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RedZen
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
So many good replies. Having returned, I just want to reply some keynotes important to me:
quote:
So the real question is: If you do need him to identify as the same orientation as you, why?
And if you don't, why not?
1. The question itself may indeed (or may not) reflect the asker - and that interpretation of my question may likewise reflect the interpreter a great deal. :-) Be that as it may, the valubale (and seemingly, universal) crux of your many answers seems to be that no Lady of V feels the need to really refute the idea of V being gay/bi, because no one feels this threatens V's status in their mind as a monstrously sexy and manly man - so long, of course, as he's equally attracted to you and yours (as females). That's what I'd expected, and I will readily admit, what I hoped to hear. Smart girls indeed.
quote:
what was the difference between Creedy's idea to experiment on the country thinking it was for the greater good and V's torture of Evey, thinking it was for her own good.
2. Vienna, your question (and counterpoint to Cyrano) seems, to me, to have grasped the jugular of the entire S/M sub-thread which Venturous linked to (and a very interesting thread it is). Would we accept the actions of V, which we not only accept but love, if they were carried out by a Creedy?
I'm going to jack the S/M thread into this one, because I believe that thread has run it's course; but in this one, there is an unfinished train of thinking. I want to challenge you with a point:
*
From many of you, I see a differentiation between what V did, which was - due to the redeeming qualities of the context, the execution, and especially the outcome - acceptable, versus what is "unforgiveable".
The actions of V, with hardly an exception, resonate with everyone. They make sense, and we (albeit often after much tumult) come to peace with them. However troubled that makes us, we cannot reject them, because we feel they are right. I can't find anyone who seems to straightforwardly go against this. And why? Because of the consequences of those actions, because of what happened.
The beginning of my challenge is that I expect that most here, prior to watching the movie and knowing V, would have categorized the actions of V (described out of context, devoid of what actually happened to Evey) as being squarely in the field of the unforgiveable - solidly in the league of Creedy. Think: unconsenting, deceptive incarceration, humiliation and torture... in order to "liberate her"? Asked why they were categorically unforgiveable and wrong, I challenge that most of you would present a principle, or maxim, I expect - likely something about "consent" or whatnot. Not so challenging so far, I expect.
Some of you even seem integrally aware of exactly what I mean, and that seems precisely why the relationship of V and Evey/E-V is so troubling: this relationship has unexpectedly (and somehow, involuntarily), moved the boundaries. You feel that what V did was somehow right, and you can't betray that, even though it was, and is... wrong in so many ways.
Why is this troubling? The answer seems to be the reason we find V's relationship to Evey disturbing: because clearly V is different from Creedy in his transgressions of free will, consent, respect and dignity, but tangibly - clearly - only in context, execution, and especially outcome.
Of course we could never accept the same transgressions from Creedy. And the reason is, from Creedy, these three things - especially the outcome - would be different. Creedy would transgress for objectives that may even be noble and beautiful - but Creedy would never be able to succeed in those intentions. He can't, nor can the rest of Norsefire - because they don't have V's understanding, skill, or power. And this impotence - this outcome - would make Creedy's transgressions unforgiveable. That is all. And I believe that is what makes the question so complex: because our principled mind is flailing for a rational maxim - an intellectualization - to justifiy why our heart accepts what V has done, as it rejects all of the Creedys of the world committing (in principle...) the same transgressions - when in reality, it is all about nothing but what V has the power to do with those transgressions. Had V been someone other than V, and failed in his execution, failed in liberating Evey from her fear, and merely broken her - due to lack of insight in the use of his own power, as Norsefire is incapable of creating a perfect society no matter how much they transgress, because their grasp of the world is flawed - I challenge any to disbelieve that you would think V's actions wrong, and unforgiveable.
But that is an irrational and unprincipled measure of right and wrong. And that makes acceptance of what V does to Evey disturbing. It's not about principle, and it's all about V.
So what am I getting at? That what bugs many about V and E-V is that, because of context, execution, and outcome, V has transgressed - and redefined! - lines which lie at the very deepest places of our being. About what others may do to us. About consent. About respect. About dignity. We've redeemed what he has done, even if we are reluctant to embrace that redemption. Even if your (intellectualized...) principles remain intact, and even want to condemn V, experiencing his actions has spoken to your heart, and your heart loves him for what he has done. And heart wins over the rational mind, every time.
He has redefined what feels right and wrong. That's the greatest power a person could ever have over you. That's disturbing, because it can't be denied.
