You're right that "PC" was "adopted by the Left in the early 80s" (a bit earlier than that, actually). But it was adopted by the left for the same reason it was adopted by the right: to make fun of positions that a person considered "going too far." Not as a criterion for thought or policy, but as something to be…

I was there too, in the middle of it, and I didn't see it as you do. "McCarthyism from the left" is a giveaway — I often hear it from right-wingers I know, who believe that McCarthy was a defender of America who got a bum rap. They support McCarthyism, in other words, except when someone on the Right gets into…

You're right that in some cases, left-wing people called for restrictions on speech. In such cases, they tended to be making common cause with the Christian Right (see Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin). As a leftist, I often clashed with such people. It's not surprising that they should have done so, because…

The PMRC was about reactionary bipartisan "political correctness." As I said before, "political correctness" is a term for other people's excesses, not one's own.

What you're missing is that the term "political correctness" was never used by opponents of bigotry or inequality. I know this, because I was on a big state university campus from 1971, involved in gay, pro-feminist, anti-racist education. Neither I nor anyone else I worked with ever said that "political…

"…it was never, seriously or humorously, adopted by liberals; it was always attributed to liberals by conservative assholes as a defensive measure." Well, yes and no. Liberals adopted it as a tool for making fun of anyone who 'went too far' in opposing bigotry and inequality. I agree, they were adopting a…

I've seen Truthers attack Zinn (and Chomsky) for not accepting that 9/1` was a Black Flag Inside Job. So I don't believe he was a Truther. He was probably properly skeptical of some of the official accounts, but that's not the same as being a Truther. Doubting the government is not only not crazy, it's quite…

Reading the Bible made me less of a fan of Christ.

I'd say that poster is already in literacy prison.  Without parole.

Well, yeah, Velvet Goldmine is totally a brutally frank and realistic look at gay men's real lives… I'm being sarcastic there, but your preference is a reminder that reality is often overrated.  Maybe we need more interesting fantasies.

I want non-straight characters of both genders naturally included in movies and tv-shows, just like they are in real life.  Well, there's your problem.  Movies and tv aren't real life.  And in real life, non-straight people (not characters) are often excluded.  Which is why we make our own communities, however flawed…

"Modernity"?

Sorry, hon, but this whole post of yours is a cliche itself.  I'm alienated from a lot of "gay male culture" too, but I'm also alienated from straight culture.  So where does that leave me?  Doing pretty well, all told.

Right, but there really are quite a few films and novels and you name it now that don't end with the death of the fag/dyke.  Oddly, some gay / lesbian writers /filmmakers think they need to prove their Seriousness by having unhappy endings and killing off characters.  I agree, "All the Sad Young Men" endings and…

"Hey, does anyone think that Jack was really killed by homophobic thugs
who prey upon homosexuals changing their tire? Or was that something
Ennis imagined when the oh-so-glorious Mrs. Twist told him about it on
the phone?"  Hey, does anyone else want to bring up controversies that were done to death when the film…

I kinda lost track of Araki after about Nowhere, not just because he was claiming not to be queer for a while there; not because I object to straights making movies about queers, but because he was so stupid about it.  His first few films are interesting, and wish Nowhere would come out on US DVD, but they have the…

Good point, but "lead roles" wasn't specified in that sentence.  There are a lot of gay characters, but rarely in lead roles.  (This might be a good place to recall that Brokeback Mountain was touted as a breakthrough film that would open the door to more Hollywood movies with central gay characters, and long-stalled…

Yes, I think there is a difference between a straight perspective and a gay perspective.  Being gay in an officially straight society makes a big difference in the way I see the world and experience art and entertainment.  Being gay is that the whole world isn't trying to get you to get married, or at least coupled…

Not everything that "occurs" in a species is "serving some purpose at a species-level."  Not every trait was specifically selected for or against.  Not everything you can observe or identify is a trait in evolutionary terms. That's fairly orthodox Darwinism, by the way.

This thread, and your reaction to correction, is very revealing.  First, you seem to think that some kind of official imprimatur has been given to the notion that Bert and Ernie are a couple, and now Sesame Street will depict them as such.  That doesn't seem likely to happen.  This is a big overreaction to a gently…