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Ask the Flying Monkey (December 23, 2008)Cuckoo isn’t yet out on DVD, but it supposedly will be soon, which is as it should be. Yes, Liza’s character is incredibly annoying, but her Oscar-nominated performance is heartbreakingly honest (let’s face it: this was back before she became a bit of a parody of herself). A year later, Minnelli starred in Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, where she played another misfit, this one trying to set up a household with a group of other misfits, including a gay guy. Sadly, by the early 80s, Minnelli’s film career was out of gas, which is a shame, because she’s a hell of an actress. Q: Can you provide me with a comprehensive definition of "gay panic" humor, complete with examples? -- David, Los Angeles, CA
The infamous Snickers Super Bowl ad A: This is when laughs are derived from a straight character freaking out at the idea that someone might think he’s gay. Because, honestly, can you think of anything more humiliating than the idea that someone might think that? It’s one thing if another character responds to the panicky character by saying, “What is your problem? So what if people do think you’re gay?” But usually the message sent is that panic is a wholly appropriate response. Want to see 50,000 examples? Go to Youtube.com and type in “gay chicken”. Apparently the idea that two guys might actually kiss is fricking hiiiiii-laaaarious! This, mind you, from straight teenaged boys who spend half their lives watching lesbian porn and begging their girlfriends to kiss each other. There are variations on this “humor” all over the place: movies such as Harold and Kumar 2: Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008), Sex Drive (2008), and Wild Hogs (2007). Then there’s the infamous Superbowl Snickers ad and some of the jokes in (the otherwise pro-gay) I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007). And don’t forget the creepy gay brother who hit on the main character in Wedding Crashers (2005). Frankly, I can’t believe we’re still having this conversation on the verge of 2009. Q: This Christmas I am planning to ask friends and family to donate money in my name instead of a present. What is a good charity that helps gay youth or furthers the gay marriage fight? -- Marv A: What a wonderful idea! Some of the Monkey’s favorite gay charities include GLSEN, the Trevor Project, the National Youth Advocacy Coalition, Freedom to Marry, and the Lambda Legal Defense Fund. Or consider a local GLBT charity group that gives grants to programs in your geographic area. Speaking of charitable giving, check out this Onion parody:
Part of what makes it so bleepin’ brilliant is how the anchorman completely ignores, and thereby completely legitimizes, the charity’s outrageous anti-gay bigotry, presumably because it’s “religious” in nature. Gee, where have we seen that before? Have a question about gay male entertainment? Ask the Monkey!
Submitted by on Mon, 2008-12-22 20:15.  I love reading your columnSubmitted by
Aussie54 (506 points) (109 posts) on Tue, 2008-12-23 00:51.I look forward to reading it. :-) I'm wondering if you have the wrong name for the actor with Jim Carrey ... I think it's Rodrigo Santoro, rather than Oliver Martinez. Ha!Submitted by
Aussie54 (506 points) (109 posts) on Tue, 2008-12-23 00:56.I see that it's changed in the time I took to comment! While I'm here the second time, I'd like to say how hot Roberto Bolle is! How appropriate that a Google search for him turned up some pictures at www.mostbeautifulman.com :D  Thanks anyway!Submitted by
 And thanks for the kind words. That means a lot. :-)
Read my books! Explore "Brent's Brain" at http://www.brenthartinger.com no votes  Samuel DelaneySubmitted by
Ralpo (200 points) (44 posts) on Tue, 2008-12-23 17:33.I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't care for his work. I really wanted to like it, knowing he was gay, but I never managed to finish a single one of the three novels of his that I started reading.
China Mieville and Kim Stanley Robinson were the same.
And Tom C should stop running...he looks fine the way he is now ;)
 Samuel DelaneySubmitted by
db (3165 points) (658 posts) on Tue, 2008-12-23 19:10.I'm with you on this one too. I've tried several times to get through his books (including his biography) and never made it.
Thank YOU...Submitted by
for validating my inability to finish a China Mieville book! How do these authors get so famous?
