Taking a stroll around the youtubes…
I have a friend working with the One Iowa campaign, building support for the Court ruling on marriage equality so that when it comes time for the possibility of an amendment to overrule it that people have gotten the message and don’t have any interest in rolling back rights.
One thing I really appreciate is how they seem to have incorporated a lot of the lessons from the failed No on 8 efforts. For one, this is not a timid ad. There’s no dancing around the issue, no fear of saying what this is really about. A lot of the California ads were so vague you hardly knew that they were about gay marriage unless you already were familiar with the Initiative.
But the best evidence consistently seems to suggest that the more people are exposed to the idea, and the more it becomes apparent that this is not an issue that’s going to go away or be pushed back in the closet, the more they come to recognize it as a real matter of discrimination. Which basically means that you want ads that are clear and honest, that tie in the very real question of basic values at stake into the fact that there are a lot of gay people in the world, and they are just normal folks like anyone else.
That’s why I’m excited to see efforts to make gay marriage seem normal and standard, because I have a feeling that if people are given that message, they’ll actually have to face up to what these marriage bans really mean. And I have faith in this country. I think that people support “traditional” marriage because they haven’t really thought it through, more than anything else. Ads like this help to ensure that when the next vote comes up, a lot more people will be on the side of freedom, love, and families.
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The major youtube sensation of the recent times is Susan Boyle, the contestant on Britain’s Got Talent (apparently a very popular show over in the UK which I had never heard of until this week). There’s a lot of fairly predictable (and perfectly reasonable) commentary about this. Some point out how sad it is that we appear to be collectively stunned that someone who doesn’t look like a movie star can actually sing.
Others note that it is hardly the “victory” that it seems because implicit in the story is the idea that we were all wrong to snicker at her only because she happens to possess this monumental talent. The idea being that such folks are absolute exceptions, the diamonds in the rough. That’s a particularly unpleasant thought because it suggests that a big ‘moment’ like this may only serve to reinforce precisely what it’s supposed to criticize.
Basically, there’s lots of room for wondering whether stories like this really have a point. Is this a reason why we shouldn’t be so critical of the utter vapidity of the modern trend for reality programming? Or is it the opposite? Does this mean something about the value we place on appearance? And so on.
All that is fair enough, but honestly I think it’s asking a bit much for one song to mean that much. Moments like this capture our attention because they come out of nowhere. And they stun us because they’re little microcosms for what we all in our hearts really want to believe: that every person deserves to have a moment when they get to shine. That every person in the world has a chance to for incandescence – for their dream to be fulfilled.
All the little details, and the ‘underdog’ element of the story is what gives it drama, but underneath it, the one thing that doesn’t need to be questioned or criticized or analyzed is the basic fact that this woman can sing, and in this world there’s always a chance for those who aspire to beauty.
We don’t want to forget all the messy questions that get raised, but we also don’t need to feel guilty about sharing in the moment.