posted
The reason "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is powerful is because the behavior he's trying to change isn't exhibited by the villian. In fact, it's not present in the book at all. Rather, it's an assumption the villian has, which allows targetting behavior without calling the people who exhibit it evil.
Here, the people whose behavior is targeted are portrayed as the villian. And the actions of the villian are quite easily distinguished from their actions, according to the premises they hold.
So, yay! they made fun of their opponents. They also provided that one more shred of evidence that they don't understand the nature of the opposition.
posted
I thought it was kind of funny. Not hilarious, mind you, but I at least chuckled.
The point of the parody was about changing hearts and minds, no? So it has a nice tie-in to the original Grinch story.
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posted
If you read the part at the bottom below the actual parody you'll see that this is directed at Gay people, not the heterosexual community, Dragonee, so your argument falls flat.
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posted
I only take parodies seriously when they get the meter right.
Unless it's a parody of "The Twelve Days of Christmas," which I hate with the heat of a thousand suns even if they do have their syllables all in a row.
posted
A friend of mine sent this link out in an e-mail. I thought it was rather funny and had a good point for gay people, if you read the bit at the bottom:
quote: The moral of this story is that we don't need a piece of paper and the approval of the state to get married. We can just get married. Instead of having a committment ceremony, we can have a wedding. Instead of partners, we can have husbands and wives. Instead of calling our relationship a Domestic Partnership or a Civil Union, we can call it a Marriage. Whether any government recognizes it is separate from what we call it. It's a free country and we can call ourselves what we like.
In 5 or 10 or 20 years, with plenty of visible same-sex married couples, the world won't see us as strange or scary, we're just the married couple down the street that happens to be gay. Eventually, the legal recognization of our marriages will follow.
If we allow ourselves to voluntarily sit in the back of the bus, we'll never make any progress. Rosa Parks had to sit in the front of the bus to make a difference. We must as well.
Thats the important part.
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posted
Yeah, that was definitely a bit of a rah-rah piece for people who already agree with its message. The way it demonizes the opposition and accuses them of untenable positions they don't actually hold ("The Grinch hated happy Gays!") makes it completely ineffective as a tool for "changing hearts and minds". Opponents won't read it, and moderates WILL read it and feel driven away and insulted for not marching in lockstep with the writer's political opinion.
It's cute for entertaining pro-gay-marriage advocates, but is pretty much a wasted effort otherwise.
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posted
I doubt that anyone is going to print that out and give it to someone who is anti-gay-marriage.
It's just a bit of fluff.
And it's non-violent.
And what it does in "demonizing" the opposition, it also undoes at the end.
I don't think it's all that serious a piece and it certainly wasn't written with an audience of anyone but disgruntled homosexuals worried about their place in this country after being handed 11 defeats in state ballots this year.
I think cutting people a little slack is in order.
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quote:A parody that requires an explanation falls flat as well.
Funny... I didn't have to read the moral at the end to figure out what they were on about and for whom it was written.
and ARND: This piece isn't intended to win hearts and minds. It is intended to (somewhat) humorously show A path to winning hearts and minds.
Part of that is channeling anger away from demonizing the opposition. In fact, the more I think about it, the better I like this piece in that it probably accomplishes something worthwhile. For example, it might help disappointed gays and lesbians see that there might be SOME value in dialog with the people who voted against their rights (as they see it).
Again, maybe cutting some people a little slack is in order.
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quote:This piece isn't intended to win hearts and minds.
That was how I read the statement in your original post, above. I thought you were asserting that this parody, itself, was a good tool for "changing hearts and minds", which to me seemed pretty unlikely. Now I see you meant something slightly different.
[ November 14, 2004, 04:54 PM: Message edited by: A Rat Named Dog ]
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posted
Yeah, I'm sure that you people know better than the gays that there are actually no people who hate them. I'm sure that your perspective of persecution against gays is no longer a problem (in the version of America that you live in, was it ever a problem?) is more accurate then the people who have to live with it every day of their lives. They just don't understand that what looks and often feels like hatred to them really isn't, because there aren't any people out there who hate gays and act on this hatred, because...errr...well because you say so.
