Boosie Badazz.
So, this person I had not heard of before has decided that the world at large has just gone too far – the gay is in cartoons, oh no! Why, it’s a terrible thing for kids to see themselves represented as normal.
“Gay panic” hysteria over LGBT-inclusive children’s programming is usually the purview of the falsely named One Million Moms, but rapper Boosie Badazz recently brought those fears into the mainstream when he told VladTV that cartoons are making kids gay.
The Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based rapper told DJ Vlad last month that television in general is “trying to make everybody fucking gay.”
“They’re putting it everywhere,” he continued. “Gay stuff is everywhere. … You got cartoons that have gays. On cartoons! These are kids. Let kids make their own decision if they wanna go that way. Six- and seven-year-old, five-year-old, shouldn’t be turned onto gay cartoons when their mind not even developed yet. What if they like how that cartoon talk? Now, you’re forcing them to be gay. Every TV show has gays. They’re kissing each other. It’s out of hand.”
Oh, kissing. Yes, that’s terrible. All those hetero people better stop that, right now. None of that hand holding, either.
“Everywhere you go, they’re forcing this gay stuff,” he said. “It wasn’t like that when I was coming up. The Ninja Turtles wasn’t kissing. You know what I’m saying? It wasn’t like that. The Flintstones wasn’t — they didn’t have two men on The Flintstones kissing, you know. The Jetsons wasn’t kissing. Everywhere you go they trying to do that, and they doing it for monetary gain. They not doing it cause they love the gays.”
Last time I looked, no one was making me, or anyone else watch television, let alone specific programs. I’m pretty sure you can still hang in the stone ages with Fred if you really want to do so.
But those sobering statistics appear to be lost on Badazz, who concluded his rant on VladTV by promising that if his child was gay,”I would probably slap his ass back straight.”
“I’m gonna kick his ass,” the rapper continued. “Maybe he’ll realize he’s not gay. But if I can’t stop him from being gay, I’m not gonna ban my son from my life. I’ll just have to find some crazy ass way to deal with it.”
Later during the same interview with VladTV, Badazz, a father of seven, said that he was looking for women with whom he could have three more children, so that he could make good on a promise he made to his grandmother to give her 10 great-grandchildren.
Though Badazz says he “doesn’t hate gay people at all,” it’s no secret that hostile attitudes like those the rapper is espousing contribute to the perception that LGBT lives, sexualities, and gender identities are deviant and inherently not kid-friendly.
If you ever wonder why bigotry just doesn’t die, there’s why.
The Advocate has the full story.
I will never cease to be amazed that there exist people who believe people can be “made gay”. What I have to assume is that they mean that they would be susceptible to being “made gay”, and assume everyone else is like them -- i.e. totally gay already, dude, just trying not to admit it.
Meanwhile if seeing gay characters on television when you were a kid made you gay, there would be no heterosexual men under the age of about 50 anywhere in the UK. And last I checked, there’s definitely at least one.
Sonofrojblake:
In this case, I think it’s the idea that children can be easily influenced, but as you note, that’s not how orientation works. I got a distinct whiff of religious thought underpinning the whole thing, impure thoughts and all that.
This cat is way too young to have the Flintstones and Jetsons be from “his day”. They were “my day”, all right — I saw them first run in network prime time. Jonny Quest, too, which was more my thing (budding nerd that I was).
It’s true that non-cis relationships are more visible these days, in all media (think webcomics, for example, compared to old comic books or newspaper strips). And that’s a good thing. Kids who see those relationships portrayed as normal are far less likely to grow up to be bigots. They will be living in a world where marriage equality is the norm.
DonDueed:
Me too. I loved Jonny Quest back in the day. Jonny and Hadji’s relationship was seriously close, as was Doc Quest and Race. A lot of people thought there were serious gay currents to those cartoons, and I remember getting that vibe myself when I was young.
Things that were part of my baby queer thoughts growing up:
Sandy in Grease going all domme on Danny at the end of the movie.
Sigourney Weaver in basically anything.
Q’s obvious crush on Picard on Star Trek; The Next Generation.
Mulan and everything about Ming-Na Wen’s very existence.
Jessica Rabbit.
All that cross-dressing in Shakespeare and things based on Shakespeare.
Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
No kissing required. My poor little brain was just hungry for anything, anything at all, to relate to. Or crush on and not entirely understand why. We’re going to exist no matter, but gosh it’d be nice to get more representation so all kids can see themselves reflected back at them as part of the world.
I presume I am not the only one who finds it jarring that this nutter is whingeing about “men kissing” — which is supposedly a “reason” for a recent attack on a nightclub.
Blf:
No, you aren’t alone in that, but as I find every day, this sort of ‘reasoning’ is depressingly common here in the States.