*
But I want to take this further still. As an atheist, I consider this power of moral authority, by virtue of outcome, to be extremely close to what the religious project onto divinity, what the fanatic defines as ideology, and what the cultist sees in the "vision" of his messiah.
I know - yikes! What terminology, and what an unsympathetic comparison - but please, try to follow me on this. Because this is important.
To pencil that out: In the mind of the religious person - or the fanatic, of any given cause or cult - if the outcome of a boundary transgression is done according to the Great Plan, and provided that we accept that the Plan is "good for you" (however we arbitrarily choose to define that), then that means that God (or whatever) can reasonably transgress and redefine any lines of your heart which the Great Plan requires - provided, simply, that the outcome is "good". And that outcome is the standard!
There are degrees and elements of Sado/Masochism here, much as there is masochism in the average worship of God. But though S/M is part of it, I think that's a very superficial aspect: it's the icing. The core of the relationship - and the root of the "disturbing theme" - is that V can redefine what is ok and not ok, by power of context, execution, and especially, most especially, outcome.
*
What does that mean?
It means that V could reach into your heart, and rewrite another of the lines you still, right now, feel certain about. The greatest, and indeed the most disturbing power to have over another person, and one which is difficult to recognize at face value. Recognizing this isn't masochism, and it isn't worship either - it's a kind of devotion, awe, and (even synergistic) love. Even if you have reserves about the person with the power, and even if that power and trust may be (painfully...) broken by him, that's what it is - and it's beyond good and evil, beyond right and wrong.
*
So if the gentle reader has followed me thus far, the most courageous and naked decision to make in the synergist tango of V and Evey is this: Is that kind of power, in the hands of V, wrong?
---
elephant machine
elephant machine
/sotto voce
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8/19/2006, 1:25 pm
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CyranoRox
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
at the risk of self-promotion, Redzen, check out the Erotic Dynamics thread, which touches on your points; PWSull and I were more or less in agreement with you about the special and disquieting power somewhere around V.
I ended up with the uncomfortable position that I accept V and what he did, intuitively, almost automatically, on aesthetic, erotic, personal grounds, not rational or moralistic grounds. In essence, the movie is presenting a claim that the beautiful is a better object of our loyalty that the dry sands of law and economy. Moreover, they seem to have offered something like proof that the beautiful compels us in a way nothing else can; we dont see that often because it is simply out of reach of most artists.
I see your point and agree; i would add simply that in the V world, perhaps causality does work the way he says. Those dominoes represent control of causality; in real life, with enough pieces, made small enough, ie imaginary subatomic scale, it is always impossible to predict, or create, a consistent and definine outcome.
V directly states his adherence to the Einsteinian model, so perhaps some light can be shed by taking him at his word. If so, then he has done no wrong: he transformed and healed the woman he loved, and he brought down the state with, what, four personal victims, a dozen cops, and one wounded door guard.
As regards sexuality; I take him for a virgin. Why? In the old sense, it is a beauty, a sign and component of integrity; promiscuity is ugly, a dimiunition of the self, a loss. The gender of lovers that he has forgone is less important; however, it seems clear to me that in the imaginative grammar of V4V, and the Jacobean and Romantic worldviews from which the moviemakers draw, homosexual orientation is a blemish and weakness in a man. That Dietrich and Valerie are appealing pulls the other way, and this is not simple. Perhaps only from a position of adamant integrity, such as V has, can the strengths and worth of Valerie's character be fully seen? and we see her principally through his relationship with her.
Work with play the happy differentiation - V, in Chinese subtitles
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8/19/2006, 5:23 pm
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pwsull
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
I can't believe I have missed this thread up until now, so let me do a little catching up!
quote:
CyranoRox wrote:
at the risk of self-promotion, Redzen, check out the Erotic Dynamics thread, which touches on your points; PWSull and I were more or less in agreement with you about the special and disquieting power somewhere around V.
I am always flattered when my friends mention me by name, and often feel compelled to drop in.
Thank you for crediting me CR.
And also to you Venturous for referencing my first attempt at an intellectually provocative thread at this board: Disturbing Themes of Sado-Masochism?
And I must say RedZen your essay is beautiful, well thought out and on target:
quote:
RedZen wrote:
So what am I getting at? That what bugs many about V and E-V is that, because of context, execution, and outcome, V has transgressed - and redefined! - lines which lie at the very deepest places of our being. About what others may do to us. About consent. About respect. About dignity. We've redeemed what he has done, even if we are reluctant to embrace that redemption. Even if your (intellectualized...) principles remain intact, and even want to condemn V, experiencing his actions has spoken to your heart, and your heart loves him for what he has done. And heart wins over the rational mind, every time.