Please. I guess you understand my own life better than I do to. I've seen this hatred. I've had friends physially threatened because they were gay in Oklahoma. Heck, in Catholic School it was taught to me. Did you know that gay people are incapable of love, that their romantic relationships are driven by lust and that this lust often makes them molest children? That's what I was taught in religion class around 10 years ago. This is the same organization in which a high official has recently said that gay marrying is like marrying a cockroach. No, they're not hated; this is all just justifiable, non-bigoted opposition to them, right? Tell me the one about how most of them became gay because they were sexually abused again.
There are people out there who oppose gay marriage and other elements of the pro-gay agenda who are not acting out of hatred and bigotry, but that doesn't take away the fact that there are many people who are in fact hateful bigots. Pretending they don't exist because they make groups that you belong to look bad is the highly irresponsible. I wish we lived in your America where there is no need to defend gays or women or blacks or foreigners or whoever from bigots; where people claiming that they are the good guys would mean that they actually are the good guys. But we don't. Sweet Encycolpedia Brown, our Congress had the name changed to Freedom fries! That's not the sign of a responsible, mature society.
All that being said, the main point of this parody has nothing to do with the Grinchy bigots, but instead with the gay marrying citizens of Hooville. The turning point in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas comes when the Hoos celebrate Christmas without all the trappings that the Grinch thought made it up. They show that the meaning of Christmas for them is a deeper thing.
That's the main message of this piece too, if you can get past your indignation that they had the gall to suggest that there are people in America bigoted against gays. One of the main justifications against gay marriage is that calling a commited relationship between two gay people a marriage is going to severly harm marriage because...err...well because people say so.
This piece and other pieces directed towards the gay community are putting forth the idea that at the very least, this is ground that they can claim, even without the legal benefits afforded to two 18 years olds who haul their drunken selves in front of an Elvis impersonator in Vegas. Committed gay couples and many of the people who know them already consider what they have as being just as good as a marriage. The message is to call it that. The presents and feast and decorations and what have you of the legal recognition of their marriage are things that they should have, but not having them doesn't affect the fundamental deeper fact of their marriage any more than the Hoos couldn't celebrate Christmas without all their trappings.
Perhaps when people see that people supporting gay marriage in social contexts doesn't lead to the destruction of straight marriage, their hearts will grow too. Perhaps then "defense" of marriage may actually take on some characteristics of actually defending marriage. Perhaps not. But these people who are in stable, loving, committed relationships are living in marriages of more validity than many of the socially recognized straight marriages out there. What this piece is saying is that we should recognize this fact. It is actually a pretty apt use, which you can see if you don't go into apologetic defense mode.
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quote:Here, the people whose behavior is targeted are portrayed as the villian. And the actions of the villian are quite easily distinguished from their actions, according to the premises they hold.
So, yay! they made fun of their opponents. They also provided that one more shred of evidence that they don't understand the nature of the opposition.
Uhhh...Dag, how does that not say that gay people who are saying that people opposed them because they are bigots don't understand why these people are actually opposing them? And, did you not completely miss the point of the piece (calling the whole thing tripse, wasn't it?) as I put it out because of this objection?
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quote:Uhhh...Dag, how does that not say that gay people who are saying that people opposed them because they are bigots don't understand why these people are actually opposing them?
Uhhh...Squick, how does my post you quoted say that gay people who are saying that people opposed them because they are bigots don't understand why these people are actually opposing them?
Funny, I fail to see where I discussed either bigotry or the motivations behind the opposition to gay marriage. You really, really, really need to STOP PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH.
I was referring specifically to the idea that they're brains are "too small," impersonating God, and the claim that there is no scripture on marriage.
quote:And, did you not completely miss the point of the piece (calling the whole thing tripse, wasn't it?) as I put it out because of this objection?
No, I didn't miss the point. Had the sole, actual, point of the story been what the summary at the bottom says it was, then they wouldn't have needed the paragraph at the bottom.
And, of course, the point of the part describing the Grinch IS to characterize the opposition. There is no real world correllary to the Grinch in Seuss's original story, and that is incredibly important to the point he's making.
And the tripe was also related to the horrible meter, forced rhyme, and other problems with the piece.
posted
Dag, Do me a favor then. Make your reasons clear when you are dismissing criticisms of your groups then, because I didn't see any difference between what you said and Geoff claiming the the piece was unfairly ascribing "The Grinch hated happy Gays!". You would agree then that this in fact a true characterization for some of the people who are anti-gay.
You've certainly used the same language "You obviously don't understand..." when I criticized groups that you belong to where I was pretty darn sure that I did in fact understand the group that I was criticizing and that it was not at all clear that I didn't, except from the perspective that there were some people in that group that didn't merit the criticism.