Read my books! Explore "Brent's Brain" at http://www.brenthartinger.com no votes Underservedly FamousSubmitted by
Ralpo (200 points) (44 posts) on Wed, 2008-12-24 05:53.I guess someone pushes a "hot topic" button that a reviewer decides is relevant and they start pushing the author, and slavish fan boys act...well slavishly. William Gibson was annointed the Golden Boy with his cyberpunk rantings because when he burst onto the scene it was new and cutting edge - and then he championed people like China Mieville, as "relevant" and "now" (maybe because they are in his tradition and influenced by him). Good sci-fi is about big ideas, and presents them in a package that entertains as well as informs. But I think authors like China and Samuel look at writing sci-fi as a cerebral exercise in idea-exploration and they forget they should entertain as well as inform. So shall we go for a clean sweep Brent? Neal Stephenson? I wanted to enjoy his System of the World series. I knew I could handle convoluted plots (Song of Ice and Fire, Wheel of Time) and dense prose (Ricardo Pinto's Dance of the Stone Chameleons). I wanted to prove I was as intelligent as all the others who rave about his series. I gave up a third of the way into the first book. And someone mentioned a series they remembered about gender changing at teenage years? I think the books they are referring to are the Golden Witchbreed duology by Mary Gentle (my second favourite First Contact novel). This is a great pair of books. When you dont know what sex you are going to end up till after physical maturity sets in, sexuality and gender identity are pretty much immaterial. You fall in love with who you fall in love with...whether they are male/female or even an alien from another civilisation. And if you want the best First Contact novel you will ever read, guaranteed, try Mary Doria Russel's "The Sparrow". It's a slim read, but the prose is beautiful, it's beautifully plotted, and the denouement when it comes is so right and moving it moved me to tears. Each of the 30 or so times I read it. Here is an author who can give you a sense of the 30 years a couple have spent together, the fights the joys and the compromises, in the space of half a page. <rant ends>  Gay SF FictionSubmitted by
BobbyBaby (496 points) (115 posts) on Tue, 2008-12-23 01:39.Though I know AE has covered this topic frequently, I thought I would recommend a few SF novels with gay characters or themes that I love: "China Mountain Zhang", Maureen McHugh "Slow River", Nicola Griffith "The Left Hand of Darkness", Ursula LeGuin "The Heritage of Hastur", Marion Zimmer Bradley The last is kind of a Young Adult, but it has the best, most romantic gay male couple ever written in SF, Regis Hastur and Danilo Styrtis. How they sent my teen gay heart soaring! Even as an adult, it's a great read.  Gay Sci-FiSubmitted by
Dane Hill (804 points) (190 posts) on Tue, 2008-12-23 03:19.I would add Greg Bear's 'Anvil of Stars', the sequel to 'Forge of God'. Both are excellent reads, though I actually enjoyed the non-gay-theme Forge better. It's all an end-of-the-world sci-fi yarn.
 Slugging it out in SciFi landSubmitted by
afhickman (3715 points) (770 posts) on Tue, 2008-12-23 09:19.afhickman "The mountain has wings." I just finished teaching a SciFi course, and the closest thing we read to a gay story was "Bloodchild," by the late Olivia Butler, in which male humans are impregnated by giant slugs. But I did want to put in a plug (not slug) for "Chrome," by the (also late) actor, George Nader. Maybe if enough people started asking for it, his publishers would put out the one he apparently finished before his death. Did you mean Octavia Butler?Submitted by
HapNStance (465 points) (96 posts) on Tue, 2008-12-23 20:26.Most of her books were very much about the African American and Female experience. So sex as an expression of power is a prominent theme. Along with Samuel "Chip" Delaney, she was one of the few A list Black SF wiriters to have any great success. As for good old Chip, his later books were more Leather fantasies than anything else. The early books went to the other extreme, being deconstructionist at a time when that wasn't popular. But then most people don't like their SF to be too meta. I loved Dahlgren, which I am apparently one of the very few to finish and actually reread, but I was 16 at the time. Delaney bashing is popular at Cons, though he taught writing at Amherst and was apprently a popular teacher. I found Chrome to be high end porn, you can find a lot of that kind of stuff at Nifty. I recommend Elizabeth A Lynn, whose novel, "A Different Light" inspired the name of the San Francisco gay bookstore, as well as her excellent fantasy trilogy, "The Chronicles of Arun. CJ Cherryh's Cyteen has a gay protagonist who loves a male clone, and explores some ideas of power in interpersonal relationships. Again, like a lot of "female" SF, say Ursula LeGuin, her fiction is more about culture and relationships and less out and out Space Opera. I believe the main character in LeGuin's "The Dispossed" is gay as well. Nous Sommes Tous Sauvages. Wasn't she Joan Fontaine's sister?Submitted by
afhickman (3715 points) (770 posts) on Wed, 2008-12-24 05:29.afhickman "The mountain has wings." Octavia, of course. I shouldn't be trying to post on the road. The DisposessedSubmitted by
Ralpo (200 points) (44 posts) on Fri, 2008-12-26 01:17.The main character in Ursula's "the Disposessed" is straight. But it's a very good story none the less and there are some lesser characters who are gay. Coupling in a gender neutral society is much less fraught for gay people. Everyones in the same boat, and you never know when your partner is going to be sent to some community project where your skills aren't needed. The main character comes from a society that was purposefully socially engineered. Their language has no personal pronouns, no gender references, all things (including parents clothes and jobs) are communal. Names are not chosen by parents but are allocated and unique, and always combine 5 or 6 letters, no more or less. Ursula manages to make scathing attacks on both communism AND capitalism in a fairly short read, with a few swipes at both feminism and misanthropy.  Liza is also teriffic in "Charlie Bubbles"Submitted by
David Ehrenstein (7805 points) (1725 posts) on Tue, 2008-12-23 09:22.a marvelous comedy drama written by Sheilaugh Delany (of A Taste of Honey fame) and directed by and starring Albert Finney. Wendell Burton left acting to be "Born Again." Thereby hangs a tale I'd rather not get into. Paul Schrader tells me that the reason why The Walker vanished so quickly (and I found it tons better than you did, with a killer turn by Lauren Bacall) is that Woody Harrelson took an unaccountable dislike to it and refused to publicize it. Get the DVD, it's a very smart movie.
