Scene: LP’s house, after the UNC Tar Heels win the national championship. In basketball, you effete TGW sports-haters.
We’ve decided, since LP hasn’t written her post as of Monday night, that we (Timo, J-Man, LP) will do a stream-of-consciousness post on the issues of the day. After a shot of vodka to celebrate the end of fascism in Europe.
photo courtesy j-man, via her superfancy iPhone
Begin:
J-Man: Okay: One. How cute is that Tyler Hansbrough? He’s like a puppy, just let out of his crate.
Timo: [no response, typing on his iphone.]
Timo: [giggles]
J-Man: Two, there’s nothing gayer than going on Tyra Banks. Maybe Levi is gay.
J-Man: Todd certainly is. What about that little goatee?
J-Man: Three. My god, what’s number three?
Timo: The authorial voice needs to step up. Or… Facebook — so three weeks ago?
J-Man: No, we’re still addicted to it.
Timo: No, but I’m already over it. Inside of a week.
J-Man: [sighs heavily]
LP: Let’s go, Tar Heels! God, I love Roy Williams.
Timo: There’s a lot of pressure to update your status.
J-Man: In a clever way. Because there’s not that much interesting about what you’re actually doing.
LP: [giggles]
Timo (to LP): You boozed us up, and then you exploit us.
Is this funny to anyone else? Because we’re dying laughing right now.
Timo: Plus which, you should say something about the fact that the President picked the Tar Heels to win it all in his bracket.
J-Man: As long as you get Obama in there, it’s a good post.
Levi: Definitely not gay. Todd: Maybe, but he reminds me more of Sexy (Ski-Suit) Flanders.
Okay, Levi’s not gay. And admittedly, this post was funnier last night than it is this morning. But still – the President is a visionary! He can predict the future!
This really *was* funny last night. Wha’happen? Maybe it was the vodka.
Only one shot, mind you. We have all become such cheap dates.
By the way, for those who haven’t heard the news today, Vermont became the fourth state to offer same-sex marriage, joining Iowa, Massachusetts and Delaware. Also, the District of Columbia city council passed a resolution to recognize same-sex marriages performed in these states.
Yay! Takes the sting off California. We will win this thing yet.
Yay for Vermont! Boo for California. My home state continues to embarrass me on this issue. I would have predicted that California would be the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, what with all it’s free-lovin’ history. What is it with these people?!
And BTW, I still think this post is funny. Hmmmm…..maybe I’m still drunk.
Hey, J-Man… it seems like it’s only us three in here now, plus Davey B. Maybe we drove everyone away!
Or maybe… oh no… the RAPTURE!!!
Whoa. Even J-Man is gone.
Hmm. Can’t be the Rapture – must be something else.
Yeah, it’s the dynamic of having one gay person and two straight people put up a post speculating on the sexual orientation of two “presumably” “straight” people.
And then having one gay person comment. To be followed by the speculation from the original posters about wether or not this was funny.
It wasn’t funny. But it was interesting. I’ve been trying to find a way into this. Is “gay” being used as a slur here?
It’s in that territory of Quentin Tarrantino using the work “ni**er” and then having Samuel L. Jackson defend him.
Not funny, but interesting, complicated, worthy of discussion. But I don’t think anyone wanted to bring it up.
ok so to make the Tarrantino thing work this post should have been titled “Levi is a fag.”
Well, deconstructing drunken jokes is a losing proposition, but I will venture to say that our “speculation” about the obviously-straight Levi is a commentary on stereotypes rather than a stereotype itself. (Todd, however, with that goatee, is another matter.)
In retrospect, I probably should have titled this post something other than “Levi is Gay.” Maybe “This was funny at the time.” Or “Dave, I’m home.”
“is a commentary on stereotypes rather than a stereotype itself. (Todd, however, with that goatee, is another matter.)”
OK so pick this part apart please.
Is it the “going on Tyra Banks” part. Having never watched the show, i don’t know. But that is what I find so interesting about this post, and the broader cultural moment. This destabilization of gender roles, and the nervousness that it seems to invoke.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into the silence of the audience. Today’s post should be getting more buzz than it is, (perhaps TGW is just on cosmically aligned vacation.) But the silence seemed interesting too. What to make of this post and how to enter it.
Tyra Banks has increasingly adopted a drag-queen persona, so going on her show is quite a gay thing to do. Levi, however, is at best rough trade.
But speculation about Levi’s gayness was a fairly minor part of the post, title aside.
As I’m sure you know, Lane, when we gays get together we enjoy speculating about whether various presumably straight hotties are actually gay. This is how we performatively make use of the power inherent in the category of “homosexual”: heterosexuality is always in question, always at risk of being contaminated and thus destroyed by even one drop of teh gay. But we never say that someone is “presumably gay” (unless we’re talking about Liza Minelli’s husbands).
OK now this is the real discussion. And after all, here at TGW this seems like the thing people might want to discuss. Our other option with this post was . . . Basketball? yeah, as if! . . .
“at risk of being contaminated and thus destroyed by even one drop of the gay.”
Now this is an idea that has cultural currency. And at the present moment, seems to be one of the key discussions dividing the nation. Excellent post!
And it was this that interested me as well “Timo: There’s a lot of pressure to update your status.
J-Man: In a clever way. Because there’s not that much interesting about what you’re actually doing.
LP: [giggles]”
The “cleverness” of on-line conversation is very swish. And “gay” and interesting. Destabilizing.
“Cyberchat” has this odd gender neutrality to it that is provocative. Straight people sounding gay and gay people sounding straight.
But wait . . . that last sentence is off. Is it possible to “sound straight”?
Interesting.
no, to take it further. not “straight” but like a “girl” On-line chat is “gossipy” like an Edith Warton salon.
Again, very interesting. The construction of the “Straight” “White” “Male” “Christian” hegemony “under attack”
Eeeekkk! Run for your lives!!!!!!!!
NERD ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No way. It just got good!
“Well, deconstructing drunken jokes is a losing proposition”
maybe not . . .
On the internet, no one knows your a dog.
I love it when I get to laugh out loud at a TGW post.
17: Agreed. The very act of typing is emasculating.
Levi managed to salvage his masculinity by declaring via MySpace that he was a fuckin’ redneck.
Speaking of hegemony under attack, the video in this post is pretty great.
23. you just say that beacause you’re an “administrative assistant”
some day you should do all your work standing up and shirtless, drinking rum, like Hemmingway!
Now THAT’S butch typing!
oh yeah, and that commercial.
the “lighting” is amazing! so apocalypic!
Damn you Dave! Your’re taking away MY RIGHTS!
Why do you think Hemingway typed standing up, shirtless, drinking rum?
It’s because his mom dressed him in girls’ clothes when he was a child, that’s why.
And now you know the rest of the story.
True fact: Girls can also type standing up, but not as accurately.
Hey that’s a great idea, queer Paul Harvey!
The whole history of American Culture is so fraught with masculinist over compensation it’s silly.
But then again, there’s a good deal of overcompensation in the Third Reich as well. So I guess it’s not just Americans.
“Young Adolf Hitler was so shocked at the presence of a nude man in his figure drawing class at the Kunstbunde that he went out and slaughtered 10 million people. And now you know the rest of the story.”
Like that! Hey this could really go somewhere!
The story in 26 is actually, truly, no joke something I heard from Paul Harvey.