Return of the Rentboys

Aquaria:

Maybe he can do some ads for Perry in that Brokeback jacket.

The Brokeback jacket wasn’t a Carhatt. And Carhartt clothing is associated with people who work outside in inclement weather, along with politicians who pander to them (e.g., Sarah Palin, and now Rick Perry). Their line has nothing to do with gays. It’s like politicians wearing John Deere hats or sporting Pabst Blue Ribbon decals, or rock stars like Kid Rock whose an expert at pandering to a subset of the same crowd Palin and Hank Williams Jr. pander to as well. We just validate our being out of touch with the fly-over states when we repeat this joke.

Ed reports:

. . . the man set up a website detailing their encounter, and included compromising pictures of Myers in blue Calvin Klein underwear . . .

Where’d he get them with such large letters? I know, Google is my friend. I just never saw a pair focused where a person is paying for the privilege of advertising a brand of underwear rather than one’s own package below. Perhaps there’s a reason he wants to divert our attention to Calvin.

Dead hooker or live boy. The more things change…

slc1:

That entirely misses the point. The jacket worn in the movie, “Brokeback Mountain,” is indistinguishable in appearance from the one that Governor Perry is wearing. Apparently, the governor and his aides and advisers were unaware of the movie or they would have never have set themselves up for the ridicule they are receiving by letting him wear that jacket in the ad. They ducked into the punch.

Uh, no; not even close. This clothing line is not defined by one mere movie about gays, where it wasn’t even featured. Carhartt is instead defined by its large popularity amongst those who Perry, Palin, Kid Rock, and Hank Williams direct their marketing efforts. I know of no other clothing line which can compete with their market share for outdoor work clothes you’re OK with getting dirty. They’re insulated overalls are especially dominant in my area since we have harsh winters here.

You can make a good argument Perry’s pandering to rural populists by wearing work clothes which he’s never done a lick of work in himself. Most of us who wear this line of clothes are not worried about getting them dirty in a way you can’t launder out – as ZZ Top sang about their blue jeans, “you can tell by the oil and gasoline”. But you only embarrass yourself by pointing to one character in one movie and claiming Perry’s out of touch when in fact it’s those comparing this coat to a similar one worn in a movie who are out of touch, precisely because they validate their ignorance regarding its authentic popularity. This is not a close call.

Carhartts are even popular in my line of work. I’m an auditor, but because I have to go to foundries and forges, cotton Carhartts are considered standard protective equipment. Trust me, you want that many layers of a fabric that won’t melt on you when molten metal hits it.

Given the large number of styles they are available in, I do find it surprising that Perry’s costumer would select that one.

Re the actual topic:

I wish I could say I was surprised.

While I haven’t read any family values policy statements by Chris Myers, his party affiliation alone should get the hypocrisy barb thrown in his direction. His sexual repression has lost him a budding political career and sidelined a management position at Lockheed Martin.

If his political fall had not occurred so early, he might have ended up pulling a Larry Craig after many years of public service probably fighting vehemently against LGBT rights to cover if desires. A society that placed more emphasis on intelligence and honesty over self-interest and demagoguery might have saved this fool.

The issue is that the governor records an advertisement bashing gays in which he is seen wearing an overcoat indistinguishable in appearance from one worn by a gay character in a popular movie. This has opened him up to ridicule on the internet

…which, as Michael Heath points out, makes about as much sense as ridiculing the governor because both he and Heath Ledger were shown wearing jeans. That is, it’s far from clever. If you want to mock the Rick Perry ad, this parody is the way to do it.

Then, to avoid real or imagined misdirection of his message, he ought to have appeared nude? Oh . . . just a minute . . . .

The only problem is that those folks don’t visit the web sites, if they even surf the internet, where the ridicule is occurring.

What is life like living inside a smug cloud?

Indeed. You seem to revel in your ignorance of a large proportion of your fellow Americans.

@carlsonjok #18

Given the type of people politicians like Perry and Palin represent, isn’t a certain level of ignorance simply self-preservation?

Regarding the Carhartt issue, it really is a problem to say, “Oh, wow, he’s wearing that same jacket.” and make an issue of it. Let’s turn it around: In Philadelphia, Tom Hank’s character, being a lawyer, wears a business suit and neck tie. Imagine a sizable portion of the populace clucking excitedly over all those politicians wearing “those gay suits from Philadelphia”.

