stunning
Well-Known Member
Village Voice, June 25 - July 1, 2003
36 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003
(E-Mail: [email protected] ) ( http://www.villagevoice.com )
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0326/goldstein.php
Against His Will
Notes on the New Gay Predator
by Richard Goldstein
There have always been predatory pervs on the silver screen, though
not all of them were gay. Some were vampires or werewolves, crafty cannibals or
shadowy stalkers of little kids. The question of sexuality was often left
unresolved, but not the equation of perversion and violence. Ever since Psycho,
killer trannies have been bursting out of closets or donning their victims'
skin. And who can forget those serial-killer sagas in which the camera shies
away just as the queer clown goes to work on his teen captive? If John Wayne
Gacy didn't exist, the movies would have had to invent him.
But never on stage or screen has there been a gay predator who was
also a champion – not until Richard Greenberg's queerified baseball saga, Take Me
Out. The ample display of male flesh in its shower-room scenes may be the
major reason why people flock to this Tony Award-winning play, but what makes it
so compelling and contrary is what happens in the shower. A hapless bigot is
sexually assaulted by the play's protagonist, a Godlike slugger. That the
victim is straight and the victimizer gay sets the fateful events of this drama
in motion. It also sets a new standard for showing gay aggression.
The reclamation of the gay predator has been percolating in radical
queer culture for some time. Every now and then it pops up in a plucky
independent film such as Greg Araki's The Living End, in which an HIV-positive couple
goes on a madcap shooting spree, or Jon Shear's Urbania, in which a bereft gay
man attacks the phobe who murdered his lover. But these are desperate men
lashing out against a world that barely tolerates them. What's new is the image
of a conquering queer – a role model, no less – ravishing a straight man.
Of course, there's more to Take Me Out than that. The play features a
touching relationship between the slugger and his dweeby accountant (played
by Denis O'Hare, who won a Tony of his own). But the object of everyone's
affection is no gay sensitif. He's arrogant and morally ambiguous, as male heroes
often are these days. His freewheeling aggro is not unlike the ruthless
'tude in rap. When he assaults a teammate, he doesn't act out of desire but from
a determination to crush his opponent's ego. It's a rape like any other,
except the perpetrator is gay. That makes all the difference.
Rape is terrorism. It's a crime that strikes at the core of human
rights. But rape fantasies are metaphors. They stand for more than the act
itself. The rape metaphor can evoke infantile passions of omnipotence,
sadomasochistic needs of the will, fury sparked by fear of the other. No wonder rape
fantasies are so common. But some guilty pleasures are more likely than others
to show up in the culture.
Is there a relationship between rape fantasies and the real thing? No
doubt. That's why it's important to examine our dreams, even as we reserve
the right to have them. Whose rape fantasies are represented, and what are
they like? To answer this question is to peer into the core of power relations.
At a time when men are invited to enjoy all sorts of sadistic games,
it's no surprise that certain rape fantasies have been given freer rein. Guys
are getting to vent their predatory urges in entertainments as diverse as
gangsta rap and arty French films. Irréversible, the ultra-violent succès
d'estime that breezed through town earlier this year, features a nine-minute rape
scene as horrific as the stuff of specialized porn. Slim Shady's rapine
ruminations have made him an icon of transgressive allure. Pulp mags from the pre-XXX
era, with their lush imagery of women being violated by variations of the
Hun, are enjoying a vogue. Prison rape is a leitmotif in Oz.
Even women are invited to display a little aggro (as long as they're
willing to have Vin Diesel's babies). The feminist payback film has become a
regular genre, as in the recent Baise Moi (Fuck Me), in which two hookers
lustily whack their johns. But the rules of this game are clear: Female predation
on men must be the product of jealousy or oppression; it can't be about a
woman simply strutting her stuff. You won't see Wonder Woman bursting upon an
unwilling male, strap-on at the ready. Though more than a few women – and men
– might enjoy this turnaround fantasy, the culture sticks to a certain script
in reveries about rape. It's a guy thing, except if the guy is gay.
When Eminem rapped about setting a pack of his pals loose on his
10-year-old sister, the album went platinum. But imagine a homothug musing about
loosing his crew on a young boy. Imagine a pulp mag in which two pumped queers
rip the clothes off a helpless het. Imagine a remake of Irréversible in
which a straight man is buttfucked and beaten bloody by a homo hellion in
excruciating detail. Not even the French could cook up such a scandale. In the
wonderful world of entertainment, gay men can fall in love, we can screw in
fascinating ways, we can be the best man at Grace's wedding, we can run with the
X-men, we may even get to dominate each other – preferably in leather – but we
can't subjugate straight men. Not if we want to be alive at the end of the film.
In an age when nothing about sodomy (short of priestly ministrations)
seems to shock, the specter of the empowered gay predator may be the last
queer cultural taboo.