Starting to sound like a broken record here, I am afraid, but I will say again that what "gets me everytime" about this film is the mirror work the authors do. Mirror work as in magic, yes.....but also mirror work in terms of Other World (CyranoRox's Lewis Carrol references), and in terms of reflection of ourselves upon us. Everything in this film appears designed to make us challenge our assumptions. Hence many questions are left unanswered for us to ponder....and there is no definitive answer to these questions such as "is it OK to torture someone if your intent is noble and they indeed achieve enlightenment?" , or "is it OK to cold bloodedly murder people in vengeance if they are beyond the reach of the law?" Shortly after the film came out I did a published review which you can find here on this board: The Best Cautionary Tales Entertain. In it I tried to highlight the thought provoking way the Wachowskis and McTeigue pair the psychopathic and reprehensible with the altruistic and heroic....a Mind-Fawlke if there ever was one!
And certainly there are many "Is V Gay or Bi?" traps set for us throughout the film. To name a few: the hinted at Dietrich/V connections ("Bonjour Mademoiselle", Eggy in a Basket, Secret Underground Lairs, "Humble Vaudevillian Veterans"); snappy dressing and fabulous interior decorating skills; and for me most importantly: the only prisoners at Lark Hill we recognize from other scenes in the film are presented as gay (Vallerie and the mixed race gay couple)...implying perhaps that Lark Hill is a detention facility for non-heterosexual "deviants".
The point though is not the answers to these questions, but the asking. We are meant to ponder them either consciously or subliminaly....the juxtapositions and paradoxes....the shock of seeing the "evil" and the "good" mix and evolve toward cruelty/power/control or altruism...the Yin and Yang....the shades of grey. Our personal, societal, and cultural biases and rigidities are supposed to be brought into question and re-examined. And that is what we do here with many a beautiful and compelling essay.
But I am not sure we should be looking for answers....rather like Evey enlightenment and understanding....a shift in perspective....an emotional lightbulb illuminating over our heads....and we say Ahaaaa, WOW!!!!, now I get it!, but can't really explain what it is.
  
Last edited by pwsull, 8/20/2006, 10:57 am
--- 
"Perily, this pichyssoise of perbiage peers most perbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me"...... P |
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8/20/2006, 10:08 am
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CyranoRox
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
redzen saysquote:
He has redefined what feels right and wrong. That's the greatest power a person could ever have over you. That's disturbing, because it can't be denied.
*
But I want to take this further still. As an atheist, I consider this power of moral authority, by virtue of outcome, to be extremely close to what the religious project onto divinity, what the fanatic defines as ideology, and what the cultist sees in the "vision" of his messiah.
I know - yikes! What terminology, and what an unsympathetic comparison - but please, try to follow me on this. Because this is important.
To pencil that out: In the mind of the religious person - or the fanatic, of any given cause or cult - if the outcome of a boundary transgression is done according to the Great Plan, and provided that we accept that the Plan is "good for you" (however we arbitrarily choose to define that), then that means that God (or whatever) can reasonably transgress and redefine any lines of your heart which the Great Plan requires - provided, simply, that the outcome is "good". And that outcome is the standard!
...
The core of the relationship - and the root of the "disturbing theme" - is that V can redefine what is ok and not ok, by power of context, execution, and especially, most especially, outcome.
....
It means that V could reach into your heart, and rewrite another of the lines you still, right now, feel certain about.
Well, yes and no. On the topic of politics, maybe, but that is the arena for contesting about right and wrong. Could V change anyone's mind about something strongly held, like a point of theology/atheism? For example, could he, [ set up a thought experiment as powerful as you can] persuade you of the existence of God? He is clearly some kind of Theist, and the 1812 Overture celebrates the Russian Orthodox church and Czar. i doubt he could, no matter how you write the scene.
He/they did change my mind about the range of what can be done with a movie, or by an actor, but then that is a legitimate point and the evidence is hard to resist.
Besides, there is some slippage here beween what can happen in the movie and what might happen in an imaginary encounter. If you could encounter V, it's a different story; if you imagine yourself in his home, you'd have a chance to argue back; in his prison, he has given up all of the V advantages for the simpler force of any anonymous set of captors.
Are you worried about some cookie in your mind, some unseen suggestion that may send you down some unexpected path when you don't expect it? I gave this extended thought, and have not reached any conclusion. One problem with that idea is that it is difficult to posit the content, or come up with any plausible idea of what the cabal could reasonably intend.
