Nicole Hollander’s cartoon strip “Sylvia” in the Chicago Tribune (9/7) has the Fairy Godmother of Women over 40 conveying the news that Ken, of Ken and Barbie, hits the big 4-0 this year and in his apparently unmarried state needs “a little red sports car and a boyfriend.”
Neil Steinberg, columnist in the Chicago Sun-Times (9/2) and a longtime friend of the lesbigay community, writes wonderfully and sarcastically r.e. the Florida Federal Court’s decision not to allow gays to adopt children. Comparing the court to the Taliban, he demolishes all the pieces of their convoluted reasoning: 1) there is no evidence that gay couples are as equivalently stable as straight couples…”Puh-leeze. Half the [straight] couples divorce and another big chunk … never marry”; 2) gay couples can’t provide proper gender identification…”Don’t gay men shave? Play football … . If you must have straight parents to become straight … where do gays come from? Eggs?”; and 3) gay couples socially stigmatize their adopted children … . “In a world where John Wayne Bobbitt, Marv Albert, and Bill Clinton walk around … I would argue that … social stigma has very little currency.” Steinberg goes on to say that if he and his wife were killed he’d rather have his kids raised by the Gay Men’s Glee Club than the Morman Tabernacle Choir…”At least my boys wouldn’t have to go door to door trying to win converts (though gay missionaries are amusing to imagine: ‘Hello sir, might I offer you this free videotape of Queer as Folk?'”).
At the movies: The NY Times 9 (/7) reviews Our Lady of the Assassins which seems to be a violent drug-ridden version of Death in Venice. An older man falls for young hustlers in the Columbian city of Medellin and watches helplessly as they are murdered. The same issue of The NY Times reviews the Thai movie, The Iron Ladies, which attempts to tromp the homophobia of Thailand by re-telling the story of a volleyball team of gay men, transvestites and transsexuals. Also reviewing Rock Star, Mark Wahlberg’s new flic, the Times reports the high point of the heavy metal movie seems to be Wahlberg’s character being shocked, shocked to find his long-haired rock idol wears wigs and is gay. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times (9/2) has an essay about David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. The wonder is it could be made at all. Quoting one of its stars, Omar Sharif, mentions it’s a film that’s four hours long, with no stars, and no women, and no love story, and not much action either … film [ed]… in the desert.” And Ebert adds, the main character was in real life almost certainly a homosexual, which fact the film simply presents. Ebert calls the film “glorious.”
The Chicago Tribune (9/5) tells the story of Jennie Hodgers, the only woman who. disguised as a man in the Civil War. officially completed a full 3-year tour, getting an honorable discharge. She maintained her male identity 50 more years (even voting long before women were allowed to). A union officer’s report on Albert D. J. Cashier (Jennie’s pseudonym) said Cashier was “. ..selected [for missions] whenever dependable men were absolutely needed.” Windy City Times/Outlines writer Marie Kuda has written about Hodgers on several occasions.