Japanese Imports – Millennium Style

Japan has long been known for its gender bending. In Kabuki theater, men known as onnagata play all the female roles. And apparently the word “skebe,” what I would define as “sexually weird or perverse” has made it into the vernacular of pop American culture. I’ve heard it casually dropped by “gaijin” on a couple of different occasions.

Today’s LA Times has an article with the intriguing title “Young Men in Love.” It’s about Yaoi, Japanese manga-type animation that depicts exactly that – men getting romantic with other men.

Yaoi started in Japan in the ‘70’s and is catching on quickly in the States. It will be prominently featured at this weekend’s Anime Expo in Anaheim. Says a distributor, “When we ask fans what type of titles they’re interested in having us bring over, yaoi titles are always at the top of the list.” Some yaoi just hint at gay sex but others are blatant pornography.

According to the article:

Why yaoi has become so popular is the subject of considerable debate. The beautiful, androgynous young men of yaoi fiction, with their long hair, long limbs and slender, hairless bodies contrast sharply with the stern, muscular, short-haired males in men’s manga, many of whom are sadistic or misogynistic by Western standards. Some cultural observers argue these stories allow Japanese women to escape the bonds of a society that restricts them.

(According to) The Comprehensive International Encyclopedia of Sexuality, yaoi “explores female views of masculinity and of the male body in way that do not degrade or threaten the female viewer and which allow her to focus enthusiastically and openly on all the sexual-romantic things that men do.” Said another, “The teenage girls that I run into think these guys are hot.” They’re comfortable with them because they’re not macho. In my opinion, yaoi isn’t really about guys getting together. It’s meant to portray relationships that are hetereosexual at their foundation.

Call it “skebe” if you must. But I think it’s time the ladies had their due.

“Hurray for Bollywood!?”

Is Bollywood going gay? Maybe not as quickly as Hollywood, but they’re moving in a big way. Two movies, Girlfriend and Men Not Allowed, are taking on the L Word a big way.

Well, it’s not exactly all good. Girlfriend is about a closeted Lesbian turned psycho killer when her best friend starts dating a guy, what this article calls a Hindi version of Single White Female The movie is causing an uproar among conservatives in India calling it evil, and feminist and lesbian groups that rightfully claim it preys on old stereotypes.

Conservative Hindus protest both the inclusion of a love scene between the women and the lesbian theme in general. "This film is evil and it will be stopped," said Jai Bhagwan Goel, the Delhi chief of Hindu conservative group Shiv Sena. "It pollutes our society and moral culture." Only a few hundred people protested, but their actions (tearing posters down, breaking windows, and even ingesting poison) were enough to shut down future screenings of the films in many Indian cities.

Lesbian Hindus and progressive Hindu women's organizations protest the film as well, calling it "pornographic" and "highly regressive" (at the same time finding it "disconcerting to be on the same side as these right wing organizations," as women's activist Prabha Nagaraja told the India Times). Besides lesbians as psycho-killers, Girlfriend also promotes stereotypes of lesbians as victims of sexual abuse and as effeminate caricatures of men, according to lesbian and women's groups in India.

‘‘Girlfriend follows the 1940s-50s Hollywood formula where films featured the murderous lesbian," Ruth Vanita, co-author of Same Sex Love in India, told ExpressIndia.com. "This is a harmful film," she asserts, but adds "it’s cinematically of such poor quality, it’s so boring, that I don’t think it’s even worth a protest.’’

The other movie, Men Not Allowed, scheduled for release next year, follows another Hollywood formula – two women, after experiencing nothing but grief with men, fall in love with each other, only to have the whole thing end in disaster.

Despite the stereotypes and underlying message of both – that same sex love ultimately leads to tragedy, to name just one – according to this analysis, it may be a sign that things in India are starting to open up.

While the content of these films is clearly negative and stereotypical, it wasn't too long ago that the same could be said of most lesbian characters and storylines in Hollywood. In order for India to work through these stereotypes and finally provide a positive portrayal of lesbianism someday, the subject has to first become part of the national conversation in India--just as the protests in the U.S. at the premiere of Basic Instinct in 1992 forced a national discussion in America about the harmful stereotypes of lesbian and bisexual women that Hollywood routinely reinforced.

And while it has taken eight years since the debut of Fire for another Bollywood film to broach the taboo subject of lesbianism, it will only be another year or so until No Men Allowed debuts, and another one is likely to come along within a few years of that--until eventually, non-psycho-killer lesbians in India will finally see reflections of themselves on-screen, too.

Pride American Style

In honor of Gay Pride month, I have a trivia question. What city just hosted the world’s largest gay pride parade? Answer: Sao Paulo. The event on June 13 drew an estimated 1.1 million screaming, er, Brazilians. Parabens, Sao Paulo. Muito legal.

This Sunday will mark the festivities of another great city: San Francisco. And significantly, the parade folks are taking great pains to include a group that has been conspicuously absent from the event in years past: African Americans. But according to this story, some black folks are still feeling the sting from prior exclusion.

