It’s Just Acting — But Mostly Outraged

“ATLANTA — Saying it would violate his deeply held religious beliefs, area pornographer Chet Kirkendall, a 57-year-old Christian who frequently films explicit amateur videos for his clients, confirmed Friday he had denied service to a gay male couple that wished to hire him to direct their sex tape. ‘I’ve been in this business 25 years, and I strongly believe rim jobs, facials, and other hardcore sex acts should only take place between one man and one woman, or one man and two women, or in some cases five men taking turns with one woman — but never two men,’ said Kirkendall, who told reporters that after a career directing hundreds of gang bangs, scenes of ‘barely legal’ teenagers, and a variety of stepmother-themed material, he wasn’t about to violate his traditional Christian values by filming man-on-man action. ‘I take my work very seriously and am always proud to capture on video the sacred union of a man thrusting deep inside a woman and then cumming on her tits, or sometimes her face. God condones such sucking and fucking, but in His eyes, filming homosexual men bringing each other to orgasm through anal sex or vigorous fisting would be an abomination. It’s right there in the Book of Leviticus.’ Asked whether he also would have denied service to a lesbian couple, Kirkendall refused to give a definitive answer, saying it might be permissible to accept such a job ‘as long as it was two hot chicks.’”

This brilliant story, which I simply had to quote in full, comes from The Onion.

On a more serious note, the actress Ruby Rose has given Twitter the big kiss-off by deleting her account after a whole lot of her fellow tweeters went berserk over the announcement that she’ll play a lesbian Batwoman. Fox News’ Tyler McCarthy reported last week that “Batwoman will be introduced in December during The CW’s annual crossover between its existing DC Comics shows, ‘Arrow,’ ‘The Flash,’ and ‘Supergirl.’ While only the main trio will make up this year’s crossover event, the series all share a single, connected TV universe that also includes ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ and ‘Black Lightning.’ Those shows feature many LGBT characters, but Rose’s Batwoman will be the first to lead a series.”

What is The CW, you may be asking? I had to look it up on Wikipedia. It’s a broadcast television network owned by both CBS and Warner Bros — hence its name, the C coming from CBS and the W coming from Warner Bros.

Rose became teary on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” McCarthy reports: “I feel like the reason I get so emotional, growing up watching TV, I never saw somebody on TV that I could identify with, let alone a superhero. I have always had this saying — I mean, not me, Oscar Wilde — which is ‘Be yourself because everyone else is taken.’ So I always live by that motto, and the second motto when I came into the industry was ‘Be the person that you needed when you were younger.’ I feel like one motto led to another.”

In other words, Rose is an out lesbian, which makes the uproar particularly inexplicable.

McCarthy writes, “Rose’s final tweet before shutting down her Twitter saw her lament the fact that people were saying she can’t play a lesbian character because she is not a lesbian. Rose, however, has identified as a lesbian since she was a child. ‘Where on earth did “Ruby is not a lesbian therefore she can’t be batwoman” come from — has to be the funniest most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read. I came out at 12? And have for the past 5 years had to deal with “she’s too gay” how do y’all flip it like that? I didn’t change,’ she reportedly tweeted prior to deleting her account.”

Syfywire’s Henry Barajas notes that “the Batwoman that Rose is expected to portray was made famous by [authors] Greg Rucka and JH Williams III back in 2010. In the series, the character was expelled from the United States Military Academy for coming out of the closet.”

Barajas adds, “Despite getting praise from ‘Orange Is The New Black’ co-star Laverna [sic] Cox, Green Arrow himself Stephen Amell, and of all people Mariah Carey — it wasn’t enough to stomach the constant bigotted [sic] tweets from users that didn’t know Rose nor [sic] the fictional character is gay.”

So there are two distinct categories of Twitter trolls: those who are upset that Rose is a sexual carpetbagger and those who think that Batwoman shouldn’t be a lesbian. My personal feeling is that anyone who spends that much time on Twitter and gets so worked up over a TV actress’ tweet should turn off their phones, take a double dose of Xanax with a vodka chaser, and shut the fuck up.

Late-breaking news: Disney just announced that it has cast a straight actor in the studio’s first gay movie role. Jack Whitehall, a British comedian, will play what has been described as a “hugely effete, very camp, and very funny” character in “The Jungle Cruise,” which is based on a Disney Parks attraction. Twitterdom went nuts over the fact that this groundbreaking gay character will be played by a straight guy. While I realize that there is a valid point to this critique, it’s also important to acknowledge that it’s acting, and that not so very long ago many straight actors didn’t dare take a gay role lest people assume that they were gay themselves. I find it more upsetting that the studio that once, long ago, made Pinocchio, Bambi, and Dumbo is reduced to finding inspiration in a theme park ride. And no, I wasn’t fond of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” either.

My favorite photo of the pathetic Unite the Right 2 rally held in our nation’s capital last weekend depicts two Antifa counter protesters holding a banner that reads “Nazi Jagoffs Fuck Off.” Unless you are from Pittsburgh, you may not know what a jagoff is. I will teach you.

A jagoff is not a person who jerks off. A jagoff is more like a jackass. Children think nothing of employing the term in school, because people in Pittsburgh use the word jagoff in a way that’s devoid of any sexual connotations. A variation of the term — jaggin’ — is so far removed from any connection to masturbation that a school kid could say it to a teacher and nobody would blink an eye: “I was jus’ jaggin’ ya,” which means something on the order of “I was just pulling your leg.”

So for me, seeing a sign that refers to “Nazi Jagoffs” is a trip dahn memory lane.

Sorry. That should be down memory lane. Once I get going with Pittsburghese, I can’t help myself.

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