And you've also done a bit of denying that there is a significant part of the anti-gay crowd that are acting primarily from bigotry.
quote:Do me a favor then. Make your reasons clear when you are dismissing criticisms of your groups then, because I didn't see any difference between what you said and Geoff claiming the the piece was unfairly ascribing "The Grinch hated happy Gays!". You would agree then that this in fact a true characterization for some of the people who are anti-gay.
It's this whole "your group" thing that is so annoying. You leap to conclusions about my view utterly unsupported by my posts, apparantly because someone else who disliked the piece has made statements supporting your conclusions. And I would dispute that the characterization [i]in the poem[i], as opposed to someone else's summary of that characterization, is accurate for at most a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of people who oppose gay marriage.
I don't see the need to post every single thought I have on a given subject. Most people who want to know more about the reasons for a posted opinion have the courtesy to ask.
quote:And you've certainly used the exact same language "You obviously don't understand..." when I criticized groups that you belong to where I was pretty darn sure that I did in fact understand the group that I was criticizing and that it was not at all clear that I didn't, except from the perspective that there were some people in that group that didn't merit the criticism.
Only when you've made sweeping generalizations, not just about people who hold particular views, but about the underlying nature of the views themselves.
quote:And you've also done a bit of denying that there is a significant part of the anti-gay crowd that are acting primarily from bigotry.
NO I HAVEN'T.
When I have counteracted the "bigotry" charge it has generally been at either the explicitly stated notion that anyone who thinks homosexuality is a sin is a bigot or at the explicitly stated notion that anyone who opposes civil recognition of gay marriage is a bigot.
The last time we got into this, it was sparked by my saying "not everyone who voted for that intitiative, as wrong-headed as it is, was a bigot."
posted
Your actual position was that the law we were talking about would have passed without any of the bigots voting for it. Since the actual margin was 10%, I found that to be a gross misundertanding of the role of bigotry in American society.
And, when I said that reward/punishment thinking played a significant role in Christian thinking, I really don't think that this was a sweeping, unjustified characterization. Maybe you did. I still stand by it and by thinking that my experience as a Catholic is as valid as yours even if you think that I obviously don't understand anything because of it.
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quote:Your actual position was that the law we were talking about would have passed without any of the bigots voting for it. Since the actual margin was 10%, I found that to be a gross misundertanding of the role of bigotry in American society.
More examples of you just making shit up about me. Please stop it. Here's the thread in question. I didn't say the amendments wouldn't have passed without support from bigots. I said many of the people who voted for it did so out of bigotry. I also doubted (but didn't totally discount) that a majority of them would have scored high on your hypothetical bigotry test.
The whole discussion in the linked thread came about because you thought I was refusing to consider the "bigot" factor, despite there being literally and absolutely nothing in any of my posts in that thread that could support such a conclusion. And in coming to that conclusion, you relied on equally faulty recollections about my positions in past threads.
quote:And, when I said that reward/punishment thinking played a significant role in Christian thinking
I never disputed that reward/punishment thinking played a significant role in Christian thining. My contention was that ignoring the presence of such thinking did not overwhelm or invalidate the many other elements of Christian thinking.
posted
Dag, Certainly our recollections and impressions of what happened are very different (I still read you as saying that the gay amendments would have passed without the support of the primarily bigoted). I also think we're working at cross-purposes. If I read you right, you're trying to speak to the anti-anti-homosexual crowd about not labelling everyone who is against homosexual marriage as bigots, which I'm sure you realize that I agree with. I'm trying to speak to the responsible conservative (especially Christian) audience about coming out strongly with saying that bigotry has no place in their midst, which I know you agree with. For me, the group of people who aren't committing the offenses themselves but are willing to support or shelter those who are because they share the same group affiliation are one of the biggest part of most civil rights struggles. It seems to me that we almost always come to agreement except in those cases where I'm saying something bad about a group you belong to (illustrated most clearly and trivially to me on the Galileo thing). We seem to agree on principles but not have a lot of trust for the other. The blame for this may lay on either side.
I don't know, I feel like I've given you a fair read, but I've been getting pretty weird lately from being deeply into anti-cognitivist research. I think I might take some time away and see if I can come back with a more open mind. The way I'm thinking now and in my prickly emotional state, I'm probably doing you and likely others an injustice.