Sunday's parade will feature floats and more than a dozen booths dedicated to African American themes and issues. There will also be a street village called "The Soul of Pride Village" on McAllister Street, between Hyde and Leavenworth streets, where eight black contingents will march together.

It's all part of an effort by parade officials to include more members of the black lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in an event that celebrates unity. This outreach comes at a time when complaints have been raised about blacks being discriminated against at nightclubs in San Francisco's Castro district.

Zwazzi Sowo, a member of the pride committee, agrees that the parade has excluded blacks in the past, prompting many to cross the bridge to the East Bay to hold separate pride activities. But she said this year's event is making a concerted effort to reach out to different communities.

"For me, as an African American woman, it has been hard to come to Pride because there aren't any reflections of me there," said Sowo, 50. "It's been painful." In past parades, Sowo often ended up leaving early out of frustration because they failed to reflect African Americans. It's only right, she said, that San Francisco's parade be inclusive. "It belongs to us also," said Sowo. "It should look like a rainbow there."

In case you’re in town, July 4th weekend marks Los Angeles 16th annual Black Pride weekend. The name: Gods and Goddesses.

I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

For ye that are subscribers to diversityinc.com, there’s an interesting article today on a kind of racial profiling that’s color blind. Sort of.

It’s called “linguistic profiling,” and it’s defined as “determining characteristics such as socioeconomic status from the way a person uses language.” It’s something we all do. But Professor Dennis Preston of Michigan State University is earning a living by studying how language is used to discriminate, particularly by violating fair housing laws.

Preston said in housing discrimination, linguistic profiling occurs when an African- American, Latino or Middle-Eastern sounding prospective renter calls the landlord or representative of the property, and is told the property is no longer available just because of the way certain words have been pronounced.

"In linguistic profiling, we know that it happens … we know that people are treated differently based on people's perception of them over the telephone," says Nancy Haynes, executive director of the Fair Housing Center of Greater Grand Rapids, Mich. "If some one believes you're African American, whether or not you're African American, you are going to be treated differently."

Interestingly, African Americans are more likely to be discriminated against than Latinos with an accent, the research had found. "The discrimination rate against Spanish-accented speakers is a little less than the discrimination against African Americans. Apparently, African Americans are seen by some landlords as less desirable renters than Latin Americans," said Preston.

The article is a little weak on the methodological details, but says that Preston found that 72% of respondents could identify the “dialect” (his word, not mine) of the speaker just by the way they said “hello.” Obviously, some landlords are responding with "goodbye."

I Love LA

I’m honored. I live just five miles away from what has to be one of the most linguistically diverse real estate triangles in the world. A graphic depiction of the fascinating linguistic and multicultural mosaic that is the United States has just been released by the Modern Language Association and it shows that 39 of the 40 language tracked by the Census Bureau are in the 13-square mile area north of Long Beach. In the whole of Los Angeles County, 83% of the zip codes have 20 or more languages and over half have 30 or more. Read on.

California claims the lowest percentage of people who say they speak English at home — 60.52%, compared with about 82% nationwide. Appalachia, deep Dixie and parts of the Midwest fall at the other end of the scale. English is spoken exclusively at home by 96.38% of Mississippians — although not everyone in the country professes to understand it. Neighboring Alabama is close behind.

In all but a handful of states, Spanish is the predominant second language. But four states have French or Creole as the next most prevalent language behind English (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Louisiana). German is the prevailing foreign language in the Dakotas and much of Montana, a remnant of 19th century settlers. Native American languages top the list in Alaska.

Yiddish is concentrated in New York's Brooklyn and the Borscht Belt of the Catskills, as well as Los Angeles and the retirement communities around Miami. But although the language may be dying, at least one person in every state except Wyoming and Alaska reported to the census that it was his or her home language.

Multiculturally diverse, yes, but not without growing pains. Border patrol raids have gripped Southern California as of late, sparking fear in Latino neighborhoods throughout the area.

Reports circulated throughout those neighborhoods Friday that federal agents were arresting people outside supermarkets and restaurants, bringing some businesses to a near standstill. One Pasadena elementary school with a majority Latino student population reported 30% absenteeism. The city's official day-laborer hiring site was deserted.

In Huntington Park, diners shunned restaurants and shoppers avoided markets along Pacific Avenue, one of the city's major thoroughfares. Store managers in Bell Gardens and South Gate said customers were calling to ask if it was safe. "They're nervous. Everyone is afraid," said Rene Morales, a security guard at Ranch Market in South Gate. "There's fear all over Los Angeles."

According to this article, about 400 folks have been rounded up by the U.S. Border Patrol, and community organizations are crying foul. “We cannot and we will not accept institutional fear in our communities as a way of life," said Juan Jose Gutierrez, national coordinator of an organization called Latino Movement USA. The Border Patrol claims business as usual, but The Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund has opened an investigation.

Still, for this New Hampshire boy, Randy Newman said it best: “I Love LA.”