I do not know where to start with this week's assignments. I can honestly say that I have no idea how to read Bechdel's comic. I think the moral of the story was that all families have problems and same sex couples face the same problems that heterosexuals face. Because I cannot provide an accurate reading on it I am going to move on to the Tyra episode.
I found the episode to be very enlightening. I thought that all of the roles would be reversed and the king and queen would not be the two characters that appeared the most straight and like they fit the roles. I thought it would be divided up differently, but much to my shock they were hetero-normative roles. I always thought that the GLBTQ community totally disregarded most gender societal gender roles. I was also very shocked to see that the community ostracized the bisexual man and a majority of them shared my opinion. I found featuring a "manly" gay man and a "feminine" lesbian was a very good tactic to work to eliminate the stereotype of the butch and the flamer. I really don't know where to go with the drag queen's opinions. She kind of annoyed me because she wouldn't be serious with the conversation which is a very serious subject. I think she had the opportunity to show a different side of a drag queen, the articulate side, but I do not think it was a wise decision for her to take the whole thing as a joke, or at least that was the impression I got. I feel like she needed to be more honest and open rather than hiding behind her big hair, makeup and flamboyant dresses. I also took slight issue with the transgendered woman. I feel like she went too far with her breast augmentation. It doesn't look real and I think is holding her back from being more of a "real" woman. I found it very enlightening though that she does not consider herself to be a gay person; rather she views herself as a heterosexual woman. I never have thought of transgender in that way; I always have thought of it as a man dressing up as a woman or vice versa. She really convinced me that she IS woman who just got the wrong body which is what I think she wanted me to think.
In the end, I still don't know quite what I think of GLBTQ issues. It is something I try not to think about because it confuses me on a way different level than organic chemistry, but as I am getting older, it is time that I figure out what I actually think. I know I need to decide where I stand by November when there is the election which may have a proposed state constitutional amendment. I think that this class has helped me make my decision of where I stand, but I am still learning and hope to continue my thought process and find out where I stand and be less influenced by what everyone else in my life encourages me think, but what I actually think and value.
To further analyze the relationship between the Tyra episode and Bechdel's comics. I think it is a bit ironic that the comic, a cartoon, portrays people that are more "real" than the Tyra show. The comic is progressive and works to show that fundamentally the GLBT community is not very different from the straight community in a realistic way. "The Gay Kingdom" which is on a talk show that is supposed to portray real life is actually very unreal because it does nothing but play into steriotypes that the comic book tried to minimize. I could imagine the characters in the comic walking down the street; but I don't know how real some of the characters on the Tyra show are. The people on Tyra were featured for sensationalism and money making, not to actually portray real life.