financeguy said:
There are exclusively gay bars, gay nightclubs, gay fiction sections in bookshops, there will probably be gay music sections in record shops soon.
i'm pretty anti-ghetto, but these places arose because there was no other place for a gay person to go. do you really think i can hold Memphis's hand in a straight bar? who's doing the excluding? is it gay people that call Gore Vidal a gay writer? or is it majority culture that will call Toni Morrison an African-American writer? this is very much a two-way street, and majority culture usually defines the terms by which a minority gets to define itself.
if you wanted to talk about some gay clubs seeking to ban heterosexuals, specifically straight women, then that might be grist for this mill. and i'd agree -- as much as i dislike the idea of a heard of drunk straight girls screaming and dancing at a gay club and treating the usual patrons as if they are exhibits at a petting zoo, i can't see exclusion as the answer.
that said, i generally take it as a good thing that there's less of a "need" for gay bookstores, in the way that i hope there's one day no "need" for a Black Student Union.
the neighborhood i currently live in in DC has a few bars that i consider very "post-" -- as in, you could be black, white, lesbian, gay, and go in there with whatever group of friends you want, and no one will bat an eyelash. i'd say the majority of the patrons in these bars are straight, but i've seen women holding hands.
i hope that's the trend.
And they're only pretending to be gay so somehow that's more acceptable-of course that is just a subplot in the overall message of the movie.
