how insanely homophobic the early 2000’s were
Me as a Gen X’er who lived during the 80’s and 90’s and witnessed the absolute rage hatred for gay and trans people during that time.
Yep, we were doing so well and now look at us.
I should say doing well in terms of direction, not absolutes.
y’all remember what they called white people who enjoyed hiphop
Do you mean wigga?
Listen, I just really like wigs
That was especially hilarious when I learned about the “whig” party in early US history.
“Holy shit! They were saying that back then??”
… yeah…
Oof I watched a clip from clerks 2 the other day where they drop the hard R multiple times and wow I did not remember them going that hard.
I’m not sure which one you mean. Wiggas? That’s the one they used in Sweden.
Oh, and rape was funny. We were supposed to laugh at victims of rape, especially men being eaped in prisons, but occasionally women being raped as well.
I just watched some show from the 90s where the punchline is that the character was going to get sexually molested in a dark room. I can’t believe that got a thumbs up.
Fun fact: the term was literally invented by the British tabloid press to explain how (football superstar and husband of Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham) David Beckham could wear a sarong without being secretly gay.
I wish I was making it up but that’s genuinely the origin of the term 🤦
Every time I come across forum posts from the 2000s I lose a little bit of nostalgia for that period of time. The casual bigotry was fucking everywhere.
The culture shift is stark sometimes when you watch old stuff.
On the other hand, don’t let them turn that into an excuse. You know what dealt with trans rights in a pretty honest, raw, and understanding way, in the mid 1980s? Fucking Hill Street Blues. One of the cops gets together with a woman, he’s happy to be with her, and then the other cops start giving him hell for it because she used to be a man. He gets disgusted and angry, goes over to her place, and she lectures him about it and sets him straight, tells him to figure out if he wants to be with her, but don’t try to turn who I am into some kind of thing I did to you, or make me feel bad about it. He sort of accepts it, because she clearly has a point, and that’s the end of the episode.
Hill Street Blues, man.
Watched Ace Ventura a few years ago for the first time since I was a kid. I remembered the whole trans reveal thing. Never put together as a kid they were implying that it was part of that character being mentally ill and completely forgot about Ace and the cops freaking out after finding out.
Yeah. It’s absolutely nuts.
In the 60s, if you were a man in a movie, you could hit women if they were getting crazy, to set them straight.
In the 80s, the heroes of movies could commit rape (Revenge of the Nerds) or child molestation (Indiana Jones) and still be the heroes of the movies.
In the 90s, the simple fact of a character being gay, or God forbid trans, was its own comedic element, without anything additional needing to be added.
Things have changed. Like changed a lot.
I like retrospective threads like this. Puts things in perspective. Growing up under conditions like that, it would have been weird if I hadn’t repressed my gender identity. Pity things couldn’t have changed earlier, and let me realize sooner.
In Pinto’s defense he did, after some soul searching, decide not to fuck the passed-out girl. Congrats, Pinto.
There’s a reason that most people consider the squeal to be the better movie.
Yeah, I had a pretty sheltered childhood because I remember lots of good shows with a lot less of those issues. I watched a lot of sci-fi though, which IME tends to be a bit more forward-thinking. Not super surprising if you think about it
Doctor who had every type of queer back in the mid-late 2000s. From a trans “last human” to lesbian aliens
Doctor who had every type of queer back in the mid-late 2000s. From a trans “last human” to lesbian aliens
Wait, that “bitchy trampoline” was trans? How is that even possible with so few body parts left?
In her introduction episode she makes reference to “when I was a little boy”
She’s also a conwoman, which is kinda unfortunate and ties into upsetting stereotypes and tropes.
There’s enough examples of positive trans or otherwise characters in Doctor Who that it should be fine. You should be able to use queer characters as villains so long as them being queer isn’t part of their motivation.
I just dislike/am suspicious of a trans character whose main traits are that she is duplicitous and obsessed with unnecessary cosmetic surgeries. I’m not anti queer villains, but I bristle at stereotypes about queer individuals being used as their villainous traits.
There’s still weird shit on tv. For obvious reasons, I haven’t seen much Big Bang Theory, but that show has some weird, casual sexism.
One of Al Pacino’s best movies, Dog Day Afternoon, is still a very relevant movie to this day and was released in 1975.
David Milch the creator of the Deadwood series wrote and produced several episodes of Hill Street Blues.
Hell the 2000’s were bad - but it was just an extension to decades, if not centuries of homophobia. Watch the first 5 minutes of Eddie Murphy’s RAW to see what was socially acceptable to say in the late 70’s, early 80’s.
In an effort to show my wife the things I loved as a kid, I put on Eddie Murphy’s stand up. The intro was brutal.
After about 15 minutes, she asked me if we can stop watching.
