Anti-Gay Humor in Sports Media
On Wednesday November 12, WEEI 850AM Sports Radio in Boston produced and aired a recorded skit about the possibility of the 2014 Gay Games taking place in Boston. The skit was filled with tired jokes about gay athletes that we’ve heard a thousand times over. For example, in the skit, one of the characters - a reporter on the scene of the future Gay Games - comments that “the Gay Games flame is coming into the stadium, his name is Bruce and he’s from San Francisco.”
Click here to hear the audio.
It’s almost like the producers had a board filled with clichés and threw a dart to pick which one they’d choose. It wasn’t funny 10 or 20 years ago, and it’s even less funny today.
WEEI
According to the Boston Globe, “callers reacted to the news that Boston had been named a finalist to host the 2014 Gay Games with a stream of homophobic jokes and slights, as the show’s hosts cackled with glee and added their own antigay wisecracks.”
The way to stop this kind of juvenile, anti-gay humor is to make your voice heard to the gatekeepers - talk show hosts, producers, general managers, etc - of the media. The gatekeepers need to know that the LGBT community is tired of hearing these same old stereotypes, when there are countless LGBT athletes making their mark all over the country and the world. Ask them to produce fair, accurate and inclusive coverage of the LGBT sporting community and sporting events.
I’m sure if any of the talk show hosts or callers went to a Boston Ironsides Rugby Football Club game or played against a Boston Pride Hockey team they’d realize how amazingly talented and tough LGBT athletes can be, and maybe then the same old tired jokes will end.
Thirty four lesbian & gay athletes from countries as diverse as South Africa, China, Chile and The Philippines have even greater reason to celebrate the New Year. The international Federation of Gay Games has awarded scholarships to these 34 sports & cultural participants so they can attend and participate in the 2010 Gay Games in Cologne, Germany, from July 31st to August 7th.
Ten additional deserving applicants from Indonesia, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, and Sri Lanka have been approved, but won’t be able to go to Germany unless $20,000 in additional scholarship funds are raised. (Games Cologne is separately funding some athletes from Eastern Europe.) Contributions can be made online at http://www.gaygames.com/en/donate/.
“Many of these athletes face challenges that most of us will never experience,” said Paul Oostenbrug, co-chair of the FGG Scholarship Committee. “Where being openly gay or lesbian can risk life or limb, participating in the Gay Games may seem like a luxury. But the experience is extremely moving for them, and offers our scholarship athletes a chance to learn how the LGBT sports movement can be a vehicle for change in their own community. Without a full scholarship, participation would be impossible.”
Gay Games scholarships include travel, room and board, and waived registration fees, plus special leadership and organizational development programs designed to help participants build local capacity for LGBT sports & cultural programs. The FGG’s Scholarship Fund works in cooperation with the host city scholarship program. For the 2010 Gay Games, Games Cologne is separately funding as many as 200 participants from Eastern Europe. There were more than 100 scholarship recipients at the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago.
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