While watching what is surely one of the best episodes of Inside the Actors' Studio ever (a two-hour interview with Dave Chappelle) I saw something that was arguably one of the most offensive things I've ever seen.
It had absolutely nothing at all to do with the show itself. Right in the middle of a commercial, the TV screen went black and this weird and fuzzy image popped on the screen but it was hazy and kind of skipped around a lot. On the screen was a middle-aged white man sitting in a park or something and he starts talking about how when he was a kid he was sexually molested and that turned him towards the "gay lifestyle." Then he goes on to say how he's now found Jesus and that has saved him and brought him out of "that lifestyle." The ad/propaganda ends with "this message has been brought to you by the Arlington Assembly of God" or something.
Now, I'd say this was just some kind of weird fluke or some signals got crossed but I have a feeling this was some kind of pirated message. I mean think about it, it's the Bravo channel which is known for Queer Eye and Project Runway (featuring numerous gay contestants) that can't be a coincidence.
But man, that's just straight up hateful propaganda. There's no way any network would actually allow this church to buy ad space if THIS was the ad that they were going to show. The way the ad just kind of popped up and cut into another ad and the super negative message it contained just makes me feel that this was somehow pirated onto the airways.
All I can really say is just, wow. It's kind of scary that people feel that being gay is something that can just be "cured" by finding Jesus. I mean, yeah this kind of hatemongering is nothing new but the subversive and sneaky nature of this ad really creeped me out.
kevin [email] said at 10:19 PM 02-12-2006: dave chapelle seems like a really cool person. he just seemed so relaxed while he talked about all the up's and downs.
ed [email] said at 9:22 PM 02-14-2006: There's an "ex-gay industry"?
Sorry, that just sounds Ludicris.
I'm a Christian who has no problem with gays. I'm not here to judge. No one else should be, either. I ain't at all interested in getting boned, but two chicks getting it on is hott. Fo' realz.
brandon [email] said at 9:58 PM 02-14-2006: If you look around for it, I think it was Might Magazine, they head a really amusing article in which they infiltrate an ex-gay mission. Salon did one a while back, too, where one of the reporters posed as a gay seeking reform. Mostly, ex-gay ministries were revealed as a sham. They tout high numbers of success without recidivism but without the proof, some charge a lot for their interventions, and far from changing a person's sexual orientation, they just seem to pour guilt and shame upon participants until they are just too beaten down for any kind of sexuality.
brandon [email] said at 10:41 PM 02-14-2006: Sure, but think about it. It works in the same way self-help books work. Maybe .00009 percent of the population reading those books actually comes away with something that improves their lives. It's not so much the fluffy ideas, as it is the rush and welter and adrenaline of thinking "I'm going to make a change for the better! My previous life ends now, this will change me, as they pinball through the cannily drawn assessments, encouragements, warnings about pitfalls, etc., nothing too specific, nothing too vague. What develops is an addiction to the feeling of reading self-help books, and nothing like self-improvement. The same thing with these ministries. Obviously, I feel that homosexuality is not anything to be improved or done away with. But for the people that do, they experience the same kind of adrenaline rush going through these things, the same inevitable backsliding and the same, program-engineered response that it's not that maybe they've got God wrong, or that maybe it's ok to be that way and maybe the condemnation they've faced and the shame and guilt come from misplaced fear and bigotry, no, the program teaches them that they've let god down, their families down, themselves down. What they need is not to abandon their preconceptions, but more pamphlets and prayer and paid-seminars, and paid handlers, and intrusive, endless interrogation, and to cut themselves off from gay friends and family. It's sick shit. And it ruins people. But it makes a lot of crooked people crooked money.
josh [email] said at 10:25 PM 02-12-2006: i assume that networks don't vet the local ads that are played...
most cable networks have time set aside for local ads... this is how your local cable provider milks more income out of the various national networks... thats why this was for an Arlington group, not a national one.
reggie [email] said at 10:44 PM 02-12-2006: I suppose "networks" was the wrong word to use, I understand that cable providers have time set aside for local advertising. What I meant was it just seemed so shady.
I don't care how the ad was broadcast, it's just THAT the ad was broadcast at all. Free speech is free speech I guess but this is flat out in your face propaganda.
It's probably a good thing, for what it's worth, that the ad didn't come through clearly.
mary [email] said at 10:55 PM 02-12-2006: The whole ex-gay movement has been afoot for a while, Reggie. I'm surprised that you haven't come across this stuff yet.
It has this wonderful little passage that is reminiscent of that skit on Mr. Show, when David Cross is a reformed homosexual who keeps 'backsliding' and talks to the ex-gay conversion minister about his next planned homosexual lapse.
