Sarah Bird loves a good gay. Or, at least, a certain type of gay, which explains why the journalist penned a recent column declaring little homos are the way to go-go:
We all know the fate that awaits mothers of heterosexual sons. After straight boys learn how to order pizza, Mom becomes an abstraction. Straight sons sort of get that their mom is a tremendously powerful force in their lives, but, like the Federal Reserve System, they have no real understanding of or interest in how she works.
But gay men, whole other story. And that story is “Auntie Mame.” Suddenly the maternal presence is a showstopping diva in chinchilla fitting a Benson Hedges into a 2-foot cigarette holder and zinging everyone in sight with one-liners, instead of Ma Kettle in a Mother Hubbard apron dishing up the possum stew and never exfoliating.
Such a sad, neglected group. Let’s start a foundation for these poor unfortunate souls!
But, seriously, the reader who sent this in, a woman, wondered why people are never begging for a lesbian daughter. Not enough cultural worth?
fredo777
Loved that movie. I had never seen (or heard of) it until fairly recently. Glad I checked it out.
fredo777
Also, my mother isn’t that glam, sadly.
Is it my fault? Do I need to help bring out the fabulousness within? She’s got pretty good taste, actually, but doesn’t really bother to get girly like she used to.
Sigh. Unless she turns out to be a lesbian, I’m going to be so disappointed.
todd
My mom could have been Fab, but my loser str8 brother monopolized all of her time and sapped her of all her energy. She made the choice to wallow in his miserable life.
fredo777
Tsk tsk
Damn str8 brothers.
Scooter Bangs
My mom is an evil, vicious bitch in a house coat and all my gay friends love her. She can drink, smoke and curse them under the table. She taught me how to destroy someone with a withering look or quick insult. (She lives in NYC and called a slow-moving policeman a ‘dumbass’. ON SEPTEMBER 11!!!) She is the reason I never liked drag queens. They all reminded me of mom. Her neighbor is a reasonable older gay guy who LOVES her. They watch Desperate Housewives together while I’m still waiting for one encouraging word or an acknowledgment of my successful career in visual art. (She wanted a lawyer.) So maybe it’s the OTHER gay guys mother that we all love?
eagledancer4444
You know, Scooter, as a Family Therapist, I can’t begin to tell you how often I have encountered parents who spent their kids’ lifetimes criticizing them. When I speak to many of these parents of adult children, they came from very difficult lives (or so they perceived) and arrived at the conclusion life is rough and tough and any softness will weaken you and you’ll fail. As an interesting result, the more they withhold praise and comfort from their children, the more their adult children tend to achieve. This is a vicious circle, where they succeed to get their parents approval, and the parents withhold even more, because frankly, their strategy is so successful. I then find that they will say very positive things about their adult children–but never in front of them. Because in their worldview–that would make their adult children “weak.”
One of my surprising moments (I came from a very supportive family) was when my first lover brought his father in as a co-presenter at an AIDS, Miracles and Medicine conference. His father was in his 70s at that time. He praised his son, and I watched every participant start to cry…so many of them came up afterwards to say how much they would have wanted to have heard words like that from their own father. (and in full disclosure…his father didn’t always have such an enlightened attitude in the beginning of my first lover’s life. When they became close, after his announcement he had AIDS, and the family decided their love for him meant more than their prejudice and the family reunited he learned that in college, his father had had a same-sex relationship.
Jeez…sounds like a made for tv movie, huh?)
rick
ah, like what has auntie mame got to do with this?
patrick wasn’t gay.