Open Letter to Gen-X: #6: Controversial? Only if we agree.

What was the last great unifying cultural event?

Analog Brain: Digital Expression

The exterior hard drive of an analog kid disguised as a digital adult. Photo Credit: Ric Leczel

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What was the last great unifying cultural event? A concert? The Super Bowl? The Olympics? A movie? Hardly. The Bad Orange? Maybe, but that’s more political than cultural. Certainly a volatile mix of the two. 

I believe it was TV. In particular one show. MASH. The runner-up might be Happy Days. Please let me know what show you believe pulled America together weekly? 

I have been watching daily for the last few months. MeTV runs both. It started as a lark to take my mind off of the issues of the day. But as I got sucked in, I realized that we still have those same issues of the day. Today. 

As you can tell from the picture of my desk as I was writing this very post before you, I don’t just data-entry what falls out of my brain. A monkey could do that. A highly-trained monkey that is. No, I actually gotta put stuff into my head to get stuff to fall out of it.  

I remember anticipating the final episode of MASH. It was on February 28, 1983. Gluing an unheard-of 77% of American eyeballs to the small-screen, it bowed out after 11-seasons with a 2.5 hour-2-part swan song. Largest ever up till then. 

I graduated in June of 1982 from Arroyo High School. Home of the Knights. I attended my alma mater for three whole months! I lived at Tanglewood Estates. A recent trip past the condo complex in El Monte CA confirms the name is much more regal than its appearance warrants. It had a pool and jacuzzi. I was 18 and it was the 80s. Desperate Housewives of South Arcadia I guess. Enough said. 

Nine people and a baby lived in that 3BR/2.5BA townhouse. It was a bit crowded but my mom needed help paying the rent. We had a weekly watch party for Dynasty, but that’s a whole ‘nother post altogether. Again, see 1980s. 

I remember feeling sadness that MASH was ending. My parents had watched it since the beginning. I just grew up with it. That show and The Fonz were just ubiquitous in my childhood. 

I kept MASH back and forth from New Mexico to California. An episodic sit-com that invented the “Dramedy” and openly mocked the authoritarian state was tailor-made for an anti-authority Gen-Xr struggling with identity and searching for meaning. 

It just had that mantle of comfortable familiarity after so many years. It had been there through all of my life’s ups and downs up to that point. Seeing it end was quite painful.

History online has a decent backstory here. IMDb is one of my go-to places for basic knowledge about most things Hollywoodish, and no exception here. 

Here’s a few notable quotables as they say. Tell me we’ve solved the damn issues. We haven’t. Hulu is hosting the syndicated MASH franchise, of course. See my take on Disney below. Not going to link to them, so I will just make a list and let you search in your favorite spy browser. Just a few in the past couple of months.

• Season 3, Episodes 5, 13, 15, 16, 19

• Season 4, Episodes 1, 11, 18, 21, 25

Hawkeye: War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.

Frank Burns: The men hate me, don't they?
Radar: Just your guts, sir.

Frank Burns: It's the way these yellow devils think. It's burned into their brains. Kill Americans, kill, kill. They don't respect human life the way we do. I'd like to take him out and shoot him.

Radar: Will Scotch be all right for everybody, sir?
Henry Blake: Yeah, fine, Radar - perfect.
Radar: [offering a drink to Captain Sloan] Uh, I ran out of ice sir, so I used bourbon.

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Disney: Don’t Say Princess

So why is Florida HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education bill, now law, so upsetting to some and so logical to others? Is it because Americans - read Trumpers, or DeSantisnistas now? - are transphobic, homophobic, phobo-phobic, robo-phobic?

Or is it because the edges are fraying? The limits have been pressed and the stakes are certain to some, but murky to others. I am in the latter group. Are we still asking for tolerance? Or adherence? Because there is a difference.  

Because we solved the “Gay Thing”. Almost every single person I know or have ever known has had at least one gay person in the family. Literally. From as far back as my independent memories stretch, gay people are in them. Including old people like my grandparents when I was a small child. They didn’t say Gay. But we somehow knew what they were talking about. And they were really old! 

My earliest memories of gay were stories my grandparents told of Uncle Harry. The never-married bachelor in the roaring twenties was, as Grandpa Smitty described, “quite the dandy.” 

As a tween and teen, masturbation was explored(ahem), but always caveated with “it’s not gay”. Or other pejoratives. Much like racism was seemingly innocent in the vernacular of calling Blacks “Colored” or Asians “Oriental”, the words we used to describe gay people ran the gamut. Usually hurtful and insulting. 

And what of culture? Charles Nelson Riley? Mr. Farley? Rock Hudson?? Dick Cheney’s daughter? Not the democrat one, the other one. Do I have to go on? Again, it’s not a gay thing. 

New Poll: 52% of Florida Democrat Voters Back 'Don't Say Gay' Bill

The Money Shot - (emphasis added)

Conducted by Floridians for Economic Advancement, the poll sheds light on the bipartisan backing of the bill by Floridians, which many would not have known to have existed based on the national opposition.

