February 1, 2012 - 8:06pm
The Complete Spectrum: How to really "Be Yourself"
BY CHRIS DYER
The stereotypical image of the gay man has long earned disdain and rejection from society at large. His flailing or limp-wristed hand motions, bouncy walk, high voice and generally female-identified demeanor contradict much of what traditionally minded Americans view as proper masculine behavior. Some even go so far as to say that these mannerisms are an intentional means of annoying other people or “getting in your face with it.” However, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would think that gay men are simply straight men pretending to be someone else — though perhaps that’s because we aren’t looking outside our own country.
In a recently posted 6-minute YouTube video titled “Be Yourself,” a group of young men from the United Arab Emirates shows viewers how to cure a gay man. The video was discussed Monday the 30th in an article from Pink News, a popular European gay news source. Through methods such as teaching the gay man how to emulate the proper body language of other men, cutting his hair and nails, scrubbing him with “scouring cloths,” and of course giving him a slap to remind him to “Thicken [his] voice!,” the video claims that a gay man can be fixed.
It occurs to me that their method is flawed: not only practically, for assuming that homosexuality is linked to one’s personality, but also morally, for assuming that a “gay” personality is something to be fixed. Not to mention, as the article observed, it seems “paradoxical, even laughably ludicrous” to call this video about changing one’s personality “Be Yourself.”
Abdullah, the 24-year-old founder of “Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transexual Rights UAE,” whose interview was in the article, also has criticisms rooted in his personal experience. The video “brought flashbacks to me how on endless hot Friday afternoons I was forced to observe how men interact, or how they drink coffee by my father, so that I should emulate to make him proud,” according to Abdullah.
Moral of the story? “Being yourself” means being YOU, not what people assume you “should” be.
