Hetrophobia
Sep. 30th, 2006 12:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakDetails, September 2006, page 162. I'm not sure that Simon Dumenco, the writer of this piece, gets it. He uses My Name Is Earl as an example of the sort of stereotyping of straight males as hapless buffoons. Has he seen this show? I do not think I have seen a single character on that show who was not sort of red neck stereotype. Even the gay character from the first episode was somewhat pathetic. He had a nicely kept house but he worked at a Kinko's look alike and drove a Gremlin. In what universe does this equal fab? (In my view My Name Is Earl is sort of sweet/sympathetic view of a redneck town. All these odd characters who are complex humans under their exterior of ignorant or not very attractive.)
He is totally correct that the culture is going through a transformation with gay or gay seeming characters doing all these fashion and home improvement things. But that is a sort of trend in television marketing type things. The TV types think that non-threatening males, like gays, work well as fashion and home consultants. Flavor of the month and it will probably all change in another year or two.
It is not a covertly homophobic article, in my opinion. It ends on a typically liberal upbeat sentiment of, "Both are stuck playing cartoon characters. And in the end, their homophobia and hetrophobia make them perversely complementary shadowboxing partners—each lashing out at an enemy who's not really there." But I do think it is one of those breed of attention grabbing man bites dog stories that magazines often put on their covers. Mountains out of molehills to sell ad copy.
He is totally correct that the culture is going through a transformation with gay or gay seeming characters doing all these fashion and home improvement things. But that is a sort of trend in television marketing type things. The TV types think that non-threatening males, like gays, work well as fashion and home consultants. Flavor of the month and it will probably all change in another year or two.
It is not a covertly homophobic article, in my opinion. It ends on a typically liberal upbeat sentiment of, "Both are stuck playing cartoon characters. And in the end, their homophobia and hetrophobia make them perversely complementary shadowboxing partners—each lashing out at an enemy who's not really there." But I do think it is one of those breed of attention grabbing man bites dog stories that magazines often put on their covers. Mountains out of molehills to sell ad copy.