StinkyLulu comes out! StinkyLulu acts up! StinkyLulu's at a loss...

StinkyLulu's been sitting on this page for some time now... But -- oopsiedoodle -- the time it does fly...
Finally, though, it was afrofuturist (whose link to this page caught StinkyLulu up short) that finally kicked LazyLu off the pot...

But in the midst of much punkin pie, StinkyLulu's also been stewing a smidge over the noxious 20/20 about the Matthew Shepard murder/ers that aired on Friday. StinkyLu'll leave the explication of the actual broadcast & its potential implications to those more eloquent & precise but there remain some thoughts aswimming in Lulu's noggin...

StinkyLulu came to homoconsciousness in the later 1970s. Puberty was still around the corner, but protohomo StinkyLulu was nonetheless able to hook onto the thrilling glimpses of visibility snagged by gay men and lesbians circa 1980. Lil' StinkyLulu did so treasure that Village People 8-track and still can feel the thrill of discovering The Joy of Gay Sex at Waldenbooks in Coronado Mall. Only later, during college in the Reagan era, did StinkyLulu begin to appreciate the significance of what some 70s activists called "coming out as an act of revolution."

And by1987, StinkyLulu already had become a teensy bit jaded about how much the singular act of coming out -- individually to friends & family OR collectively at things like Pride or the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian & Gay Rights -- would ever do to change anything. The later 80s were -- at least for StinkyLulu -- a time when the intransigent silence of the Reagan Right could not even be flustered by the AIDS-deaths/outings of such beloved retrocelebs as Rock Hudson (1985) and Liberace (1987). Indeed, StinkyLulu understood the importance of ActingUp because it really did seem that the Reagan Right's silence did equal a kind of deathwishful thinking.

But in the 10 years between the founding of ActUp and the murder of Matthew Shepard, so many homo things changed. In the later 1980s, folks had to take to the streets and/or jails by the hundreds to get even a glimmer of media glare on the gruesome recent deaths of gay men. In the later 1990s, the media seized upon the shocking murder of a single white sissyboy as InstaMartyr. Just add media attention and stir... At the time, StinkyLulu skipped the vigils. And the play. And the movie. And the teevee movie. The whole thing just made StinkyLulu's head hurt and heart ache.

But now, now, now...
The recent ABC expose of the "myths" around Matthew Shepard's murder signals just how little has changed in the media landscaping of the last 25 years. The core narrative remains the same: gay men lead perverse secret lives & their gruesome fates are but burdens to the modesty of respectable, non-homo Americans. It's been more than 25 years of coming out, acting up, fighting AIDS, being in the life, lesbian kissing, real worlding, talk showing, queer as folking, & will and gracing. Hard to be GLAAD about the plucky promises of media activism when the basest basic narratives (not to mention Andrew Sullivan) survive so heartily in spite of it all...

But so it goes. And so must StinkyLulu, at least for tonite...
(And blessings to the ever-amazing Judy Shepard.)