GayPatriot

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Looking for Prejudice in all the Wrong Places

by

The folks at Pajamas asked me to write an essay for them on an ABC News segment on the reaction of patrons in a New Jersey sports bar when they (i.e,. ABC News) dispatched a gay couple to that locale.  Then, they spiced it up by having another actor verbally harass them.  Here are the first three paragraphs.

The news division of another broadcast network has been staging “news” in an attempt to show the prejudices of the American people.  Only this time, it didn’t work out as planned.  After planting a gay couple and an actor portraying a loud-mouthed anti-gay bigot at a New Jersey sports bar, ABC News learned that the bar’s patrons are, on the whole, a remarkably tolerant lot.

This wasn’t the first time that ABC staged “news” in an attempt to show the prejudices of those from more “conservative” segments of American society, supposedly macho sports fans or Southern whites.  This network has not been alone in engineering events designed to show such prejudice.  Three years ago, NBC sought to dispatch Muslims to a NASCAR race in order to show how “red-state” America would react.

These news producers seem convinced that the places to look for prejudice in America are places where conservatives congregate.  Or, perhaps, it might be more accurate to say where people different from them congregate.  They always do seem to discern prejudice in the “other.”

Now that I’ve whet your appetite, click here to read the rest.

Comments

  1. Well said. I’m not a fan of PDA whether it be homo- or hetero-sexual, but I would indeed have kept my discomfort to myself. I’m proud of those who stand up for others when they’re being persecuted. And I’m glad that ABC news got a ‘stick it to ’em’ by the public. Perhaps they will begin to realize that there are many people who completely disagree with their ideas and opinions, then maybe they’ll start to report the news rather than the b.s. they’re used to putting on the air.

    And I hope that gay men and women take this as a sign that there is far less criticism of their choices than they may realize. Of course that is not always true, and we’re all entitled to our opinion, but let’s all remember the story about throwing stones and glass houses.

  2. Doesn’t it just irk you when “reality TV” can’t get people to be “real”?

    I think that if the producers had directed the gay couple to keep turning up the heat, sooner or later they would have had the mess they were trolling for.

    I wonder why they didn’t try having a gay actor aggressively “hitting” on the guys at the bar? After all, if it is “bigotry” they want to show, why not the “bigotry” of men who don’t swing both ways?

    And I wonder if they sent a hetero couple into the bar and had a Paris Hilton come “hit” on the wife or the husband what they would have “discovered.”

  3. Great piece. I haven’t watched ABC for ages and shows like this are why, along with lack of interesting programming.

    As an aside, the video you linked to (McCain marchers in NYC) just broke my heart and brought me to tears. Have we devolved so much as a society that we can’t just respectfully ignore what we don’t agree with? You’d think it was a freaking Nambla parade the way people were reacting. Such openly gleeful hostility is astounding. I fear the country is irreversably broken.

  4. Interesting perspective. I agree completely.

    And I wonder if this whole idea was “busted” because the gay couple was too polite and reserved for ABC’s taste. Which goes to show ABC that not only is the public more tolerant than they’d hoped, but the gay community is less intrusive, rude, and disgusting than they’d hoped. They probably didn’t get paid after they weren’t effective at disgusting the whole lot.

    Perhaps they should conduct a little experiment– I for one have been more disgusted in my lifetime by hetero couples necking in public (and I should clarify that I am in fact hetero). And I’d be much quicker to stand up for gay PDA bashing than I would for hetero PDA bashing.

    I mean, let’s be honest, how often do you ever see gay PDA? I live in a community that I think has a fair gay representation, and I can’t remember the last time. Maybe the hetero couples should take some lessons from the gay couples.

  5. ABC has egg on their faces. The patrons saw right through their charade. This gives me hope. America is far more tolerant than certain groups give it credit for. ABC–Another Busted Charade.

  6. Also what the urban snobs at ABC forgot is that New Jersey has had gay rights in public accomadations for decades now, so the patrons probably where not shocked since “that sort of thing” has been going-on in NJ’s bars for years and years. In fact, with only a few exceptions most of NJ gay bars have closed over the last 20-years as they are now socially-irrelevant…particlularily for the younger-generation. Younger people today in the Northeastern US ‘burbs and beyond both more “tolerant” and also more sexually-flexible than the self-segregating Liberal urbanists give them credit for.

  7. It sure would be interesting to see this little experiment attempted at a “liberal” site. Judging by that McCain Parade in NYC video that was mentioned, I’d instruct the gay couple to wear helmets and bring bodyguards.

  8. While I believe many of the complaints about the “MSM” are more akin to whining than they are expositions of bias… this is pretty awful. I have friends who have been truly “gay bashed”, both verbally and physically, by true bigots. For ABC to try to gin up a story by sending an over-the-top couple into a bar where they clearly had no natural interest to visit and then purposefully try to stir up the crowd with an actor… I don’t doubt some of the bar’s usual patrons were uncomfortable or didn’t care for the PDA — watching it on YouTube, I wasn’t very comfortable watching it either. Whether it was bias or just pure sensationalism, it certainly was not principled reporting and the producers for that segment should be fired, as should the moron who decided to air it.

  12. I think these staged incidents are super-gay. They should be treated as reality TV stunts, not real news. But if they’re going to do them anyway, why not send some actors playing Christians into a Gay Pride parade wearing T-Shirts with Bible verses printed on them? Why not send people wearing pro-life T-Shirts into a convention of left-wing Democrat feminists? Why not send actors wearing military fatigues onto the campus of Berkeley or Evergreen State?

    Mainly because it would never occur to the left-wing media to expose the real hatred on their side of the aisle.