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quote:Certainly our recollections and impressions of what happened are very different (I still read you as saying that the gay amendments would have passed without the support of the primarily bigoted)
Could you point out the words that make you read that? That would certainly help me understand where you're coming from.
Right now I can't see it at all - not even "I see how you might get that out of what I say." And historically, I'm very good at seeing such things. It's a skill I rely on successfully all the time.
quote:It seems to me that we almost always come to agreement except in those cases where I'm saying something bad about a group you belong to
And it seems to me that you are almost constantly expanding my statements far beyond what I'm saying. And then assuming that I have the expanded view because I belong to some group at issue. I notice when a group I don't belong to is at issue, you don't seem to jump to such conclusions, and if you do, you accept my clarifications immediately.
I very often speak to tiny little parts of big issues. This is a core attribute of my prior career in IT and my current studies in law. It also is a philosophical preference - the tiny areas are where practical applications meet theory.
quote:And the combination of those of us who already support civil gay marriage and those who oppose it but aren't bigots is enough to get it passed.
Part of the thing is that it appears to me if you're not attatched to the issue, you do a good job (one of the best jobs of people on this forum) of trying to understand what someone is getting at but on issues where you are involved you jump on relatively ancillary or even non-existent parts of people's arguments to the exclusion to what they're actually saying.
It's very rare that I'll make a categorical statement about an entire group (the gay thing is a good example where I'm very careful to delineate between the various groups, I think) but, although I can't think of it being directly referenced to me, I seem to feel often included in your condemnations of people who say do this. Or one of our intial converations about the principle of love versus following the rules of the religion where you seemed to think that I was saying that these thigns were necessarily incompatible and that people should choose the first to spite the second and I couldn't seem to figure out how to get across that I was saying that they are often brought into conflict by the way people do things now and people tend to give almost no consideration to the first bit while pouring emphasis onto the second. Or, again, the Galileo thing, where you claimed that the Catholic Chruch doing what they did because of him violating their theology didn't make them better than if they did it because he was teaching scientific theories and that we had to keep saying to you "That's not what that says." in response to your claims about the material. When, from my perspective, people's normally relatively clear perceptions become limited and clouded, it speaks to me of emotional attachments affecting their reason.
edit:In this case, I think your elaborated criticisms of this piece are holding it to a higher standard this is strictly reasonable. This is someone from a very hurt, dispirited group speaking to members of a this same group using a clever respinning of a cultural myth. The main thrust of the thing is spot on, in my opinion. Even the bit you don't like about people draping their Grinchiness in religious symbols (just like the Grinch wore the santa suit) is a more or less accurate thing. It didn't look to me that you (along with many others) got the main point or why this admitedly mangled version of Dr. Suess was an apt choice to make it and instead got drawn into them characterizing their opposition as the Grinch.[/edit]
Honestly I do see you as someone with a strong sense of group loyalty. For me, one of the supremely dissappointing things of the 90s was the almost total lack of outrage on the part of most Catholics in response to the child abuse scandals. Instead, they seemed to fall into a defensive pose. I hate when people do this, when they put defending their group above the principles that they are supposed to have. From my admittedly incomplete and in many cases no doubt inaccurate view of you, I'd guess that you were among the primarily defensive rather than the very small outraged group of Catholics.
One of the big disappointments to me about this past election is that it made it very clear to me that there are no large groups of good guys out there to work with. I've become strongly interested, almost obsessed, with the idea of people forming associations based on allegiance to principles and not ideology. So when I see what looks to me to be people putting their groups or ideologies over principle, it hurts me jsut a little bit more. It's quite possible however that I've become oversensitive based on my own emotional attachments to this issue.
quote:And the combination of those of us who already support civil gay marriage and those who oppose it but aren't bigots is enough to get it passed.
Opinion polls run about 62% against gay marriage, 30% in favor. If slightly less than 1/3 of the 62% are not bigoted (20% or the overall total), then my statement is true. Throw in the undecideds, and take into account that a majority favor civil unions, and I stand by my assessment.
Even if you disagree with my assessment of the situation, you can't get from those numbers and my statement to an interpretation that I meant that the amendments wouldn't have passed without any bigoted votes. The math just isn't there to support such a view. I've quite simply never said it.
This leads me to believe that you're mentally adding "something else" to my posts that involve religion, and on a fairly regular basis.
I can't discuss the rest of your post right now, but I thought I'd put this much out there now.
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