wonder by the way if this lack of words may not often be confined to “women’s problems”; maybe the expatriate writers of the 20s had the right idea, we do need an own language even if just to irk man-kind *g*).

Okay, so, not-so-literally gay-ness. What do I mean by that. I give you an example: I sometimes see a lesbian on the street which I find – from afar – really great looking (maybe even hot) and when this lesbian comes closer I discover that it is a man – most likely a straight man – and I think, wow, he looks like a lesbian, dresses like a lesbian, walks like a lesbian – so we may as well call him a lesbian. You know, the whole, if it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a lesbian… but it is also not-so-literally gay-ness.

I have another example: sometimes we encounter a person who we feel is deeply unhappy about something in his or her life. They do not talk about this unhappiness, sometimes because they were not brought up to talk about their feelings, sometimes because they are deeply ashamed, but sometimes because they simply do not know why they are so unhappy. There is something inside that they hide even from themselves (I am not sure if this is a problem of an older generation but I would almost argue that it is probably more severe in Germany than in the U.S. because we are not quite so enthusiastic about psycho analyses – which is not to say that I would trust psycho analyses with every problem but I think it would at least be a way to discover patterns in this unhappiness and maybe come up with a way to help…). I call these people closeted. That does not mean that every single one of these people is gay and does not know it, it does mean that there is something really deep inside them that they cannot deal with. Not-so-literally gay-ness.

And I have another example (I do love language, y’know, and so I think a lot about words). I know it has become a taboo to say “That’s so gay!”, at least here in the U.S.. We do use the German version in Germany (“Das ist so schwul!”) but I would say, less often. I also use this phrase, usually with an uplifting connotation since I think gay is great, so I use it positively but I am sure there are people who would find something wrong with that as well. So, when I look at this picture of Kristen Stewart:

and say: That’s so gay! it is neither to say: she is a lesbian! nor to imply that that is a bad thing. It is (you guessed it) not-so-literally gay-ness!

Homosexuality (as all labels we attach to people) has its markers by which we identify it. Sometimes a situation or a person who might not fall into the actual category may show markers of this label but that does not mean it is the actual thing – but it also does not say it is not, right! That’s what I mean by not-so-literally gay-ness.

And now we can talk about how hot that picture of Ms. Stewart is…