Anyway, here it goes:
"[the lowest] night of my life came on Nov. 11, 2002. An old acquaintance named Mike invited me over to his house for a beer. One beer turned into seven, which turned into having sex with Mike and the next thing I knew I woke up at 2:34am hung over in a near-strangers bed...
At the end of my rope, not knowing where to turn, I picked up the phone and dialed my old youth pastor, Todd. I don't know why I called Todd, but "at least" I thought, "he might listen."
So I recounted my whole life story to him. "Todd, I think I'm gay. Can I tell you what's been going on inside of me?"
"I think I'm gay." Yeah, I'd say might be on to something, fucking and being fucked in the ass by a man and liking it, is a pretty strong indicator.
I love how they frame all gay experience in terms of abuse, trauma, drunkeness and loss of self-control. They do it for women, too. And it's even a more painstakingly fabricated story.
Amusing stuff. Hateful really. But, I've decided to write to google to complain about the site and having it show up next to my atheist newsfeeds.
I long for the heyday of religious advertising. Like when the Mormons used to solicit people with soft-focus ads of mom, dad, pop the dog and the kids overcoming life's adversities and yellowing teeth through the power of New-World Jesus.
woody [email] said at 11:16 PM 02-12-2006: Hateful propaganda? I didn't see the spot, but I really don't see the hate here. A religious group has an out-of-date opinion about something and they're running an ad to spread their ideas. Wow, I thought I'd heard many of you support that sort of thing recently.
Planned Parenthood does this, and that is offensive to people who believe abortion is murder. Is that hate propaganda also?
I'm guessing if you agree with the message, it's not "hate propaganda", it's just free speech.
josh [email] said at 1:23 AM 02-13-2006: I've never seen an Planned Parenthood ad that even mentioned the word abortion.
Their ads generally show happy kids and parents and say things like "make every child a wanted child"...
I think Reggie is disturbed by this because the ad is implying that being gay is caused by being molested as a child, which is something that has been proven to have no statistical correlation.
Hateful is strong, but ignorant seems very apt... though, I didn't see the ad.
ericanm [email] said at 1:11 AM 02-13-2006: reggie i saw this too and i agree, it did not look like it belonged and it was very fuzzy and ALMOST seemed like some sort of joke that was broadcast in relation to the show at first. is it possible to interfere with cable, and even digital cable television? i was very surprised that an ad of this nature ran. i don't know if hateful is the right word for it because it's much more complicated than that. it's like saying jesus can cure me of being a woman. that's not so much hateful as it is completely ignorant of what is required to change someone from their sexual and physical identity, you know? but, it does imply that homosexuality is not only a choice, but the wrong choice. so that can possibly be taken as hateful. i'm going to stick with it perpetuating ignorance, however.
reggie [email] said at 9:22 AM 02-13-2006: i'm going to stick with it perpetuating ignorance, however.
Ig'nance probably is a more accurate term but the line between ignorance and hatred in relation to sexual orientation, racial relations and religious beliefs can be very very thin and easy for people to cross over.
I'm sure the AAoG probably really does believe that finding Jesus will "cure" gay people of their homosexuality. But I'm also sure that waaay back in the day (as well as now), people truly believed that black people were a lower percentage of human than white people.
crystal [email] said at 10:43 AM 02-13-2006: I noticed that commercial last night too, but I always turn the sound down during commercials so I didn't know what the dude was talking about... most networks turn UP the volume on commercials to get you to pay attention. they were REALLY loud last night. BUT anyway, i taped the whole 2 hour inside the actors studio. if anyone wants to see this little gem again, they can! ha!
crystal [email] said at 11:28 AM 02-13-2006: yes i DO! sounds like a LONG overdue tape exchange is in order. I owe SO many people mix cds, mix videos tapes and you the project greenlight. remember it is missing the 2nd to last episode. but I still have them. they are totally yours!
meredith [email] said at 11:53 AM 02-13-2006: Well, if that was a pirated ad, the station is obigated to replay the interrupted ad a couple of times for free to make up for the mistake.
If it wasn't a pirated ad, the station is required to play both ads a couple of times for free to make up for the mistake. So you'll probably see it again on the same station if it was legit.
josh [email] said at 12:02 PM 02-13-2006: I would say that it very unlikely this would happen, except possibly internally - someone at the tv station/network/whatever putting an ad in rotation.
I think meredith is saying that if any ad looks fucked up and staticy, the station will replay it for free.
myriam [email] said at 11:55 AM 02-13-2006: I saw an ad for this on Saturday and really, really wanted to catch it, and then totally forgot! Maybe I'd be up for a copy too--except that Bravo re-airs everything 30 million times so I imagine I'll catch it on TV again pretty soon.
andrew [email] said at 10:48 AM 02-15-2006: My great uncle's little vignette in "the ballad of greenwich village" is about that- "i had this tremendous ....wish to be normal. i used to try prayer..." it breaks my heart.
