The Trevor Project has given an award to Katy Perry. Yes, you read that correctly. The Trevor Project, the organization whose aim is to prevent LGBTQ youth suicide, is giving an award to Katy Perry to honor her for “inspiring LGBTQ youth to find their spark through her video ‘Firework’” and ”increasing visibility and understanding of the LGBTQ community.”
I wonder which acts of visibility and understanding they’re referring to exactly. Was it the time she made heaps of money for celebrating the stereotype that girls kissing girls is an act done for attention? You know, the song Kathleen Hanna called “straight-up offensive,” P!nk said “trivializes lesbianism” and Beth Ditto noted was indicative of Perry ”just riding on the backs of our culture, without having to pay any of the dues and not being actually lesbian or anything at all”?
Or was it the time she peppered a song with effeminate gay male stereotypes so she could insult an ex-boyfriend, equating queerness with negativity and encouraging bullying against gay people? Did the fact that she opened that song with the lines “I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf /While jacking off listening to Mozart” really seal the deal for a LGBTQ youth suicide prevention group?
Maybe it was the time she talked about looking like a “tranny” in Rolling Stone? Or when she mocked trans* people on twitter, inspiring a condemnation from GLAAD? Those don’t seem like moments when queer visibility was improved, nor were they stellar examples of helping other to “understand” our community any better. Those seem like moments when some homophobia slipped through the cracks, and no one listened when queers called it out. After all, Perry herself has declared that “certain parts of the world — especially in the U.S. — are just dying to be offended” and that it “won’t change how I express myself as an artist.”
Being pissed off at Katy Perry isn’t anything new for the queer community, which is why it seems strange for us to be giving her some kind of award, although it’s certainly not the first time we’ve been baffled by Perry’s inclusion and celebration in a queer space. In 2008, Perry made the cover of the OUT 100, earning the coveted honor of “Musician of the Year,” inspiring lesbian entertainment blogger Dorothy Snarker to ask OUT, “What the fuck? Katy Perry? Katy fucking Perry? This is a joke, right? What you meant to do was pick an actual lesbian to pose amid the gay men, right? Right?”
Autostraddle pretty much nails it with this article.
Quote from the above mentioned Autostraddle article that I just wanted to highlight:
“No individual is flawless and no saint is without a past. I’m not asking that our heroes be impossibly good human beings who have spent a lifetime adhering to only the highest of morals. On the contrary, I want people in charge who have period stains on their briefs and a love of guilty pleasure television. Someone who knows what it’s like to be an outcast, or the worst at math, or has spent a lifetime facing oppressions that have raised them up into an outstandingly experienced human being. Cracks let the light in. Give me queers who have been around the block. Give those queers a raise, and throw them dinner parties. See if they want a dinner party, or if they want you to give that money to charities, to shelters, to causes that directly affect the queer community. Let us be a community that honors our own and uplifts our own and directly cares for our own, rather than a community that thinks being prostrate to a hetero mainstream will get us anywhere besides, I guess, feeling like a plastic bag.”
I really cannot stand Katy fucking Perry. The above article pretty clearly outlines and sources the many reasons why I dislike her—besides the fact that, ya know, her music is atrocious.
“It makes it really easy to be a prude when you’re not attracted to him.”
But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)
Always and forever a favorite.
imnotthatgay: Attention Everyone: Stop what you are doing and watch this video. This is Rise Against’s new music video for “Make It Stop,” which is about the LGBT suicides that occured in September. I hope to see lots of people reblogging this inspirational piece of art. It Gets Better. http://www.itgetsbetter.org/
I’ve always loved Rise Against, and this just fuels that feeling.
Gave me goosebumps.
(Source: theskyisreallyfalling)
PP relevant.
…the more pissed off I get.
The paper I’m currently writing is supposed to describe ‘how the media viewed an event in the 60s’ and naturally, I picked the Stonewall Riots.
These articles were so slanderous and full of bigotry and negativity, it makes you think about the people and companies producing them. If this is how people viewed the LGBTQ community, it’s no wonder there was retaliation.
I knew of the events, of course, but reading these articles that were actually written during that time, it really puts things into a different perspective.
There is no excuse for including the terms “fags”, “dykes”, “queens”, “fairies”, and “forces of faggotry” in an article that is just supposed to be delivering the news to people. One article even concluded by stating “Watch out. Their liberation is under way.” as if people need to take cover and hide from the community like we carry the plague.
The way the writers were describing the events really makes me sick. As if just talking about it was disgusting to them.
It was a positive event that marked the beginning of the pride movement that still carries on today. How could these people have been so rude and prejudiced?
Fucking intense about halfway through.
I’ve always hated the WBC with a burning passion.
And I’m not very fond of Fox News.
And I’m definitely not a fan of Christianity and other organized religions.
But hot damn this news woman put that bitch in her place.
(Source: yumjuice)
