Episode Report Card Gustave: F | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Black-eyed pea-brains
By Gustave | Season 2 | Episode 16 | Aired on 03.08.2001
The boys sit down. The One Who Will Be Called A Gay Slur, George, and Carmen give them these strange looks. So today's Chemistry lesson is about "homogenization." Golly, I wonder where this is going. Chem holds up some raw milk in a beaker and tells everyone to take note of the layers that have formed. Hmmm. I'm sure there's a metaphor there somewhere, but I just can't wrap my mind around it. So then Nicole raises her hand and says, "So what you're saying is that raw milk is like our culture. The cream always rises to the top." Then she breaks into this big huge beaming smile. It's like Tammy Lynn Michaels is thinking, "This is my last line in this train wreck of an episode. As soon as I get this make-up off, me and Leslie Grossman are going shopping" -- she's not in this episode either. Chem likens the homogenization process to our society: "The more things are alike, the better they work together and the longer they last." I give. What is the subtext here? I've never watched a TV show before. So then of course, Lily is all, "But that doesn't take into account people's differences, sir!" and so Chem and Lily fight about "homogenization," which inspires Sugar to say to Josh, "I bet you could go for some homogenization, yourself. Couldn't you, Joshie?" So then Lily asks Chem to tell Josh and Sugar to "cut it out." Josh whispers to Sug that they should "drop the fag act," and Chem tells Lily to shut up.
Later after class has ended, Lily lags behind and tells Chem that she's "cultivating an environment of hate" by allowing Josh and Sugar to do their gay routine. Um, Lily? If you have a problem with Josh and Sugar, remember that they are friends of yours. In other words, you might want to talk to them yourself and not go through an intermediary who happens to be in a maniacal state of right-wing rage all the time. And hello? Since when is Kennedy High located in Buzzard County? According to Harrison in "Hope in a Jar," there were plenty of out gay men at Kennedy, so what's with Lily's "no one's gonna help the homos 'cept me" attitude? So then Lily quotes this statistic about how 97 percent of all teens hear homophobic slurs like the word "faggot," and very often teachers do nothing about this. Chem is all, "It's just a word!" but Lily argues that Chem would never allow "the N word" to be used in her classroom, and Chem agrees. So then Lily asks why "faggot" couldn't be just as much of a slur as "the N-word." I think that's a good question, because I always thought it was really stupid to assign such power to a word, even "the N word." I mean, didn't we all learn from the first OJ trial that our reverence for the destructive power of uttering "the N word" had gotten out of control? Don't get me wrong -- there are ways to use the N word, and the F word, that are indescribably hurtful. However, "faggot" and "nigger" are just words, and the more we suppose that these words have the power to hurt the pride of anyone black or gay in any context becomes, at some point, rather insulting to blacks and gays. I mean, I'm half Irish, and sometimes someone will call me a "mick." Does this "slur" get my blood pumping with rage or have me withdraw in self-loathing? Of course not. Why? Because I've never felt that there was anything wrong with being Irish. Maybe it's because it's been so long since I've felt there was anything shameful about being gay that the word "faggot" doesn't have me convulsing and clutching my Prada bowling bag to my face in fear. That's why I've never had a problem with any of Eminem's recordings, which I listen to because they're brilliant. I mean, if someone in reality kills a gay man for kicks, they deserve to be punished to the full extent of the law. But if Eminem, a victim of bullying himself, wants to use the word "fag," why should I be upset? Gay men are always making highly offensive statements in the interest of irony -- myself included. What right do we have to judge some five-foot-four piece of white trash for doing the same thing -- and quite eloquently, might I add?
But then, I had an uncommon -- yet not as uncommon as you'd think -- high-school experience. I was out in high school. I came out the end of my freshman year. A lot of people always tell me how noble this was of me, but frankly I was just lazy. It takes a lot of time and energy to construct a "straight" persona and I was just too busy lusting after everything in pants to keep up the pretense. It's not like I was fearless; I really only meant to have two people know -- close friends of mine -- but I told a couple other people, and eventually word spread though out my fairly large suburban Massachusetts public high school that I was gay. Meanwhile, I had read all those books like Reflections Of A Rock Lobster where Aaron Fricke, that guy who sued to take his boyfriend to the prom, is ostracized by the student body and tortured by homophobic jocks. I held my breath and waited in fear for the inevitable day I'd have to file some civil lawsuit against Newton North High School, because I'd been made a quadriplegic by the soccer team. The worst part of this fantasy was that once I'd been a noted victim of homophobia, I'd have to write one of those dreary books like Rock Lobster that would sit dutifully in the "Gay And Lesbian Studies" section of Waldenbooks somewhere between "The Best Little Boy in the World" and the complete works of Rita Mae Brown. I'd show up for my appearances at gay/lesbian book stores with my automated wheelchair and my neck brace. Crystal-wearing lesbians all over the US would insist on paying respect to my "courage" with songs they'd written about me, which they'd perform while accompanying themselves on an acoustic guitar. To me, this was a fate worse than death, so I spent my sophomore year waiting with baited breath to see when the first stone would be thrown. Would it be the word "fag" written in magic marker on my locker like I'd seen on a few after-school specials? Or would it be something ritualistic during gym class involving Ben Gay and wet towels? Well, as it turned out, absolutely nothing happened. I mean, it wasn't a party being the only out gay male at a high school of 2700. No one else came out, so I was pretty much alone out there. But if anyone had a problem with me being gay, I never heard a thing about it. Seriously. Not a word.