CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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The Gay Dark Knight

Thursday, October 02, 2008

this entry brought to you by radiohead, "backdrifters"


I was talking to a coworker recently about an assistant manager named Vito that had just finished training and had been since transferred to another store. We had just swapped stories about this guy, and they were both weird stories. I asked Richard, another co-worker, what he thought of Vito. "He's a nice guy," Richard replied. "I had no problem with him. Seemed pretty cool with me."

"Did he ever say anything weird to you?" I asked.

"What, you mean like about Jesus?" came his immediate reply. Well yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. "He was a fine enough guy, but no, I didn't need him preaching Jesus at me. I believe in God and all," he continued, "but I don't need to go to work and be preached at."

Apparently Vito is a real-life preachin' man. Not a full-time preacher yet, but had preached at his church multiple times, aspired to it, and played guitar in a Christian band. And apparently he was more than willing to preach to the other coworkers. He didn't preach to me at all-- which amuses me and makes me think that apparently Vito thought I was a lost cause, like, apparently I have Satan leaking out of my ears-- but I did get into a weird conversation with him that I wanted to share.

This was the day after I saw The Dark Knight. I'd been looking for my Dark Knight t-shirt that I bought something like ten years ago, but hadn't seen in at least another five years, and the day after I saw the movie I happened to have found it. So I was wearing my shirt and Vito approached me. He had a polite demeanor about him in a general way, but something about him always made me uncomfortable, and I was about to find out with. "Did you see that movie, man?" he asked, pointing at my shirt.

My response was a series of Pavlovian gushing, stammered praise, just kind of "Oh God, holy hell, dude! Fuckin' A, shit yeah!"

Vito said he hadn't seen the movie yet. My response was basically a long series of gasping, enthusiastic nerd noises. "Dude, you should go see it! Holy Christ is it good! Wow! Woo!"

He kind of shrugged.

"Well, what, do you not like goodness? Because if you don't like good things, then you should probably skip this one."

"I saw the first one and I loved it."

I wasn't sure if by "first one" he meant the 1989 Tim Burton version, or if he meant Batman Begins*, and he affirmed that was the one he was talking about. "Well if you like that one, this one's right up your alley. It's so damn good. Dude. So good." And then probably more slobbering nerd noises.

"Yeah, but Heath Ledger," he said. "He was in that... that gay movie."

"But," I said. "He was pretending to be gay in that movie. He's an actor. He was being paid to pretend to kiss a man."

He shrugged. "Yeah, but... I just... I don't think that's okay."

Listen, I saw Brokeback Mountain. I loved it. I thought it was great. I cheered when Ang Lee won Best Director for it. I was bummed when Crash beat it for best picture. But you know what? If you don't have any interest in seeing a movie about a dude falling in love with another dude, then fucking that dude in the ass (tastefully!), then fine, don't go see it. I hate sports and I can't name a single sports movie I've ever seen. I'm sure there's been at least a couple, but for example, I've never seen Remember the Titans or Any Given Sunday or Go Team Go! or whatever the hell else. I did see that movie where that kid gets injured and when they take off the cast he's got the fastest pitch in the world. And that one with Charlie Sheen where that crazy African dude practices voodoo in his locker.

But here's the thing. In Silence of the Lambs, Anthony Hopkins kills a dude, cuts off his face, and wears it as a flesh mask. And that shit's actually in the Bible. It specifically says, don't kill dudes and wear their faces as masks. It says that it's fucked up. In those words. Verbatim. It's right after "Ban the rod, spoil the child." But see, Anthony Hopkins is only pretending to wear a dude's face for a mask. He didn't kill anybody. In fact, lots of people have killed lots of other people in movies-- even in Christian movies played on PAX! Have you seen some of the movies they play on that thing? What the hell is up with Christians and making movies about God-fearing heroes blowing fuck out of bad guys? And again, this is something that's specifically stated in the Bible as a no-no. In fact, it's not even an obscure B-Side. "Don't kill people" isn't a deep album cut. That's right there in the ten commandments.

Yeah, sure, say what you want about the Bible being against gays. Fine. But it's also specifically against murder, it was etched in stone by God himself with his-- uhm, lightning, I guess. And if you're not going to watch a movie that stars a straight man with a beautiful wife and children (well, ex-wife) who may or may not have been banging an Olsen Twin because in a previous movie he pretended to be gay, then surely you should be avoiding any movie starring any actor who ever pretended to kill anybody in a movie. Which would remove almost all movies ever made aside for ones where the actors are all in that ghetto of only appearing in romantic comedies. But then you'd get in the sticky situation of watching a movie that stars a person that pretended to have adultry at some point in time. That one's not an obscure B-Side either.

So I tell this guy that Ledger's an actor, and he's just pretending to be gay, and it's not like the character he plays in The Dark Knight is gay. The Joker doesn't fuck any dudes in the ass. He stabs dudes. Sometimes he shoots them. It's an awesome movie. I think the movie where The Joker fucks dudes in the ass would be a-- well, a very different movie, that's for sure.

"Yeah," he said in that kind of defeated tone of voice you make when you're in a conversation where the other person obviously doesn't agree with you, so you say something neutral that is obviously meant as a conversation closer and it's civil to avoid either offending or getting further wrapped into what might turn into an argument. "And then he died," he said. And then, almost as if he couldn't help himself, he added, "Maybe he got what he deserved." And he said it in the kind of way you would shrug your shoulders and say "The Lord works in mysterious ways" when the previous person just told you something fucked up and unavoidable about the world. "Enh. Well. Maybe he got what he deserved. You watch football at all?" That kind of tone.

Listen, let's say that I hate black people. The thing is, I've kind of picked up along the way that maybe I shouldn't just mention that casually in a conversation. I've noticed that, for some darned reason, normal people don't like it when you just come up to them and, say, unleash weird non sequitors about me not being okay with black people, and that they deserve what they get. I've learned that maybe that's some shit I should keep to myself until I'm at one of my Klan meetings, or when I'm posting in the comment section on Youtube videos**. But in face-to-face contact, yeah, maybe I should hold my tongue. Especially if we're talking about a black dude who was a very celebrated, beloved actor who died suddenly and tragically, and he starred in the second highest grossing film of all time.

...And especially if the guy I'm talking to is wearing a goddamn t-shirt glorifying that exact movie in question!!!
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 * When I originally typed this, I accidentally typed "Bathman Begins". Bathman. That movie would be popular with the ladies, what with Christian Bale being so darned good looking and all. "Master Wayne, The Joker is blowing up half of Gotham! You've got to do something!" "I'll get right on it, Alfred. Right after I take this steaming, soothing bath. Aaaaah. Oh yeah. That's it. I feel so relaxed."

**If you don't understand this comment, I will explain: all Youtube videos, no matter how innocuous or how prominent a kitten is featured, will inevitably involve two people berating one another back and forth, one of them accusing the other of being racist, or one of them actually being racist. You will not scroll down to check how this all started, however, because it will make the synapses in your eyeballs go heywire and your eyes will melt out of your sinus cavities.
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with love from CRS @ 10:03 AM 

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