 Rodrigo and LizaSubmitted by
AddisonDewitt (3182 points) (652 posts) on Tue, 2008-12-23 10:05.Rodrigo Santoro... can I start breathing again now? I remember when he made quite the impression as a Henry in "Ugly Betty" character in the film "Love Actually." He had a fun tease with Laura Linney that ended up being a sad story about a woman who was shouldering the dependence of her mentally ill brother while trying to find love. Rodrigo then showed up as a lucky man who falls in love briefly with Nicole Kidman in a Chanel commercial. I think he will be added to my "list" now... I almost forgot about him... Thanks Flying Monkey! I always thought Liza! should be given the Tarantino treatment. Not necessarily in a Tarantino film, but some director use her in a role you wouldn't expect her to be in that doesn't make a joke about her persona. Her work in Arrested Development as Lucille was very funny; but, her dramatic work needs to come back with something that surprises you and makes you go "Was that her?!"
 Gay FantasySubmitted by
Rina (15 points) (5 posts) on Tue, 2008-12-23 12:07.A series of books I've enjoyed reading, though more fanatsy than sci-fi, are the Nightrunner books by Lynn Flewelling. They're not high art, but they are a fun read, and are also quite openly gay. The two main characters become lovers, and what I love most about the stories is that, in the magical world where these are set, no one bats an eyelash (what a shame that it is therefore so obviously fiction?). Flewelling herself has been quoted as saying that she created the dashing hero "just to see if he'd work -- a gay hero, and a gay character who wasn't tragic, evil, victimized, or a bit player thrown in for color."
 Pulp Science FictionSubmitted by
Psionycx (7936 points) (1610 posts) on Tue, 2008-12-23 21:05.There's a writer under the pen name Mel Keegan that writes some really enjoyable (IMHO) Pulp sci-fi stuff. (S)he has two major sci-fi series, both opertaing at different time periods in the same universe. The NARC series focuses on two co-captains of a Narcotics and Riot Control starship tasked with fighting interplanetary drug syndicates pushing a super-drug that is fatally addictive after only a single use but which causes such intense euphoria that many people use it anyway. The Hellgate series is later in the future, when distant human colonies are fighting for independence from Earth while at the same time threatened by a mysterious alien menace. The books aren't works of literature like Delaney, Butler or LeGuin, although I would easily rate them as being as good as the Darkover pulp put out by Marion Zimmer-Bradley. The extensive sexual permissiveness in the future societies borders on soft-core porn, which some don't like though. Unfortunately, the books are generally only available through direct order online. Just Google Mel Keegan and you can find them.  It's Delany - no 'e'Submitted by
scorpio54 (267 points) (62 posts) on Sun, 2008-12-28 10:03.Just caught up with this thread and couldn't help wincing at this. If you're looking for gay male characters in SF, check out the work of Frank M. Robinson, who was also Harvey Milk's scriptwriter. he talks about working on the movie here: http://frankmrobinson.com/skimmedmilk.html As for gender-switching, that's been used a lot in SF, most especially in the books of John Varley and, more pulpily, in those of Jack Chalker. Lesbian SF author Gael Baudino also used it to good effect in her Dragonsword trilo and, of course, had lesbian protagonists in novels such as Gossamer Axe. All her books are now out of print, alas, so you'd have hunt them down in used book stores.
 Sordid Lives DOES get 2nd Season!Submitted by
G Mendias (15 points) (3 posts) on Sun, 2008-12-28 04:44.Just to let you know, while Leslie Jordan was here signing his new book, he told everyone at the signing that season 2 of Sordid Lives was already filming. YEA!!!!!!
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Thanks for the anwers
Thanks for the answers. Your column has become one of the things I look forward to every week.
I really want to like the television series of Sordid Lives and wish that I liked The Big Gay Sketch Show better than I do, but...
I love the movie version of Sordid Lives and hold Del Shores in great regard as a prolific and successful playwright/screenwriter. At first I'd hop around between Logo and Bravo to catch what was going on with Sordid Lives and Project Runway (possibly unfortunate scheduling since the shows audience could certainly overlap). I can't put my finger on it, but Sordid Lives just petered-out. I liked all the characters and the situations, but it was just too hard to keep up with. And even though I have always been a big fan of Rue McClanahan (sp?), she tends to look a little like Valdemort these days.
Maybe, unlike some cable channels and most movie channels, Logo seems to be overly censored, which I find distracting. I certainly watch it for the excellent news and documentaries, but movies and comedy's being bleeped make me feel that I should somehow be ashamed of myself. And I'm probably too old to put up with that s****.
Pope Skippy XVI
Weirdly Enough
Actually...Monkey
Jim Careys costar and the man in the photo is brazilian hottie Rodrigo Santoro, not Olivier Martinez. They do look alike though.
BTW, I guess this is my chance to wish the Monkey and his loved ones a Happy Holiday Season. May you spend it well.
Oops! Thanks, changed it
Read my books! Explore "Brent's Brain" at http://www.brenthartinger.com no votes