  13. I think these staged incidents are super-gay. They should be treated as reality TV stunts, not real news. But if they’re going to do them anyway, why not send some actors playing Christchuns into a Gay Pride parade carrying bibles and wearing T-Shirts with pro-Christ messages on them? Or, actors wearing pro-life T-Shirts into a convention of left-wing Democrat feminists? Why not send actors wearing military fatigues onto the campus of Berkeley or Evergreen State?

    Mainly because it would never occur to the left-wing media to expose the real hatred on their side of the aisle.

  15. Man I’ve wanted to go to a sports bar all season long, I need more friends who like sports. I think sports bar are pretty fun, especially when you have hometown games being played.

    I think the only time you would actually get into a fight is if you were rooting for the wrong team…ie The Browns in Cincinnati…

  16. OK–here’s the real challenge. I don’t think Matthew Shepard was gay-bashed. I’m from this area, and it just doesn’t happen that often. I think Matthew Shepard was beaten up for his money. I don’t think his orientation played any role in his tragic death. This staged event by ABC proves my point–people don’t care about that. But people do get beaten up and killed and robbed, regardless of orientation.

    P.S. I also think the “gay victim” theme of Brokeback Mountain was false. I lived down the street from an openly gay couple in a small town during the 60s and 70s. Nobody cared then, either. Jack and Ennis could have “ranched up” and everyone would have simply accepted it. Really. Look up cowboy couples in the Old West–that tradition has always been part of the West.

  17. Peter, thanks for the link. Even though I’m sure I won’t agree with a lot of what I read, I appreciate the spirit in which you’re offering the link and I’ll definitely look over the more recent stuff. (The only thing that was confusing so far was the .com suffix… should be http://www.newsbusters.org as .com led me to an under construction page.)

  21. #15 …I think the only time you would actually get into a fight is if you were rooting for the wrong team…ie The Browns in Cincinnati…

    Or, as someone raised on the “good” side of the state, the Bengals in Cleveland! 😉 (Actually… pretty much ANY time other than the Browns in Cleveland, or anything other than the Sox in Boston…)

  22. Actually, if you want a fight, be an old woman supporting Rick Warren–then you’ll have gay leftists beat you up. Or be a Mormon so you can have rocks thrown at your church. Here’s the set-up ABC should have used–put me in a gay bar and have me say “I think marriage is designed by God for heterosexuals and I think homosexuals should develop same-sex covenants which are lifelong and sexually exclusive.” See if that causes a fight.

  23. #19: No worries, I found it. It’s interesting and some of the stories do have merit (e.g., the ABC and NBC claims of Israeli soldiers murdering Palestineans), but the riff on Letterman and O’Reilly seemed misplaced. Letterman’s a comedian, not the “media” (at least the way I define it) and, more to the point, I think they both understood it was all in good fun. Letterman’s “anger” was so over the top it was obviously forced, and when O’Reilly mocked it a minute later Letterman laughed. I don’t disagree that bias exists, including among purportedly neutral journalists, such as Matthews, but sometimes I hear the complaint tossed around with a bit too much ease. (Again, not with respect to this story, but just speaking more generally.)

  24. The only time I was discriminated against for being gay was when I was fired by a guy who was the Democrat party chairman for his county, and a Hillary supported to the tune that he paid his two kids each $50,000 a plus room and board for them to work on Hillary’s campaign. He’s a super-Dem. After that I move west and now work with a bunch of super-conservatives and they just don’t care about my orientation at all. Who’d a thunk that?

  25. Gaaah, I hate staged journalism and this is a horrible example of it.

    Though in my mind, the true bigotry of this piece was this weird automatic assumption that people who hang out in sports bars are uniformly

    1. hetero
    2. conservative

    I’ve been to many a sports bar and the politics of the bar patrons reflect the politics of the area. Thus the Portland,OR sports bar scene trended liberal while the bar patrons in Wilsonville,OR were typical of the right-leaning nature of their area. And I’ve been in big and small groups of gay guys in both. I gotta go with Darkeyedresolve. You are much more likely to get serious flack for rooting for the “wrong” team if the bar has a sports allegiance. (Being light in pro sports team here in OR, you see partisans like Packer Backers and Raider Nation coming together and claiming a hangout).

  26. darkeyedresolve offers: “I think the only time you would actually get into a fight is if you were rooting for the wrong team…ie The Browns in Cincinnati…”

    Ummmm, when did Cincinnati get any professional sports team?

  27. I think that if the producers had directed the gay couple to keep turning up the heat, sooner or later they would have had the mess they were trolling for.

    Although at some point you cross the line into inappropriate PDA for any couple-straight or gay. People are going to react to the behavior not necessarily whether it os two men, two women or a man and a woman.

    I think what rubs me wrong with this one is that the assumption was made that the gay couple would be bashed in some way-verbally at least. they didn’t get what they expected, and rather than saying “oops we were wrong, let’s call it a day” they kept ramping up the situation to provoke what they were expecting to see and they still never got it.

  28. #24

    We thought we had one at the begining of the season…and then they just kinda disappeared. I hear we are getting another one this season but who really knows.

    I am Brown’s guy anyway

  29. Come with me to a women-only dance, in Massachusetts, and watch the reaction when I tell them I’m a conservative.

    Just tell them how sorry you are that they feel so weak and victimized that they need a daddy government to take care of them.

  30. I would love to see a segment where a straight couple wearing Sarah Palin T-shirts and carrying a Bible walk into a hipster joint and discuss politics among themselves.

    Garsh! I wonder what would happen?

    Think there might be some violence or sumpin?