Letter: Senator needs to separate fictional fears from facts
Lo and behold, the man that claims he misunderstood a question after stating that interracial marriage should be left to the states is probably going to need to explain why he misunderstood something else.
Last week, Senator Mike Braun and four others asked the TV Parental Guidelines Board to update its guidelines to address the LGBTQIA+. (Mind you, this is a board created by the Federal Telecommunication Act in 1996 which has a hint of irony, here.)
To provide context, the senators likely read an article where the president of Disney’s General Entertainment Content, who is the mother of two queer children, is quoted saying, “We have many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories and yet we don’t have enough leads and narratives in which gay characters just get to be characters and not have to be about gay stories.” (emphasis mine)
In the senators’ letter, they write, “This radical and sexual sensation not only harms children but also destabilizes and damages parental rights.”
Let’s be clear, most Disney movies have a lead that is identifiably straight be it Cinderella dreaming of her prince or an anthropomorphic race car being attracted to a Porsche who has “a little pinstriping tattoo back there.” Both those are rated G.
However, if Senator Braun thinks a child’s program having a lead gay character is a sexual sensation then perhaps he is thinking too much about what might be happening in the bedroom rather than what is actually happening on the screen.
Being gay or lesbian should not require a character to have an off-screen sex life any more than it should for Cinderella, the Porsche with the pinstriping, Mickey and Minnie, or Goofy (who actually has a son).
Anything other than the story being told is just in your imagination.
Joe Huddleston, Jasper
I like Mike Braun’s idea because then all Mr. Huddleston would have to do is run for state government to change any laws he didn’t like.
So what facts does the senator need to separate? The fact that cars can’t have sex? Have you heard about that young man in England whom tried to legally marry his car? And I’m not talking about some gear head that loves his hot rod. This person had serious deep seeded mental issues. He even bragged about having sex with his car(not sure how this works, don’t want to know). Point being: the problem is not the cartoons or the cars, it’s the people. Teaching kids something only encourages them to do it. If you are a parent you should know this.
What.
So why don’t you show your little kids “Saving Private Ryan”? That story is so great, it won a bunch of awards. No reason to worry about the context. None at all. Just the story, right?
Saving Private Ryan is a very violent movie. Not a valid comparison. These characters are not having sex on the screen.
A lead character being gay does not need to have to be about its sex life any more than Goofy having a kid has to do with his sex life.
A better comparison would be to a child’s move about war, like Valiant (2005) rated G.
At what point is what Braun suggested too far? What if he had asked for labels to warn people when there is a black lead, a Chinese lead, or *gasp* an interracial couple.
I am not against a private company creating such a system. Heck several existing sites will provide all this information for free (IMDB, Common Sense Media).
However, suggesting a federally created board provide warnings because there are simply lgbt+ characters on the screen when, in real-life, they have many protections (e.g. EEOC, marriage) is not right.
Isn’t Braun a free market capitalist? Let that fill the void and quit asking the government to do it for him.
Ain’t it even the least bit odd that the guy just talking about state’s rights not long ago wants the federal government to even do this.
I need to have some clarity.
“Saving Private Ryan is a very violent movie. Not a valid comparison. These characters are not having sex on the screen.”
My wording is not the best here.
My intent here was to say that SPR is very violent movie. Comparing it to a kids program which simply has an lgbt character is not the same thing when there is no violence, no swearing, no sex.
If they were killing each other, sure, that could be valid.
But to simply compare an onscreen lgbt character in a program to a war movie where people are exploding just does not feel remotely similar.