Troll Kingdom
This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
The Big Fat Mine Field Thread of 90s Nostalgia
- Thread starter Mentalist
- Start date
Loktar
Internet God and Defender of Park Benches
Ahh, college, when you could waste $5 in quarters playing that instead of being responsible and doing your stinky laundry. I wonder why I had a new room mate or no room mate every semester?
Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
Something weird happened in the 90s... gay movies stopped being awful, no-budget cringefests...
Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
More non-sucky gay cinema...
Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
So this happaned on Claudia Winkleman's show this week...
Colonel Kira's Left Tit
Bearded Belly of Bajor
If we're talking about Sheryl Crow, there's an old saying: You can take the girl out of Missouri but you can't take the Missouri out of the girl.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
I apologize if this comes across as/or actually is insensitive, but it is my take and it's something I've been rolling around in my head for a few months now:
The '90s was kind of the sweet spot for homosexuals and bisexuals. People were starting to come out of the closet without having to be afraid. You started seeing the rainbow flag. There was Pride Day, complete with a parade. I'd just moved to the Big City and happened to pick an apartment near what was a "gay" part of town. I ran into a bisexual friend from college who had just come from the Pride parade and he was so excited and happy.
Now the rainbow flag has morphed into...whatever it is, Canadia has turned gay/bisexual into a 19 letter acronym, Pride Day is now a month-long corporate monstrosity, and "Jeopardy!" has a trans player on about every 3 episodes. Drag queen story hour at the local library. Before the 90s, gays were told they were dirty and wrong and now straights are told they are dirty and wrong.
Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
So what changed in the 90s? Here's what changed...
In the mid-late 80s, AZT was approved as an AIDS drug, and suddenly we were able to start thinking of having AIDS as something other than an automatic death sentence. An ENTIRE GENERATION of LGBTQ people was lost in the 80s to early 90s. An entire generation.
What else changed? The Reagan/Bush regime ended. Reagan demonized the gay community and took the least action possible after the AIDs crisis broke and had a name. 8 years of Clinton meant baby steps of legislative progress, but so much more in terms of visibility and acceptance. Our leaders were no longer telling us that we were the enemy. Imagine that.
And as the above movies demonstrate, corporations jumped on the bandwagon because they discovered they could make money off our demographic. We were better educated, had decent paying jobs, and more expendible income. We became a capitalist debutante and they lined up as suitors for our dowery.
Then came the W years, and we had to fight to keep what we'd fought for in terms of social equality... but 9/11 sort of took the focus away from us as the preferred enemy of conservatives, replaced by Muslims and POC in general. And the corporations were still making bank, so they didn't turn on us all that much.
Then came the Obama years... *chef's kiss* Even after the dirty Prop 8 campaign in California, Barack the Constitutional scholar helped shepherd marriage equality into a winnable, codifying SCOTUS decision. God bless that man.
But then came Trump, and I'm not gonna go into that here. Let's just say that while corporations still love to take our money (I agree about the commercialized bloat of Pride Month), they're taking different marching orders when it comes to hiring and discrimination now.
This whole concept of "being told you're dirty and wrong" seems odd to you because, well, it's new for you. You haven't been facing it your whole life. Suddenly we're in culture wars with two actual sides. It's overkill, but maybe it's needed before we strike the right balance eventually. Peace and love to you and yours.
In the mid-late 80s, AZT was approved as an AIDS drug, and suddenly we were able to start thinking of having AIDS as something other than an automatic death sentence. An ENTIRE GENERATION of LGBTQ people was lost in the 80s to early 90s. An entire generation.
What else changed? The Reagan/Bush regime ended. Reagan demonized the gay community and took the least action possible after the AIDs crisis broke and had a name. 8 years of Clinton meant baby steps of legislative progress, but so much more in terms of visibility and acceptance. Our leaders were no longer telling us that we were the enemy. Imagine that.
And as the above movies demonstrate, corporations jumped on the bandwagon because they discovered they could make money off our demographic. We were better educated, had decent paying jobs, and more expendible income. We became a capitalist debutante and they lined up as suitors for our dowery.
Then came the W years, and we had to fight to keep what we'd fought for in terms of social equality... but 9/11 sort of took the focus away from us as the preferred enemy of conservatives, replaced by Muslims and POC in general. And the corporations were still making bank, so they didn't turn on us all that much.
Then came the Obama years... *chef's kiss* Even after the dirty Prop 8 campaign in California, Barack the Constitutional scholar helped shepherd marriage equality into a winnable, codifying SCOTUS decision. God bless that man.
But then came Trump, and I'm not gonna go into that here. Let's just say that while corporations still love to take our money (I agree about the commercialized bloat of Pride Month), they're taking different marching orders when it comes to hiring and discrimination now.
This whole concept of "being told you're dirty and wrong" seems odd to you because, well, it's new for you. You haven't been facing it your whole life. Suddenly we're in culture wars with two actual sides. It's overkill, but maybe it's needed before we strike the right balance eventually. Peace and love to you and yours.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
I wish I had started the WHOH in 1998 so she'd be much higher on it...
