Bill O'Reilly, a highly objectionable news presenter, argues with the awesome Laura Berman about the acceptability of a lesbian couple being voted "cutest couple" for their yearbook.
These competitions never sat well with me when I was at school, because they basically pandered to the popularity contest that was the whole of high school, and my social standing wasn't great in terms of the mainstream. During my last year at college, we had one of those awards ceremonies - run by the student union - and I got really angry with the categories - "nicest bum" "most attractive" "biggest geek" etc etc. My friends and I set up alternative awards with categories like "kindest person" "most unique" and "most likely to stand up for what they believe in". We even made our own DIY medals out of ribbon, cardboard and tinfoil, (the official awards had a bit of money to have framed certificates). Votes were collected in our space - the common room. We held our ceremony in the packed common room at break, while the other awards went out in the less packed sports hall.
As much as it was a protest about our exclusion from the mainstream awards, I don't think we set them up to compete or to try to disenfranchise them. It was an alternative which was a celebration of our difference from the mainstream - our different values, and different ethos - as well as a criticism of that mainstream. We showed that we valued our own, alternative group and said "fuck you" to those who didn't appreciate us.
This was pretty problematic in its own way (as in, why should 20 people out of 200 get recognition? Even if we did doctor the results so no-one got two awards and so that those who maybe felt more left out had a bit of an advantage. Which is, I guess in itself problematic...). But the idea that a lesbian couple should win cutest couple has some interesting tensions - as far as I can tell, the yearbook phenomenon in the US (please correct me if I'm wrong!) is the kind of mainstream popularity contest that we were so angry about. Obviously, it's a really encouraging sign that a lesbian couple can enter the mainstream in this way. It points to a greater acceptance, and obviously will make other gay couples feel better and more confident. It definitely makes me happy that it's happening. But it got me thinking about my experience of school, and made me remember the whole alternative awards saga. The award that the lesbian couple got still celebrates a mainstream, and by definition is exclusive in some way or another. I know it sounds kinda hippyish, but it would be really nice if everyone could just be appreciated for who they are. So it's definitely a step forward in that the range of things that are acceptable has widened - and that's incredibly important for people's day-to-day wellbeing - but the ethos that says that you have to be judged is still there. I'm not sure what I'm really trying to say, other than that it bears some thought, and like our alternative awards, that it's fraught with difficulties and tensions.
That said, Laura Berman is my new hero. I like the bit where she just laughs at him.
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Homosexuality = drugs?
ReplyDeleteBill O'Reilly: the embodiment of all the reasons I dislike being American. Yay for Dr Laura Berman!
Bill O'Reilly makes me sick. I wish those girls could just get their picture in the stupid yearbook without being dragged through the national news and called inappropriate. They're only seventeen and as much as kids might enjoy 'provoking adults' by 'flaunting their sexuality' (whatever, Mr O'Reilly...), chances are they weren't planning to become gay rights poster girls overnight (yet) and they would like to just get on with their lives now. I'm quite amused by how threatened Mr O'Reilly seems to feel by a bunch of teenagers. Pathetic.
ReplyDeleteThat said, my school made yearbooks too, and we had a section with awards as well. Some of them were just as objectifying as the ones you mention - best body, best dance moves, best smile, most beautiful eyes. Each listed a first, second and third place and the percentage of votes each person got, so almost everyone came up in that list at least once, somewhere. This doesn't make the whole thing less annoying. I made first place as philosopher though, and if I'd had to choose any of the categories, this is the one I would have wanted, so personally, I hold no grudge.
Something else just struck me though. Each category of our awards was divided by gender. Apart from the fact that this reinforces a binary understanding of gender, does it mean I can't directly compete with the guy who shares my first place? In my eyes, he was a clueless misogynist and his quoting Feuerbach at me all day, every day bored me to death. If we have to have idiotic competitions like this, I'd prefer actually winning. (Maybe it's the only child in me, coming through, in that case I apologise for the unobjective statement).
- Alva
o'reilly is an asshole.
ReplyDeletei like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv10ow6rLmU