Posted by Isis at nas-200-194.rochester.navipath.net on August 19, 2001 at 13:17:32:
In Reply to: JASBSB and GLADD: After I saw the movie posted by HillaireDude on August 19, 2001 at 12:52:39:
Given that it's me and my knickers get in a twist over this shit.
Here's why:
The George Carlin bit was fine -- the whole gay & straight is all the same bit, I thought that was a clever little piece of commentary. And it set up the Jay going down on the nun bit which was funny.
However, despite anyone's claims to the contrary, there are times in this movie when a character will say "that's so gay" or something to that effect and that is the sum total of the joke, there's no mockery of the person saying that, it's not realistic. There's no realistic reason why a bad-girl jewel thief would say "you are so gay" to another girl.
There are parts of this movie that do just reinforce the idea that it's acceptable and cool to use "gay" as a synonym for "bad". It's just tacky. And completely overused, the gay comments stopped getting any kind of laugh or response after a while at the preview I went to. I admit I may be biased, but when I asked my white male adolescent friend (who hasn't seen all the VA movies and doesn't follow the controversy) what he thought about it afterwards (without adding any commentary of my own) he surprised me by saying a lot of parts were funny but there was some shit that just didn't need to be in there and the gay jokes were dumb and made him uncomfortable.
I think GLAAD was absolutely right to point out that the people who think it's cool to say those words anyway will just think it's cool, and will go around saying James Van Der Beek is gay or whatever. The people who know it's not cool won't appreciate it or think it's funny, 'cause regardless of whether they bother you morally, those jokes were dead air. And they are endless and cheap to the point of embarrassment.
The Banky/Hooper interchange was sheer brilliance, but I don't think many people caught it, or if they did they didn't like it. I laughed out really loudly at that one but in a theater full of people who laughed at every inside joke, that "HA!" echoed in silence.
-- i
: I really don't know what GLADD's problem was with this movie.
: VanDerBeek was making fun of Biggs for his use of "gay". Seriously,
: Jay calling Silent Bob gay was all in fun; it was not a putdown of a lifestyle - and the Banky/Hooper thing at the end ties it all up. The disclaimer at the end was great too....but even people who don't post on the internet need to lighten up. Oh well.......
: Steve-0