No! I hope you can see how fucking ridiculous it would be to make that connection based on such common clothing. What it says to me, as a Kansas native, is that a lot of my fellow liberal atheists really are out of touch with the reality that a not insignificant portion, and that’s not a good thing to be saying.

The joke is entirely about making an anti-gay video with such a similar appearance.

It is only a funny-ha-ha to people who apparently mistake their own ignorance for some sort of superiority.

Would it be funny if someone laughed at President Obama for criticizing Republicans while playing golf at a country club because, you know, rich white people play golf at country clubs? No, it wouldn’t. And doing the same thing to Rick Perry isn’t funny either just because he is an odious dunce.

It is only a funny-ha-ha to people who apparently mistake their own ignorance for some sort of superiority.

Huh? That’s simply bullshit. How do you come to such wild conclusions?

If Obama makes an ad in which he plays Golf and, at the same time, makes this criticism, he and the responsible campaign team should be ridiculed and the team should be fired. You want to strip the context and misrepresent what is seen as funny in order to be insulted as a flyover American.

I think the assumptions made about liberal coastal “elitists” here are quite surprising.

“why are you all so sure that all liberal think Carhartts are gay jacket?”

Because that’s what the joke is: “Doesn’t Rick Perry look like that gay guy?”

Sure. Maybe. Possibly, he looks like that one gay character from a movie. Why? Because he’s wearing a tan Carhartt jacket in an outdoor setting. I dare you to give me some other reason somebody would make that connection. So what people who make that joke are saying is that Perry looks like that one gay guy from the movie, because of the jacket. So, the jacket makes the faggot, so to speak.

PROTIP: The majority of people who work outdoors in the central and western US wear clothing that’s very similar to that same jacket. That’s not a small number. I’m talking hundreds of thousands. Probably millions. To completely gloss over their existence and jump straight to the gay character is offensive to me both as a gay man and as a Kansan.

Eh, I should proofread more carefully. I forgot to respond to the challenge Chris from Europe gave me. I neglected to point to an actual example of a homophobic video with suits and ties because I brought it up as a hypothetical parallel. I didn’t say “I saw this video with suits and ties and homophobia…” I even used the word “Imagine” come on, you can read better than that.

The joke isn’t simply that these things are given, but that the topic of the video for which he chose that is showing that he is as anti-gay as possible.

Politicians say anti-gay things all the time. Homophobia isn’t funny. The joke doesn’t work without Perry looking like the gay character. So, the joke isn’t that he’s saying anti-gay things, it’s that he’s saying anti-gay things while looking like a gay character. Why does he look like a gay character? Because he’s wearing a tan Carhartt jacket in an outdoor setting. I could continue to address your point again, but I refer you to my post #28 above.

I’m also gay, but not full of it.

I’m not full of it, either. I brought up the fact that I’m gay and from Kansas solely to avoid the appearance of being offended on behalf of others. Truthfully, I’m not that annoyed by the joke. I’m annoyed that the people making the jokes don’t realize how out of touch they look.

Do you have an actual non-emotional argument why it’s offensive?

Offense is entirely an emotional thing. What empirical test can I do to establish offense? Carefully extract the chemical essence of insult and measure its properties?

PPROTIP: Outdoor workers owning similar jackets are not limited to your geography. Liberal America is not limited to California.

Two points: Cool, more people wear that jacket than I originally pointed out. This helps your argument how? From where I sit, that just makes the joke in question more absurd. Secondly, I never said liberal America is limited to California. If I implied it, I apologize for not making myself clear. However, perhaps the fact that I pointed out that I am a gay liberal from Kansas would indicate that I don’t hold the belief that you imply I do.

Does anyone really think people don’t know that it’s a normal way of clothing?

Umm, yes. If it’s normal, there is nothing at all remarkable about it being worn both by a gay movie character and a homophobic politician. The fact that people are treating it as remarkable shows that they don’t know it’s normal.

He could have used a different brown, etc. It’s the fact that he in many factors comes that close with this topic.

Oooh, I see now! It’s not the Carhartt jacket that makes him look gay, it’s the brown Carhartt jacket that makes him look gay! That changes everyth- No wait. Same rebuttal still applies. I’m pretty sure it would apply pretty much no matter what it was that he wore. If he wore a suit, he’d look like the Tom Hanks character that I mentioned before. If he wore a button-down shirt with slacks, he’d look like any number of generic “sharp-dressed gay guy” characters from TV shows. If he wore a feather boa with sequins and heels… No, that one’s too silly. The point is that no matter what he wore, he’d look like some famous gay dude. Once you’ve reached that point, you have to recognize that the joke isn’t a joke about the irony of being homophobic while having a similar appearance to a gay character, it’s just a “gay joke”.

