So Victoria Jackson said a whole bunch of stuff about what I think was one of the best scenes in one of my favourite TV shows. I had to take this opportunity to sit down, go through her arguments, and list every reason why she’s wrong.
I’ll try and see the point from both sides, and would love to hear comments both agreeing and disagreeing me in order for this to be a “well-rounded” analysis.
The interview starts with Jackson embarrassing herself not noticing she’s on camera and struggling with the words “your welcome”. When the interviewer shows the scene in question Jackson objects, and actually tries to cover her eyes so she doesn’t need to see it. I’m gonna try and not make this personal (ad hominem arguments are some of the worst), but seriously? Are you 5 years old? Your voice makes you sound like it, yes, thats unfortunate…but you don’t need to act like it!
The first question asked is something along the lines of “how do you respond to accusations that your homophobic?”. I thought we were going to get a well-prepared summary of the leading anti-gay thoughts of the day (they don’t procreate, they’re not natural etc etc.).
Instead, She holds up the bible (which I’m assuming she brought herself for this sole purpose), stumbles over her words (again) and comes out with “I doesn’t matter what I think, It’s what’s in the bible that counts”. She goes straight from that (with no actual explanation of what’s in the bible), onto the “immorality in our country”. Apparently she can’t finish that train of thought, however, so she goes straight onto accusing what she calls “secular humanism” of ruling the airwaves and stealing our children’s innocence.
What does this even mean? There are plenty of religious ‘airwaves’ out there, religious TV shows and radio broadcasts. The internet has thousands of apps and sites designed to bring the bible further into your life. But also, the ‘airwaves’ are run by businesses, whose responsibility is to their profit - they merely supply what is needed to fulfil the demand of modern culture. If that’s vampires and gay kisses then that may be unfortunate (seriously, what's with all the gay vampires lately?) that’s what happens, if Christianity was more profitable then there would more shows devoted to it.
Jackson can’t find any show that her child can watch. Good for her! As a parent you should be enforcing control on what your child is subjected to; but that only works in one way. You should stop your children from watching what you think is bad for them, but you can’t force people to provide what you think is good for them. Again, the ‘airwaves’ aren’t for you, their for the population at large. If you need to censor everything on TV, then perhaps your censorship guidelines are too strict.
The interviewer repeats her question (“Do you think you’re homophobic?”), at which point Jackson calls ‘homophobia’ a ‘cute little buzzword’. Fuck you Jackson!
Homophobia is not a ‘buzzword’. People don’t say it to attract attention. You said a gay kiss was morally wrong and sickening. Not because it was a kiss, but because it was gay. Even only using the origins of the word (fear rather than hatred of gays), you’re homophobic: when they showed the clip of the kiss, you covered your eyes and whimpered. Don’t try to avoid the question, you’re homophobic by every definition of the word, admit it so we can move on.
But no, she’s only doing what the bible says! Seriously? You’re worried about your country because of it’s immorality. I’m worried about your country because its filled with people like you, who claim things aren’t their fault becuase they were just following rules: if the rules are homophobic and you choose to follow them, you’re homophobic.
But apparently the whole “liberal-agenda” (I’m not really part of American pop-culture but that sounds like a cute little buzzword to me) is anti-Jesus. No. I’m not entirely sure what the ‘agenda’ is, but I’m fairly certain it’s something along the lines of letting people choose. I’d consider myself a liberal (though I’d want clarification on the definition); for me it’s all about choice. Choose to follow Jesus? Fine! Choose not to? Fine! Choose to force me not too? Not fine! Choose to force me to? Not fine!
The host brings it back to the Glee topic, reading out a quote for a viewer. Listen carefully: when she reads “…these are things happening in real-life…” you can here Jackson scoffing in disbelief. To me that just loses her all credibility. You don’t think gays should be living their lives? Fine, that’s your opinion. You don’t think gays are living their lives? You're insane. Literally! You don't need to believe in UFOs to believe there are people who think they’ve been abducted. If you don’t think this episode reflects real-life (the gay bits at least; my life is far too musical-less) then you are wrong. That’s not something you can have an opinion about, its a fact: there are gays.
Jackson then makes a sly, underdeveloped comment about how Glee is not helping kids. I’m gonna leave that there: since she doesn’t develope on it, neither can I.
Then she apparently makes up a new statistic on the spot that 50% of teenagers have a new STD from all the oral sex thats apparently happening all over the place. Does someone know where she got her figures? Please tell me. I want to know what this new STD is so I can protect myself from apparently half of every single teenager I meet.
Her solution to fantasy? Celibacy. NO! NO! NO! You don’t tell kids not to do it, you tell kids they shouldn’t; but that if they do, they should use protection. You’re against sex because of STD’s? We have a way to literally remove that risk from sex. All the good stuff, none of the bad! Kids are gonna want the good stuff, nothing you say will stop that in most cases. Why try to remove the whole thing completely, when you can take out the only thing in it that you object to?
Another under-developed comment; but apparently the agenda of these shows is “trying to make kids gay”. I really don’t want to get into a “it’s not a choice” argument cause they go nowhere, but the point is that these shows are telling kids it’s ok if they are gay, not that they should be.
Then she asks what must be the single most fucked up series of half-thoughts that have ever been uttered without drooling halfway through:
“Why are liberals pro-muslim and pro-gay. Muslims kill gays!”
Apparently thats confusing to her. I’m going to try to explain my standpoint: I’m pro-choice. Pro-choice on everything. You can choose to be Christian, so long as you don’t infringe on someone’s right to choose to act on their homosexuality. And the same with Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews etc. I don’t care how you let me live you lives, so long as they don’t interfere with mine.
I’m not pro-Musilm, I’m not pro-Christian and I’m NOT pro-gay. I’m also not anti-Muslim, nor anti-Christian, nor anti-gay. There are neutral spaces that can be occupied. Muslims kill gays, thats wrong. That doesn’t mean I think it’s ok for Christians to kill Muslims.
My moral loyalty lies to a principle NOT to a group of people.
But not Jackson. Apparently since she loves God, everyone who is against her view that gay is wrong is also against God:
“The only thing I can come up with is that since gays hate God, and Muslims hate God…”
At that point the host cuts her off, I’m assuming before she states that the ‘liberals’ are forming some kind of anti-God alliance. This made me angry. I mean, what the fuck! First even if both groups hate God, that would not be the reason why I’d “side” with either one. Second do you know what a Muslim is? They follow the teachings of Islam - which is based of the same holy text as your own. “Muslim” actually means “one who submits to God”. Shut your Goddamn mouth and learn something before trying to teach it!
At this point I’m afraid I have to give up. She’s pissed me off far too much to continue analysing her ignorance and her hatred.
Before I stop though, one final comment: in the episode with the kiss, Glee included a character who was a parody of Tea-Partier. She hated the Dalton performance because it involved a duet between two boys.
Jackson has taken that parody, which I took to be a stereo-type played up and exagerrated for comic effect, and she’s turn it into a reality. The same hatred coming from the character is now coming from her, except that she was waving a bible in our faces as screamed.
No comments:
Post a Comment