[  Mood: Sleepy ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast ]
So I wore purple yesterday as part of the campaign to speak out against bullying GLBTTQ children teens and to remember those who have taken their lives because of it.

The experience was interesting, to say the least.

In addition to the cadre of colleagues who were also in purple, I had a student ask me if I was wearing purple for that exact reason. As a gay friend of mine said yesterday evening, the rest of the student body knew five minutes later and knew I am a safe place to go if there are problems.

But I also looked around and thought "FINALLY!"

I have been screaming loud and clear about this issue for over ten years. I remember calling into a national call-in show to point out that the number one cause of suicide in teenagers is the realization that they are gay or lesbian and they are afraid to live in a world that hates them. I pointed out that they thought they were "broken" and they didn’t know how to "fix" themselves. Even though there was nothing wrong to fix.

I teach grade 7 & 8, the most homophobic age group of humans ever. They use "fag" as a putdown as easy as breathing. As soon as I hear it, I stop the class and have a chat about how that word is a slur like "nigger", "kyke", "spic", "bour" and "beotch". I inform them that word is not welcome in my classroom and I will land on them like a ton of bricks if I ever hear it again. I then go on and talk about Canadian human rights legislation, pointing out that if they do this in a workplace they could find themselves fired as their employers do not want to have to pay a fine for having a negative workplace. (I always relate things to the real world – ALWAYS.)

I have routinely asked friends, "How many cures for cancer have we lost? How many Governor General Awards for Literature? How many Nobel Peace Prizes? How many simply decent human beings who would mow your lawn and water your garden while you are on vacation?" And then I would cry.

So I find it all a little surreal that this has been a cause celebre. Like the rest of the world has woken up and realized that this is just wrong.

Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled this is happening. But it is so rare that a vision I had for the future actually happens. I don’t know how to handle it.

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
[  Currently: Listening to Top Chef DC podcast ]
So Tony Curtis has died. And many in the media were lauding his ground breaking turn in Some Like It Hot because he dressed like a woman.

Meet you in the ladies in ten.

Sure this movie was funny, it’s a screwball comedy, it is supposed to be funny. And yes, Tony claims that he banged Marilyn, after anyone who could have disproved it has passed away. And yes, in a "ground breaking move, gender bending move", he dressed as a woman, but let’s be blunt, the British have been doing it for years. As have the Canadians.

Psst! – The one in the dress is a dude!

And really, Tony’s character of Joe ends up with Sugar (played by Marilyn Monroe). That’s not exactly challenging one’s masculinity. It’s Jack Lemmon’s character of Jerry who it is implied will remain in a relationship with a man. So he’s the one who should have gotten the laurels for Some Like It Hot

But not a lot of the media has turned to Curtis’ groundbreaking role of the slave Antonius in Sparticus. This one had him doing the famous snails and oysters scene with Sir Lawrence Olivier that ended up, for the most part, on the cutting room floor. The implied homosexuality and rape of slave was too lascivious for 1960. Yet it’s restoration 30 years later symbolizes how far we have come. (And how repressed our culture was in 1960 – I mean Tony is wearing shorts in the shot. In Ancient Rome, and on HBO today, he would be as naked as the day he was born.)

Yes, master, I like gun shows.

It is for this that I will remember Tony. Yes, Some Like it Hot showed off his comedic side, and he looked good in that dress (although not as good as Jack Lemmon), but it was Sparticus where he pushed at boundaries. He wasn’t afraid to do that scene in a time in which America was so firmly in the closet that the door was locked and boarded up. And there was a chair wedged under the doorknob.