The Commercial Closet, a group that monitors gay imagery in adv
ertising, has been throwing darts at a recent car ad in which a band of deep-woods
campers unload their gear for the night. Suddenly they hear distant strains of
the theme from Deliverance. It's enough to send them bolting for their buggy
and racing away. The folks at the Commercial Closet are right to regard this
as a homophobic pitch, but it's also a droll allusion to the ultimate
straight-male nightmare: being raped by another man.
Because its victims must contend with fearsome threats to their sexual
identity, male-on-male rape may be the most secret sex crime, though it's
more common than meets the eye, especially if you include the epidemic of sexual
assaults in prison. Few of the perps are homosexual; most would be quite
willing to rape women if they could get their hands on them. Male rape, like all
rape, is a crime of power, and its unconscious ambition is to enforce the
sexual order. As gender traitors who already seem degraded, gay men are far more
likely to be violated than to violate.
But in the straight imagination, a different image applies. Here, the
terror of being raped (and the temptation that comes with it) is projected
onto the homosexual, presumably lusting for straight-male tail. Every homo is
imagined as a potential predator, and any display of gay aggression is likely
to be seen, at least implicitly, in this light. Generations of us have been
marked by the need to play the servile faggot in order to reassure straights
that we pose no threat. We are taught from our first wet dream that it's
dangerous even to imagine striking out against "real men," and the culture
re-enforces this taboo by churning out endless images of what happens to queers who
violate it. If a gay man has vehement impulses, he'd better confine them to his
own kind. The prevalence of s/m in gay life may be a product of the message,
delivered in so many ways, that we can't act out our aggro on those who oppress
us.
Not that we don't harbor resentment against straight men. They are
the ones who bash us, pass laws against us, and banish us from institutions they
control, such as the military. Straight men have much less reason to hate
women than gay men have for loathing straight men. Why shouldn't we dream of
dominating and even violating them? The answer is: We do, but usually in
oblique ways. Many gay porn films feature putatively straight men giving it up.
(Ever heard the joke about the definition of a butch marine? He wants to hold
his own legs up.) Such aspersions aren't so different from the straight-male
supposition that all women are basically asking for it. Then there's the
common homo whimsy of "turning out" a straight boy by seducing him with drink and
devotion. This is analogous to the hetero dream of plying a girl with
charisma or a roofie. Both are not-so-sublimated rape fantasies. When you cut to
the chase, gay and straight men operate on the same psychic planet. What's
different is the invitation to express these impulses.
See Part 2 of this thread for conclusion of article.
36 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003
(E-Mail: [email protected] ) ( http://www.villagevoice.com )
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0326/goldstein.php
Against His Will
Notes on the New Gay Predator
by Richard Goldstein
There have always been predatory pervs on the silver screen, though
not all of them were gay. Some were vampires or werewolves, crafty cannibals or
shadowy stalkers of little kids. The question of sexuality was often left
unresolved, but not the equation of perversion and violence. Ever since Psycho,
killer trannies have been bursting out of closets or donning their victims'
skin. And who can forget those serial-killer sagas in which the camera shies
away just as the queer clown goes to work on his teen captive? If John Wayne
Gacy didn't exist, the movies would have had to invent him.
But never on stage or screen has there been a gay predator who was
also a champion – not until Richard Greenberg's queerified baseball saga, Take Me
Out. The ample display of male flesh in its shower-room scenes may be the
major reason why people flock to this Tony Award-winning play, but what makes it
so compelling and contrary is what happens in the shower. A hapless bigot is
sexually assaulted by the play's protagonist, a Godlike slugger. That the
victim is straight and the victimizer gay sets the fateful events of this drama
in motion. It also sets a new standard for showing gay aggression.
The reclamation of the gay predator has been percolating in radical
queer culture for some time. Every now and then it pops up in a plucky
independent film such as Greg Araki's The Living End, in which an HIV-positive couple
goes on a madcap shooting spree, or Jon Shear's Urbania, in which a bereft gay
man attacks the phobe who murdered his lover. But these are desperate men
lashing out against a world that barely tolerates them. What's new is the image
of a conquering queer – a role model, no less – ravishing a straight man.
Of course, there's more to Take Me Out than that. The play features a
touching relationship between the slugger and his dweeby accountant (played
by Denis O'Hare, who won a Tony of his own). But the object of everyone's
affection is no gay sensitif. He's arrogant and morally ambiguous, as male heroes
often are these days. His freewheeling aggro is not unlike the ruthless
'tude in rap. When he assaults a teammate, he doesn't act out of desire but from
a determination to crush his opponent's ego. It's a rape like any other,
except the perpetrator is gay. That makes all the difference.
Rape is terrorism. It's a crime that strikes at the core of human
rights. But rape fantasies are metaphors. They stand for more than the act
itself. The rape metaphor can evoke infantile passions of omnipotence,
sadomasochistic needs of the will, fury sparked by fear of the other. No wonder rape
fantasies are so common. But some guilty pleasures are more likely than others
to show up in the culture.
