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June 1994

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Subject:
From:
David Hochschartner <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 9 Jun 1994 22:16:26 EDT
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I have been reading this exchange quietly while trying to figure out why my
computer is logging multiple copies.  I thought Henry Jenkins's posting was
interesting and valid.  Stephen's response to Mary seemed excessive.  I think
that stridency and anger slam a lot of doors -- perhaps understandably but
also unnecessarily.  I suppose I might make a mistake and say something like
"sexual preference" just because I haven't thought about it, I haven't
considered the semantics.  I don't think that makes me either an evil person
or a hopeless fool, just unaware.  So, educate me.  Having been married to a
teacher for ten years I know that destroying the pupil is not a great
educational technique.
I appreciated Henry Jenkins's laying out why he dislikes "orientation."
 While I, in fact, would NOT have used "preference" I had not seen any
pitfalls in "orientation."  PC has gotten a bad name but I agree that the
desire not to hurt people is an admirable one.  Words carry great weight.
 Which is probably why I wince when I read the word "queer."  I don't think
of my gay friends as "queer," because to ME, just as a reader of words, queer
means "odd, not right."  My cousin who died of AIDS was not queer to me.
I have just read a great book called THE FAMILY HEART:  A Memoir of When Our
Son Came Out, by Robb Forman Dew, which I think should be required reading
for mothers.  For a straight mother, particularly of sons, it is painful and
tender and enlightening reading... because Dew makes every crazed, emotional,
wrong-headed assumption AND THE FAMILY LIVES THROUGH IT.
Well, this has little to do with film but couldn't resist.
Selden West

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