I used to get called gay because I rolled the sleeves up on my shirt. Also because I worked with a gay guy and occasionally had lunch with him, maybe half a dozen times a year. The odd thing is that I had a girlfriend (same one 22 years later) who these idiots knew about.
Metrosexual 2033, Metrosexual Last Light, and Metrosexual Exodus
And the VR title, Metrosexual Awakening
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I been watching some movies and TV shows from the early 2000s as a nostalgia trip with my wife and man there were some terrible lessons. We talked about the homophobia and transphobia but the misogyny, body image and sexualization of teens. The skin women being called fat with the fashion that only looked good on thin thin thin women. The insistence that there was nothing worse than being a virgin. (While the schools were doing an abstinence only education BTW). The countdown clocks to when every female celebrity turned 18 everywhere. It’s surreal to think that message was everywhere.
Shallow Hal comes to mind and one of the reasons I have a difficult time enjoying Jack Black.
The 2000s were about as homophobic as the 90s, 80s, 70s, etc. Everything was just more out of the closet then.
Wait, shorts were gay? Does that include cargo shorts? Cuz there were a lot of cargo shorts at the time.
Source: used to wear cargo shorts back then. I still do, but I used to too.
Can’t even wear my chartreuse short-shorts with JUICY printed on the butt without people thinking I’m gay
That’s cause you need a hot pink button up with “Badman” emblazoned on the back to truly state your masculine dominance to the world.
A friend’s boyfriend has a hot pink and glittery t-shirt that says “Alpha Male” on it, which I find hilarious
Oh I need it for my band.
the shorts part makes no sense. everyone wears shorts
No they mean a certain type of shorts that end above the knees. Not the shorts that are basically three quarters pants. The shorter they were the gayer you’d be.
Gay:
Not gay:
Ohh, I distinctly remember that showing your knees was gay. But not as gay as bending over to pick up a pencil without bending your knees for it. It meant you wanted it up the ass then and there, there was no other conceivable reason.
Haha I learned the habit of properly lifting and not breaking your back this way. Looks like school taught me something practical after all.
unless you’re wearing running shorts in which case the length of the shorts is inversely related to how good/fast of a runner you are.
I appreciate your period-appropriate example with TJ Ford.
Best part is that the “not gay” shorts look like a skirt. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The not gay ones are hella comfortable looking. Not sure about the gay ones, I’ve never really been into that type, I prefer my shorts really loose and the pockets big enough to hold 2 liter bottles
Oh, for sure. Skirts are also really comfy. Just thought it was funny given the context.
Thank god I grew up in Europe. I would’ve been gay as fuck in America.
It was only if they fell above the knees that made you gay. If they fell below the knee or were basketball shorts, you were fine.
They are comfy and easy to wear!
I can remember getting shouted at from a moving car for wearing shorts circa 2006, it was a thing.
Just people shouting invectives at you as they drove past, is that still a thing? I remembered it happening quite a bit back then, and it would ruin my day each time.
Well the term originated in Britain where they weren’t that popular at the time, and like the post says it was only if you wore short too much.
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When I was growing up “f!!!ot” wasn’t even seen as a cuss word, it was just a burn you called your friends all the time. We didn’t really think about it until I was 16 and one of our friends came out as gay. My whole friend group kind of had it click at the same time that 1. We didn’t care that he was gay and 2. It was probably pretty fucking rude to call everything we didn’t like “g!y” and call eachother “f!g” as an insult. I think that realization happened for a lot of people who had gay friends in my generation, and it’s part of what helped lead to the level of acceptance and support the LGBT community has now.
Asian dude who went to high school in the 90s.
We were constantly called metro or straight up gay because we dressed like BTS before BTS was born.
But they called us that in a hateful way.
Ya 90s high school sucked for minorities.
That take seems a bit inaccurate.
Metrosexual meant going above & beyond in male beauty care (a pretty low bar): going to a salon to get manicures & pedicures, maybe apply foundation & eyeliner, manscaping. Possibly wearing those low-heel shoes that show the ankles without socks.
I also remember the words fag and like being ambiguous such that in written contexts I’d sometimes see the clarification good kind of fag to mean homosexual in contrast to an insult directed at someone the insulter dislikes (for being pretentious, aggravating, annoying or whatever). In speech, the distinction was often understood from tone & context, so someone could be a fag (homosexual) yet not an effing fag (detestable), and their company might be absolutely welcome for that reason. An insulter would usually pile on imagery of the subject performing homosexual acts as the recipient of such insults typically disapproves portrayals of themselves that way. The insult was a way to puncture egos & authorities claiming a traditionally masculine image. It wasn’t particularly effective against out & proud homosexuals or people who weren’t homophobic. While fag wasn’t always an insult, however, bigots & religious zealots often drew no distinction, either.