This week in the park, as I enjoyed the unusually (and eerily) pleasant late-August weather in New York City, I thought about a recent trend I’ve noticed. Maybe you’ve noticed it, too.
It goes something like this: I’ll be talking to someone about politics or television or whatever, and in the course of the conversation, I’ll say something about how something in my opinion doesn’t quite measure up.
Them: ‘Oh wait. Did you see ____?’
Me: ‘Oh yeah, right. I saw it — I mean, I watched most of it — but I couldn’t really get that into it.’
Them: ‘Really? Why not?’
Me: ‘I guess it didn’t have any characters I could relate to. It’s too saccharine. It makes me want to rip my eyes out.’*
Them: ‘Okay, but did you see Heated Rivalry?’
*I wouldn’t really say the part about wanting to rip my eyes out.
I understand that Heated Rivalry was in some ways a landmark television program, mostly (in my opinion) for its depiction of ‘hot but not pornographic’ gay sex.
But its existence doesn’t excuse the declining presence of gays in mainstream entertainment or the increasing hostility we face in our political system.
Recently while reading Vanity Fair (the 18th century novel), whose prose is viciously satirical in a manner that in modern terms could only be described as ‘gay AF,’ I asked the internet about the sexuality of its author, William Makepeace Thackery. In response, artificial intelligence informed me that ‘William Makepeace Thackeray was not gay; he was married to Isabella Gethin Shawe and had a well-documented romantic history with women…[including his wife and two daughters].’
Okay, I thought, as I continued to read: ‘Following his wife’s institutionalization, he remained a de facto widower. He pursued several women. His most significant romantic attachment was a passionate, PLATONIC relationship with Jane Brookfield.’ (Emphasis mine.) And this: ‘Some confusion may arise from a MINOR historical footnote from his Cambridge University days. Two of his close friends went on to live openly gay lives in mid-Victorian England and agreed to BURN Thackery’s letters from their youth once he became a famous author. However, historians view this as an effort to protect his reputation from being associated with a heavily stigmatized social circle rather than proof of his own homosexual behavior.’ (Emphasis mine.) Interesting, I thought, adding Thackery to my list of 19th century literary masters (Henry James, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, etc.) who were at a minimum not at all unfamiliar with the idea of having (by which I mean participating in) gay sex, but whose status as ‘gay’ will not be noted without more historical ‘proof.’
‘But have you seen Heated Rivalry?’ Lol.
But seriously, the next time you’re having a conversation about something besides Heated Rivalry (which is most conversations), think twice before you say, ‘But have you seen Heated Rivalry?’
Instead, you can say, ‘You know, I understand. The world is a terrifying, beautiful place, and so much of what we love about it is being eviscerated before our very eyes.’
