So, the Dianna Agron thing...

Cool your damn tits, people. I’m sick of your bullshit.

If, perhaps, you’ve been off at meditation retreat in a cave in the mountains or something, and somehow managed to miss this whole ridiculous situation, then good for you. In my opinion, you win, but I’ll fill you in anyway.

So, at the Glee Live show in Toronto, Dianna Agron wore a t-shirt that said “Likes Girls” during the Born This Way number, instead her usual “Lucy Caboosey” shirt. AND THE INTERNET FREAKED THE FUCK OUT.

People thought maybe this was a statement about the character of Quinn that would effect season 3, or maybe it was Dianna herself coming out as a lesbian. But then Dianna wrote an essay on her blog about how she did it to show support for the queer community, and all sorts of nice things like that. AND THEN THE INTERNET FREAKED THE FUCK OUT AGAIN.

People were getting pissed off because Dianna isn’t really gay, and were all offended because she got out there and made this statement, but at the end of the day she can take the shirt off and not have to deal with any of issues that come with being a queer person. And how dare she. And what a naive mis-representation. And she can never understand what that really means. And blah blah blah, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Well, first off, are these complaints valid? Maybe. Factually, it’s true, she will never have to bear the burden of being a queer person in this culture at this time, and she can’t ever really know what the feels like. Fine. That’s all true. But here’s the more important question: did wearing that shirt, and coming out in support of the LGBTetc. community do any damage? No.

Well, okay, it pissed off the power queers, but, jesus, what doesn’t piss off the power queers?

But there’s an even more important question: did her actions do any good? I can only say yes. Look around. We live in a world where celebrities of any stripe are afraid to come out themselves or to show support for the queer community because of what it might cost them in their career and personal lives. Dianna came forward in a huge way and showed support at the potential for great rick for herself (like, for example, it might cause a media shit storm. Like this one.)

She stepped up and visibly allied herself with the struggle of the queer community while singing, “Don’t hide yourself in regret. Just love yourself and you’re set. I’m on the right track, baby I was born this way.” How can you not see how incredible that is?

Because, here’s the thing. Straight allies are possibly the most important factor when it comes to the gay rights movement. Why is that, you ask? Because of all the reasons that people threw a fit over when she wore the shirt: because straight people are the majority power; because they will never have to live with the consequences of being queer; because they can go on with their lives, love whoever they want to love, have no association with the LGBT community, and never have to suffer for any of it; because they can never really understand how it feels. To have someone in Dianna’s position show such outspoken and unfailing support of a community that is not her own, with no small amount of risk to herself, is the most moving, heartfelt, progressive thing someone could do right now.

Was the way she went about it perfect? Maybe not. And that might be worth discussing, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter. In my opinion, what she did was no different than a straight ally going to a pride parade and waving a rainbow flag. Would anyone have a problem with that?

This is something that happens within repressed minorities: they ban together and form a group identity based on their shared experience. And that’s great; it’s how we get shit done. But the unfortunate side-effect is that people within those groups become very proprietary. They say, “this is our stuff. This is how we look, and how we act, and what we experience, and no one else gets to be a part of it because it’s ours, and no one else can possibly understand it.” What they lose sight of is that this line of thinking just further perpetuates their own social othering. It makes them their own class, separate from the rest of society, which is the exact opposite of what we actually want to accomplish here.

And guess what: being offended doesn’t make you a hero. Going on tirades about how offended you are doesn’t further your cause or make you a good person. It actually makes people less likely to listen to you and hinders the overall cause, because your attitude and response pushes people away. You say,”I am so offended. I can’t believe you would do [X], and what kind of person actually thinks that’s okay?” When, in these types of situations, we should be saying, “I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, but the way you’re going about it isn’t doing what you think it’s doing.” We should be having calm, rational conversations based on empathy, not shouting angry manifestos from the PC police.

Not everyone who tries to help is going to get it right every time, especially if they’re not a part of the group they’re trying to help, but we should be looking at the intention and the effects of those actions, not flipping out over the details.

I can not reasonably see anything to be angry at Dianna Agron about, so maybe we should all just keep calm and stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

I hate when TV/books/movies try to draw ultimate conclusions on big, meaning-of-life type stuff

Not that I necessarily disagree with any particular conclusion, I just don’t feel like that’s a place for fiction. I don’t think anyone get’s to say “There. That’s the answer. Problem solved.” Fiction is the place to make people ask questions and think about things complexly and consider different points of view, not to be fed which conclusions they should draw about the world.

I bring this up because I just watched an episode of a show which seemed to say spirituality and/or God is the answer to your problems. You know that feeling that you get sometimes, like you’re a broken, helpless thing that’s all alone in the world? It’s because you don’t have any religion.

I find this troubling.

It’s a similar feeling to the one I had after finishing Battlestar Galactica, when, after making us wonder about the tough questions surrounding religion and the meaning of life and what it means to even be alive, they said, outright, yes, there is some sort of higher power at work. Everything does indeed happen for a reason. Faith is the answer to all our problems.

I don’t like when this happens, and not just because I’m not particularly religious myself and I don’t believe that faith is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. It bothers me because I don’t believe any person should take on that authority. Spirituality, even the absence of spirituality, is a personal journey, and no person should try to say they have the answers because no one does. No one can prove, beyond any question or doubt, that there is or is not a god. So to try to assert that you have any sort of definitive answer to the big, philosophical questions is just a level of pretentiousness that I can not tolerate.

And here’s an idea: maybe the reason you sometimes feel like a broken, helpless thing that’s all alone in the world is because you are a broken, helpless thing that’s all alone in the world. People are these complicated messes of experience and emotion, and nobody really has anything figured out. And at the end of the day, it’s just you against the world. No matter how many people you love, or how many great things you do or how many people you help, everyone dies alone. When you meet challenges in your life, you are the one that has deal with them. When you screw up, you are the one that has to deal with the consequences. When you lose something you love, you are the only one that feels the overwhelming power of that pain.

You are the only one that experiences your hardships.

Even if you come at this from a religious angle, there is no religion in the world that teaches that when you have a problem, just step back, because some magical higher power is going to swoop in and fix everything for you. It would never sell, because we all know that it would be a lie. The only inarguable truth is this: we are all, in some way or another, going it alone

I think that’s why I find classic hero tales far more compelling than any other narrative style. You have your hero, who never asked to be put in his position, who has no control over the things that are happening to him, but still he sets out on the journey that’s been laid out before him. And he has help. There are people there he can rely on, old masters he can learn from, tools that have been passed down to him. But in the final scene, it’s just him and the villain; Beowulf against the dragon, Luke Skywalker against Darth Vader, Harry Potter against Voldemort. He does it not because he has some absolute answer that everything is going to be alright, or that he has some magical being there at his side to take over when it’s too much for him, but because he has accepted that he must.

That’s why we have stories. Not to tell us what’s good and bad, or to give us all the answers. They’re to prepare us. So that when you’re alone, facing down your own dragon, you’ll have the tools you need to get out alive and, hopefully, fight another day.