My experience may be different from most, because finally the force majeur, which i suspect has some relationship to a transference [I tip my hat to PW], certainly affects my emotions, and in a way I enjoyed, but if the object is to convince me of certain points, such as that what you do, not whether your perceptions touch reality, is the important bit, well, I've held that position in many a late night argument with friends. I already agreed; in fact, some of the pleasure for me was hearing my own points so splendidly dressed in flesh and silk. So if V4V takes my psyche on a wild ride just to bring me to where I started, I suppose I've had all the pleasure for free; what it would be like for someone, for example, who holds that the critical thing is to seek to penetrate illusions by initiations [the familiar Gnostic/Matrix/Gurd view] might be wrenching.
The field is not level; some things are true, and persuasion that seeks to create belief in them has naturally an advantage over the opposing project.
I sense, too, that rather than changing our moral compass, V elicits a strain of approval for murder that most of us already possessed.
It is notoriously difficult to ground morals in a atheistic universe. In a secular world [and I am an Orthodox Christian, so that is as unreal to me as a universe run by classical physics] beauty, elegance, grace, courage, and love are nobler captains than the dreary fell serjeants of getting and having, cares and drags - and who would choose be any longer dasein when the authentically dazzling, with not-ever-failing courtesy, stretches out a strong and welcoming hand, still electric from the dealing out of life and death?
Work with play the happy differentiation!
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8/20/2006, 2:38 pm
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Vienna7
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Re: What with the "theories" about V being gay...
quote:
Venturous wrote:
Vienna, this is indeed an important question, a challenge, really, of the film.
I believe that we got into this quite a bit at this thread:
Disturbing Themes of SadoMasochism? that began back in May and saw a lot of interesting dialog until fairly recently.
Have a look through and lets revive this topic, over there, or on its own new thread.
Ven, I forgot to respond tos this post of yours. I will eventually make it over to reading through some of the thread you referenced above. Seems like it already has taken on a life of it's own in this thread.  I just flicked the first domino. He, he...
What I find interesting about these ethical and philosophical debates is that IRL, most people would probably take a different stance on the whole topic. We all have to remember, these situations are happening in a fictional world, with fictional characters. Once it happens on a real and personal level to US, the playing field looks quite different.
---
In honor of KaTie
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beauty is just the beginning of a terror we can only just barely endure,
and we admire it so because it calmly disdains to destroy us.
Every angel is terrible. (Rilke's elegy)
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8/20/2006, 9:17 pm
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Venturous
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Re: more about divinity than sexuality.
I have been musing on this all day, and see some lines of conversation converging.
quote:
RZ:We've redeemed what he has done, even if we are reluctant to embrace that redemption. Even if your (intellectualized...) principles remain intact, and even want to condemn V, experiencing his actions has spoken to your heart, and your heart loves him for what he has done. And heart wins over the rational mind, every time.
RedZen, this describes my experience quite perfectly, the way my head was saying "no, not good, no" and my heart sailing away with a frankly unstoppable and oceanic zeal.
quote:
It means that V could reach into your heart, and rewrite another of the lines you still, right now, feel certain about. The greatest, and indeed the most disturbing power to have over another person, and one which is difficult to recognize at face value. Recognizing this isn't masochism, and it isn't worship either - it's a kind of devotion, awe, and (even synergistic) love.
yes yes yes. This is why I worried over the SM stuff, and what it meant about my own soul that I was so drawn in. It is still disturbing, or maybe disorienting is a better word, since my fears of some slippery slope of insanity seem to be calming, as I give my curiousity a bit more rein.
quote:
Even if you have reserves about the person with the power, and even if that power and trust may be (painfully...) broken by him, that's what it is - and it's beyond good and evil, beyond right and wrong.
***shiver*** Can I really go that far? I am notorious for not trusting ANYTHING. The head questions, yet the heart sails on...
CR: quote:
the beautiful compels us in a way nothing else can
as an artist I know this to be true, but have never experienced it this powerfully before, or in a film. I will follow the beautiful, where she leads, and am finding that aesthetic may be by access to divinity, or 'proof' of it. (update: just listened to a Studio 360 show, interviewing a neuroscientist who was mapping brain function and creativity, and finding these sweeping pan-brain reactions to great works of art. Apparently, we are built this way.)
quote:
PW: The point though is not the answers to these questions, but the asking. We are meant to ponder them either consciously or subliminaly....the juxtapositions and paradoxes....the shock of seeing the "evil" and the "good" mix and evolve toward cruelty/power/control or altruism...the Yin and Yang....the shades of grey. Our personal, societal, and cultural biases and rigidities are supposed to be brought into question and re-examined. And that is what we do here with many a beautiful and compelling essay.
