c0ffeequeer-blog

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Trying to Move Forward

I was a follower of Chris Crocker since the beginning, so of course I was ecstatic to see this film about him. I knew he was from Tennessee and didn’t really fit in well in that town, and I knew he had some struggles in his life as he is part of the LGBTQ+ community, but this film really put his whole life under a microscope. His mother had him when she was 14, and raised him with the help of her mother and father. Chris’ father was not around. Their family is very low-income, and from a poor, conservative part of Tennessee. Chris’ mother went into the military to try to work her way out of poverty and into a netter life, but when she came back she faced mental illness and a traumatic drug addiction. Chris was left struggling and alone in a town where he wasn’t understood, with a mother that he couldn’t help, and a family that struggled to put food on the table. I argue that many people in situations similar to Chris look to getting famous as a way out of their struggles. The promise of fame and fortune is something that they can work their entire lives for. And although these people deserve fame and a living, it’s not fair that so many companies capitalize off of these people’s struggles. It’s not fair that we put their lives under microscopes for our viewing pleasure. This film itself probably gave Chris a modest check and yet made so much money just off of showing Chris’ life like that. This reminds me of a person that we met in an earlier documentary, Steven Fernandez, also known as “Baby Scumbag.” He was promised fame and fortune that he could get his family out of poverty- but that came with a cost. A cost of his childhood innocence, a cost of his future reputation. His story was heartbreaking to me (you can read a story about him from Vice News here). Just like Steven, Chris had hopes to get his family out of poverty by becoming youtube famous. He soon became famous- and to many, unfortunately he became a laughing stock. It was extremely hard for him to move past his old identity- everyone saw him as the “leave Britney alone” boy and not much more. Today, although he has somewhat secluded from the public eye, he is still working on his own projects (which you can see an article about those here).

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Working Class Dads: Have to Work on Being a Father, too?

Working-class stereotypes are displayed everywhere on tv. As we saw in the documentary Class Dismissed, these stereotypes are what we learn from. The working-class is represented as having bad taste, unappealing lifestyles, little intelligence, and poor “family morals.” This surely effects how we see the working class, and how we understand ourselves if we are a part of it. But how do these tv shows effect how we see working-class dads? I argue that these tv shows have an awful lot of negative things to say about working-class dads.  Think of a few of the most well-known tv sitcoms. The Simpsons. King of the Hill. The “dads” on these shows range from stern to sweethearts (on the inside). They show little feelings. They work all week, drink beer when they get home, and watch football on Sundays. They have a few other dad-friends that they hang out with. They love their kids (I guess) but know nothing about parenting. They are portrayed as idiots. Or let’s think about “reality” tv shows, like Jerry Springer or Maury for example. They are seen as having these “bad family morals” as the documentary mentions. They cheat on their partners, lie, and don’t care about their children. What we see in all sorts of shows portraying the middle class is that these dads are simple, one-dimensional idiots. They lack intelligence, culture, and real values. They’re bad parents. The Washington Times posted an article about these portrayals of working-class fathers on tv (which you can read here). In reality, there are shitty fathers, and great fathers, from every class. Attached is a clip from The Simpsons where Homer has to take a parenting class (notice that the whole class is dads). 

https://youtu.be/0cvPZ0VU_iI 

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More Than Just a Game: What Sports Say About Society

Despite the common misconception that “politics and sports don’t mix,” political messages are being sent out through sports culture and have since the beginning of the commercialization of sports. Sports have long upheld the power structure of cis-gendered, heterosexual males being dominate, and anyone else- whether it be cis-women, trans women or basically anyone in the queer community- are excluded from the game. Gender roles are instilled in our society since birth, and sports have taken traditional gender ideals and magnified them. “Real men” are strong and will fight til the end for their team, even with a major injury. “Real men” are fit, love competition, love sexy cheerleaders cheering them on from the sidelines, and love Campbell’s Chunky Soup. Women are biologically inferior, and serve no purpose in sports except for being the sexy woman that male viewers want to see. Oh, well they can play some sports- only if it’s beach volleyball in a tiny bikini. These are the messages that are being sold through sports, as the documentary Not Just a Game has shown. These stereotypes leave no room for men who are not athletic, boys who don’t like competition, queer men, trans men, athletic women, fat women, gender non-conforming folks, people with disabilities,- the list goes on. Sports culture only has the room for cis-gendered, straight, able-bodied men. The Body Is Not An Apology (TBINAA) an online magazine (which is a GREAT resource, by the way) published an article about ableism in fitness culture (which you can read here). Ableism is a big issue that I personally feel like people tend to push to the side and not talk about. My one critique of the documentary is that this is not discussed at ALL. The issue of ableism in sports deserves a whole documentary itself. The film mostly focuses on the gender stereotypes engrained in sports culture. I read an interesting article regarding the topic of gender and sports, mainly focusing on stereotypes that women face, as well as women athletes (that article can be found here). I thought one of the most disturbing parts of the documentary was that women aren’t seen as athletes, unless men say that they can be- like cheerleaders, volleyball, tennis, or women’s wrestling. Women have the role of serving men in this male-dominated world. Women are there to sell the beer, be on the advertisements, and just be sexy. The world of sports is so male-dominated, even with the language that we use around it- basketball is just called “basketball” when men are playing it, however, when women are playing it, it’s “women’s basketball.” A male team is just a “team,” but when it’s women on the team, it’s a “women’s team.” To be honest, I’m not really into sports, particularly for these reasons that it’s so exclusionary to anyone who isn’t a cis, straight, able-bodied male. I think this documentary did a decent job displaying some of the large issues in sports culture, but I think there are a lot of issues that it didn’t cover. Below, I’ve attached a video discussing ableism and how people tend to view people with disabilities. Although it’s not sports-related, I think it’s an important subject to discuss.