Shame shame – 25 who do jackshit for us
It’s that time of year again, time to nominate the 25 allegedly most influential fags and dykes in Australia.
I like the idea of celebrating success in environments where it’s tough and challenging to be out and gay. But looking back over previous lists, some inclusions seem, well, strange.
Like Portia de Rossi, holding down a really challenging gig as a same-sex celebrity wife.
Of course some clearly deserve celebrating, like Love Makes a Family’s Felicity Marlowe, or GLLO Melinda Edwards.
There are ‘influential’ out gays and lesbians — even on the SameSame lists — who refuse to use their influence. Won’t front up at rallies to say a few words, sing a song, or just be there, except maybe for a fat fee.
I have my own list of these selfish freeloaders, but thought it would be fun to ask people, who’s on yours? So I did just that on my radio program last week, launching the ShameShame Top 25 — Influential Gays & Lesbians Who Do Jack Shit for GLBTI.
There were nominees who divided opinion, like Molly Meldrum, who was liked for no discernible reason, but also criticised for saying nothing. At least, nothing anyone could understand.
Alan Jones was a somewhat less divisive nominee — no one had a good word for him, with or without his prostate.
Nor for Penny Wong, for putting her career before her community, and for being an out lesbian cabinet member, yet refusing to speak out publicly in support of our rights, and even endorsing the governments ‘separate but equal’ policies.
Jonathan Welch and Julie McCrossin each got a serve for ‘pretending to care about the poor’, as one unhappy listener put it, refusing to speak out against the government’s failure to grandfather the changes to aged pensions that hit elderly gay couples hard.
Do these lists really matter? Isn’t the SameSame awards ceremony just another of those feelgood intra-community events which, like all circle-jerks, are fun at the time but ultimately a wasted opportunity? Is it anything more than a self-serving publicity stunt to drive web traffic to a not especially interesting website that sources most of its content second-hand, unacknowledged and unpaid?
Why else include out, gay and influential nominees who refuse to use their influence for our benefit, like Wong and Brown, or who are simply celebrities who happen to be gay?
These cynical inclusions diminish the honour being done to those who really do work hard on our behalf and achieve their influence by doing so. They are the ones really worth celebrating.
info: You can see the ShameShame nominations and comments to date — and add your own — on the Freshly Doug blog at www.currentaffairs.net.au/shameshame-25/
tom and sean g- don’t forget that they pay the people who write the blogs and articles on their website nothing. Same goes for a lot of the photographs.
Yeah, Doug, much as I admire your outspokenness and agree with your criticism of some of the dubious inclusions on the list of ‘most influential’, I must also disagree with your theory that to be gay should automatically mean you’re an activist. Certainly if you enter government openly gay, it’s to be expected that you do your best for gay causes. But for the rest, it’s a matter of choice, and some people like to keep their good works low profile.
i agree with tom.
samesame is only there to sell tickets to their own events – typical from a company that also owns inthemix.com.au – not representative of our community at all.
with regards to the article itself, i do see any forced requirement for a GLBTI identifying person to need to represent the “community” – they may not! not every gay person lives in the ghetto, not everyone likes what the “community” does, and sexuality is NOT the be all and end all of peoples lives… so its not essential for ANYONE to stand up if they dont feel attached.
pity that something that could be so positive is attached to a website that isnt a positive representation of the world we GLBTI folk live within.
I saw this RT’d on Twitter, and was quite surprised at the tone. What happens if your GLBTI person identifies as human, and does community work for humans? (You remember humans, right? You’re one.) Are you still going to out them as evil puppets of the heterosexual overlords?
What if your target works behind the scenes in the GLBTI community, instead of prancing about making a big deal over giving their time and money, and trying to further their celebrity status by waving their sexuality and how preciously good they are around? Not everyone thinks one should make a big noise over charity work and publicise it – personally, i think people who do that are the ones we should avoid.
To pick a group at random who also can do with some community support – if i saw someone shouting about how a famous abused woman, say, didn’t do enough for other abused women, I’d laugh. When i realised the shouter was serious, i’d have to say, what kind of a person thinks they can tell others who to support, and how to spend their money and their free time?
Just because you want to make your sexuality (your cause) the centrepiece of your life, you do not have the right to try to force others, especially by naming and shaming them, into doing the same – they have choices, like you do.
Otherwise, you’re heading down the route of making them all wear pink triangles, so they can’t hide from you, and holding a gun to their head and making them donate their influence, time, and money. Call me crazy, but i don’t think it’s going to work well. :)
Everyone knows the samesame “awards” are just a marketing stunt for themselves. They should be on your list, what have they ever done for the community other than throw dance parties to make money for themselves?
While it is disappointing when certain gays are held to be “influential” in our community, but don’t actually contribute to it, I actually believe there is no special obligation upon gays to stand up for gay rights – straights should do it too.