Activist groups and the media did everything and anything to make the bill as distasteful as they possibly could.  We saw the bill become the punch line on Saturday Night Live, spark protest among Disney employees, and was even rebranded as the, "Don't Say Gay," bill so well, that a solid portion of Americans believed the bill's language actually used the term, "Gay."

To many Americans' surprise, the majority of Florida Democrats either, "somewhat (20%)," or, "definitely (32%)," oppose teaching Kindergarteners through third graders about sexual orientation.  Only 12% were unsure of their thoughts on the bill.

President Joe Biden (D) previously called the bill, "hateful," going on to say, "Every student deserves to feel safe and welcome in the classroom. Our LGBTQI+ youth deserve to be affirmed and accepted just as they are."  Many Florida Democrat Lawmakers spoke out in protest against the bill as well, hiding the true consensus of actual voters.

Billboards across Florida encourage people to 'say gay'

New HRC Foundation Data: Though Most People Are Supportive of Transgender Rights, How Stories are Framed--and What Stories They Hear--Matters

Coming out to my high school English teacher changed that. And it changed my life.

I firmly think that is the end of the argument about this law. The president of the HRC is totally agreeing with the law. She told her HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHER. Not her Kindergarten, or 1st Grade, or 2nd Grade or even her 3rd-8th Grade teachers. Her HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHER. 

The first gay teacher in my life was at Koogler Júnior High in 7th grade. So here is some dorky cowboy that lives on a pig-farm going to a junior high school in Aztec, New Mexico, in 1977. Population 3000.

I had a lesbian Literature Teacher/Drama Coach and the only black kid in school was my best friend and locker mate. 

Is there a club for that? Maybe we needed one. Best as I can figure it, God just puts people in lives sometimes to make a point. Maybe we get it. Maybe we don’t. I think I got it. 

As a proud card-carrying, badge-wearing member of Gen-X, I reject cards and badges. Just on principle. But that experience just keeps coming back to me, especially when I hear all these yells of phobic, phobic, phobic. 

I’ve written about the looming intersectional identity collision for some time. I created a whole section on Compass Star just for this topic, Identities & Intersections. Specifically, I wrote about the Virginia election that saw Republicans sweep the top three statewide posts. Here is that post. 

In this post I write about the recent San Francisco school board purge. I must admit, I enjoyed both outcomes, if nothing more than an “out with the bums” attitude of it all. Because of the certainty of some that the stakes of this argument are of existential concern, another certainty has befallen those same some. 

Willful Ignorance. I am not calling anyone dumb or stupid. Quite the contrary. The same some I speak of are often the most highly educated among us. But a certain blindness has indeed befallen them. And they can’t see their way out. 

Here is a post I just came across, straight from the White House of all places. White House announces new actions to protect transgender Americans amid wave of state-level discriminatory laws. I include this to show that I am not knee-jerk reacting to this issue. We need to have a major consensus before we can start making major decisions. 

Gay Marriage had that consensus. Sure, blood was spilled all the way back at Stonewall Riots. But before that and beyond, homosexuality has been a fact of human nature. Its acceptance by societies has ebbed and flowed.

Gays are so accepted that gay men, especially gay white men, are subject to criticism and attack by the twit-mob as easily and frequently as straight white men. See Glenn Greenwald. I love this plaintive headline

‘What Happened to Glenn Greenwald?’

But according to the poll cited in the Florida newspaper, 52% of Democrats support the law. I like the slanted angle of the headline, like it hurt their mouth to spit it out

New Poll: 52% of Florida Democrat Voters Back 'Don't Say Gay' Bill

What to make of those Democrats supporting this bill? I’d say they’re parents. And the push so hard right now is completely backfiring. The leaked Disney Zoom call exposes some dark secrets from the Magic Kingdom.

It’s not like Trans are unnoticed or unloved. They are celebrated by some and despised by others. I can’t tell if they are Gay or Lesbian. But they are part of the alphabet, so we need to speak to their needs and listen to their concerns.

But, I cannot control you and you cannot control me. And that is Freedom My Friend. Eddie Murphy was way in front of the curve. Literally and figuratively, I suppose.

So here we are, arguing about stuff that made headlines in the 1980s and 1990s. Trans people from the 1970s are surfacing. Bruce Jenner is now Caitlyn Jenner. I am totally ok with all that.

They were old and lived their lives and came to a conclusion that their public presentation was not in sync with their inner ideal. So they changed to make themselves feel better.

There is a female swimming champion that was born a male 20-some years ago. Disney says there are no more princesses. A birthing person pops out a baby.

It’s my right as a man to be called a woman. Call me Loretta!

Grandpa Smitty would be right at home. He prepared his grandchildren well to maneuver the ebbs and flows of societal mood-changes. Benny Hill, Monty Python, TJs Fearless Flyer, cribbage and KUSC Classical AND Jazz.

It’s not OK right now, so guess what? It’s not the end. Let’s take it all in stride and we’ll figure it out. We really will.

Ric