And thanks for the lovely description of this dance of beauty, one that requires such surrender. One has to loosen your grip on what you believe, and what you believe you are, to fathom the dimensions of it.
So the journey is one of disorientation, of questioning, while the heart is never doubting the blaze of light it is following.
CR:quote:
what it would be like for someone, for example, who holds that the critical thing is to seek to penetrate illusions by initiations [the familiar Gnostic/Matrix/Gurd view] might be wrenching.
I wonder, if this hasnt been my romantic notion, that I could somehow 'figure it out' and 'see the truth.'
I feel that my V experience is changing and opening me, and I have been asking for just such a teacher, a transformational experience.
CR:quote:
It is notoriously difficult to ground morals in a atheistic universe. In a secular world (snip) beauty, elegance, grace, courage, and love are nobler captains than the dreary fell serjeants of getting and having, cares and drags - ...
oh how true, the romantic heart is reaching for something more, deeper meaning, more purpose, the scent of a higher realm.
quote:
...and who would choose be any longer dasein when the authentically dazzling, with not-ever-failing courtesy, stretches out a strong and welcoming hand, still electric from the dealing out of life and death?
And here I feel the divinity, a bit a-tremble at putting this into text and sharing it. Whose hand deals life and death? Who proceeds with a rooted-in-mountains calm certainty and unshakable moral authority? And how is it that I meet him here, now? quote:
CR: snipped from above(and I am an Orthodox Christian, so that is as unreal to me as a universe run by classical physics)
Cyrano, you speculate whether V could affect one's belief in god...I have believed my understanding of the universe to emerge from the place where beauty and physics become one. I have over time replaced scepticism with a mystical embrace of a feminine generative creator/destroyer goddess made manifest in the natural world. But I have never accepted the word 'god' as anything other than shorthand for these things. Why do I feel a great questioning here?
I ask, I pray for truth and beauty to be revealed to me. I am afraid, then eager, in turns, to hear the answer.
Postscript: thanks for the lovely new word.*dasein: existence, being, to be present
Last edited by Venturous, 8/22/2006, 12:24 pm
---  "There is no certainty, only opportunity." -- V
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8/21/2006, 8:27 pm
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ButMadNNW
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
*treads water through the over-her-head discussion to question one nitpick*
quote:
pwsull wrote:
the only prisoners at Lark Hill we recognize from other scenes in the film are presented as gay (Vallerie and the mixed race gay couple)
The mixed-race couple was there? The only person I recognized at Larkhill was Valerie herself...
Can someone provide screen-grab evidence to prove this claim, please? I need to see pics of them side-by-side (i.e. the couple being arrested next to their appearance at Larkhill, if they are there), since obviously I can't seem to recognize them in the flow of the movie.
Thanks! 
~~~~~
*thinks hard*
Okay, I guess there is one thing for me to add to the "V's Orientation" discussion, but I think I'm going to stumble on it.... (The rest of it is too far over my head, though it is an interesting read. Maybe after some processing...)
I don't know if I can say for certain - as Mel asked - that it's "important" for me that V share my orientation, but I just saw him as straight from the get-go and didn't see anything non-straight about him.
But then, my life experiences thus far haven't exactly programmed me for jumps to thinking "he's gay" or "she's bi" - for better or worse, I have largely been surrounded by straight people, even after moving away from the MidWest. It's just happened that way. So I guess I begin any meeting of another person with the assumption that s/he is straight, until I'm told otherwise. I don't even like drawing inferences from someone else's behavior - unless s/he tells me directly, I don't presume to stick a label on him/her. Frankly, mostly I just don't think about who a person would care to sleep with - that's their business. Their personality either appeals to me or not, when it comes to friends, associates, and coworkers. (When it comes to someone I'm attracted to as a potential partner, well, yeah, if he told me he was gay, that would make a big difference to the physical/sexual attraction. But not to the mental/emotional attraction. I'd hope we could still be friends.)
Does any of that make sense? Did I say it right?
I feel fortunate that my parents are the open-minded creatures they are. In a White, Christian, MidWest, conservative, smallish town, they managed to impart open-mindedness to Sister and me. Moving to California wasn't at all a "shock," it was more a breath of fresh air - aaahhh, diversity!