Is there a relationship between rape fantasies and the real thing? No
doubt. That's why it's important to examine our dreams, even as we reserve
the right to have them. Whose rape fantasies are represented, and what are
they like? To answer this question is to peer into the core of power relations.
At a time when men are invited to enjoy all sorts of sadistic games,
it's no surprise that certain rape fantasies have been given freer rein. Guys
are getting to vent their predatory urges in entertainments as diverse as
gangsta rap and arty French films. Irréversible, the ultra-violent succès
d'estime that breezed through town earlier this year, features a nine-minute rape
scene as horrific as the stuff of specialized porn. Slim Shady's rapine
ruminations have made him an icon of transgressive allure. Pulp mags from the pre-XXX
era, with their lush imagery of women being violated by variations of the
Hun, are enjoying a vogue. Prison rape is a leitmotif in Oz.
Even women are invited to display a little aggro (as long as they're
willing to have Vin Diesel's babies). The feminist payback film has become a
regular genre, as in the recent Baise Moi (Fuck Me), in which two hookers
lustily whack their johns. But the rules of this game are clear: Female predation
on men must be the product of jealousy or oppression; it can't be about a
woman simply strutting her stuff. You won't see Wonder Woman bursting upon an
unwilling male, strap-on at the ready. Though more than a few women – and men
– might enjoy this turnaround fantasy, the culture sticks to a certain script
in reveries about rape. It's a guy thing, except if the guy is gay.
When Eminem rapped about setting a pack of his pals loose on his
10-year-old sister, the album went platinum. But imagine a homothug musing about
loosing his crew on a young boy. Imagine a pulp mag in which two pumped queers
rip the clothes off a helpless het. Imagine a remake of Irréversible in
which a straight man is buttfucked and beaten bloody by a homo hellion in
excruciating detail. Not even the French could cook up such a scandale. In the
wonderful world of entertainment, gay men can fall in love, we can screw in
fascinating ways, we can be the best man at Grace's wedding, we can run with the
X-men, we may even get to dominate each other – preferably in leather – but we
can't subjugate straight men. Not if we want to be alive at the end of the film.
In an age when nothing about sodomy (short of priestly ministrations)
seems to shock, the specter of the empowered gay predator may be the last
queer cultural taboo.
The Commercial Closet, a group that monitors gay imagery in adv
ertising, has been throwing darts at a recent car ad in which a band of deep-woods
campers unload their gear for the night. Suddenly they hear distant strains of
the theme from Deliverance. It's enough to send them bolting for their buggy
and racing away. The folks at the Commercial Closet are right to regard this
as a homophobic pitch, but it's also a droll allusion to the ultimate
straight-male nightmare: being raped by another man.
Because its victims must contend with fearsome threats to their sexual
identity, male-on-male rape may be the most secret sex crime, though it's
more common than meets the eye, especially if you include the epidemic of sexual
assaults in prison. Few of the perps are homosexual; most would be quite
willing to rape women if they could get their hands on them. Male rape, like all
rape, is a crime of power, and its unconscious ambition is to enforce the
sexual order. As gender traitors who already seem degraded, gay men are far more
likely to be violated than to violate.
But in the straight imagination, a different image applies. Here, the
terror of being raped (and the temptation that comes with it) is projected
onto the homosexual, presumably lusting for straight-male tail. Every homo is
imagined as a potential predator, and any display of gay aggression is likely
to be seen, at least implicitly, in this light. Generations of us have been
marked by the need to play the servile faggot in order to reassure straights
that we pose no threat. We are taught from our first wet dream that it's
dangerous even to imagine striking out against "real men," and the culture
re-enforces this taboo by churning out endless images of what happens to queers who
violate it. If a gay man has vehement impulses, he'd better confine them to his
own kind. The prevalence of s/m in gay life may be a product of the message,
delivered in so many ways, that we can't act out our aggro on those who oppress
us.
Not that we don't harbor resentment against straight men. They are
the ones who bash us, pass laws against us, and banish us from institutions they
control, such as the military. Straight men have much less reason to hate
women than gay men have for loathing straight men. Why shouldn't we dream of
dominating and even violating them? The answer is: We do, but usually in
oblique ways. Many gay porn films feature putatively straight men giving it up.
(Ever heard the joke about the definition of a butch marine? He wants to hold
his own legs up.) Such aspersions aren't so different from the straight-male
supposition that all women are basically asking for it. Then there's the
common homo whimsy of "turning out" a straight boy by seducing him with drink and
devotion. This is analogous to the hetero dream of plying a girl with
charisma or a roofie. Both are not-so-sublimated rape fantasies. When you cut to
the chase, gay and straight men operate on the same psychic planet. What's
different is the invitation to express these impulses.
See Part 2 of this thread for conclusion of article.