But ideas and concepts can't completely make up for lack of experience, know what I mean?
*hides under the furniture before she finds herself eating her shoe*
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8/23/2006, 1:11 pm
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Venturous
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
quote:
Does any of that make sense? Did I say it right?
oh, dear butmad, of course you said it right!
You always express yourself so well. And , speaking as a bi woman, who lives among a predominantly gay and bi crowd, I am sentitive to these things.
It is a huge part of the film for me that the lives of queer people are taken so seriously. The sense that you will be killed or banished for your inherent nature is a deeply terrifying thing. The way V loves and honors Valerie, even though he was not her lover or relative or even aquaintence, this strikes me as a deply healing chord, a very pure and honest love. It doesnt matter if he is gay or not, he loved with all his heart, not cluttered with the morass of gender complications.
May be this is what Cyrano is talking about, seeing V as Virgin, the pure love, not a puerile innocent, but a whole, expereinced wise and ravaged man, finding his strength in love. 
--- "There is no certainty, only opportunity." -- V
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8/23/2006, 7:08 pm
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Leda74
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
quote:
ButMadNNW wrote:
I guess I begin any meeting of another person with the assumption that s/he is straight, until I'm told otherwise.
It's the only way it can be done, believe me, and you tend to get a similar pattern of assumption with race, particularly when you're trying to describe a third party during a conversation.
I don't think that all but a tiny minority of gay people would really be that bothered at the initial assumption that they were straight; it happens. It's probably a matter of biological hardwiring to assume that others are, basically, just like ourselves. The only thing that matters are your words and actions after you've had your information updated.
--- "What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil" - Friedrich Nietzsche
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8/24/2006, 4:26 am
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ButMadNNW
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
quote:
Venturous wrote:
quote:
Does any of that make sense? Did I say it right?
oh, dear butmad, of course you said it right!
You always express yourself so well.
 Thank you!
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It is a huge part of the film for me that the lives of queer people are taken so seriously. The sense that you will be killed or banished for your inherent nature is a deeply terrifying thing.
*nods* That's one of the things I love about the film, too.
FWIW, a former colleague/friend of Mom's (another pastor) was gay. I can't remember when exactly it was, but I was probably in my late teens/early 20s when Mom and Dad received an invitation to a Commitment Ceremony for him and his partner. I wanted to go to show my support, but of course, I wasn't invited - wedding-crashing is just not done. So I sent a congratulations greeting card along with Mom. She told me later that her friend had really appreciated it. To this day, I can't imagine what my reaction would be if someone told me I was wrong to love the person whom I loved with all my heart and soul.
On an oddly related side note, I still blink a bit at the exchange:
Dominic: "He's a terrorist. You can't expect him to act like you or me."
Finch: *shakes head* "Some part of him's human."
Terrorists aren't human? True, their actions are inhumane, but we've never had a terrorist attack carried out by monkeys, have we? ...... But the same kind of thinking relates to how some people think of homosexuals - that they're somehow not human; otherwise, they wouldn't be denied some of the most basic human rights - dignity, freedom from fear, freedom to marry, etc.
And on a  note: Yesterday I was driving to work, singing along with the music from my MP3 player, when I spotted a new billboard just before my exit. At the sight of it, I literally lost my voice, I was so infuriated. Long story short: On Sept. 23, there is apparently going to be a "we can cure you of your homosexuality" convention in Palm Springs!  When I walked into the office, I passed by the office of one of the few people who shares my political feelings and told her about the billboard. Her jaw literally dropped. Knowing what a conservative, homophobic office we have, I said to her, "If I hear anyone say anything positive about that billboard or the event it's advertising, I can't be held responsible for my reaction." I have half a mind to show up with a picket sign. However, Sister would kill me for skipping Nephew's birthday for "something so dumb." (hypothesizing on her wording, but she's not as politically involved as Parents and I). [/rant]
Which brings up one of the weirdest things about this area - it's a majorly conservative (in every sense of the word) area, and yet Palm Springs is a "gay hotspot."
Get me out of this {bleep}in' desert!! 
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The way V loves and honors Valerie, even though he was not her lover or relative or even aquaintence, this strikes me as a deply healing chord, a very pure and honest love.
I love Valerie myself, in a deeply admiring way. It took a couple of viewings before it all totally sank in, but I got to the point that I would be near sobbing in the middle of the theatre by the time her voice said, "I love you. With all my heart, I love you."
That kind of open acceptance, unconditional love, is something to which all humans should aspire.
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8/24/2006, 10:40 am
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