Of course, nobody who makes this claim here convincingly shows that these people are actually out of touch or. At least, you added “they look”. Does anyone really think people don’t know that it’s a normal way of clothing? (So what?)

The joke seems to rely on the instant recognizability of that color and style of jacket. The thing is, given that so many people dress up like that, why would somebody jump straight to Brokeback Mountain? I mean, if he wore a black rubber suit with cape and mask, sure, he’d definitely look like Batman. However, “brown carhartt jacket” is so fundamentally common and unremarkable that to make a joke connecting it to that particular character would lead people – or at least myself – to assume that the person making the joke has never visited the geographic and demographic sectors where the jackets are common, and instead gets their information from the movies about the area… That is to say, it makes people think you’re out of touch because you don’t recognize how unremarkable it is to see somebody wearing one of those. To return to my Philadelphia example: You have a popular movie portraying a gay character who dresses in a suit and tie. Somebody sees the movie and, instead of recognizing that the suit and tie is normal attire for professionals like lawyers, assumes that the outfit is somehow a marker of the gay nature of the character. Just how fantastically out of touch with culture does that person have to be to make that mistake?

That’s exactly how out of touch you have to be to assume that the particular type of brown Carhartt jacket is significant of a gay man, as opposed to simply signifying a person who works outdoors, needs tough clothes that stand up to abuse, and likes that shade of brown.

You could at least describe why you feel offended in a more detailed manner. You could also try to find an explanation for your emotion. Of course, just that someone is offended doesn’t mean that other people have to honor it.

Fair enough. As a liberal, I don’t like it when fellow liberals misunderstand or appear to misunderstand social issues – even small ones like jokes about clothes. We’re liberals, man, we’re supposed to have a better awareness of society and the people around us. As a gay man, I don’t like it when part of a joke is “this man looks like he’s gay”. I get that the overall point is the irony involved, and not just the gayness, but it’s still there. As a Kansan, I certainly do feel like the more rural segments of our society are glossed over when a joke that’s getting a lot of “air-time” fundamentally misinterprets an article of clothing characteristic of that rural segment. (And I do know that they’re not just a country thing. Welders and other “mechanic” types love them, too.)

Finally, I’m aware that nobody has to change their behavior because somebody is offended. Some people are offended that I even exist, and I’m certainly not changing that for their benefit.

Oooh, I see now! It’s not the Carhartt jacket that makes him look gay, it’s the brown Carhartt jacket that makes him look gay!

You can’t stay honest, hm? It’s obviously not making him look gay. It’s just ironic that in an attack ad against people that also includes the effort to pander to a certain subset he dons clothes everyone knows he doesn’t usually wear and comes really close to the promotion pictures of the movie. Somehow it must offend you so much that you have to lie and twist. And then you go on and try to strip the context … It’s just too stupid. I’ve had it.

We’re liberals, man, we’re supposed to have a better awareness of society and the people around us.

You would think, but apparently they don’t need to know us to know better than us.

Well, I’ve found another thing worth responding to:

I certainly do feel like the more rural segments of our society are glossed over

Really? Aren’t they overrepresented compared to the share of the population? Of course, in the media there’s a clear focus on big cities or cities in general. Rural experience seems to be for more exotic television channels and sometimes the places are treated as an open-air zoo. But in politics rural states are clearly overrepresented.

We’re liberals, man, we’re supposed to have a better awareness of society and the people around us.

I think that the liberals here usually have no problem mocking the people around us that are easily and irrationally offended. I don’t see urban liberals being offended about jokes involving typical aspects of their lives and stereotypes, but usually being able of some self-deprecation.

Chris from Europe:

I’m pretty sure that Carhartt offers more than one style for their jackets. Or is that exact color necessary to be able to pander to Middle America?

They offer multiple styles and colors. However the color Gov. Perry is wearing is the both the dominant color, by far, and the color which makes a Carthatt so distinguishable from other brands. In fact if you see this color and it’s not a Carhartt, it’s safe to assume it’s knock-off looking to leverage the Carhartt brand. It’s also important to note that at least in my area, it’s the overalls in that same color that are most observed. I happen to have two pairs.

It also should also be pointed out again that if one were to focus on Gov. Perry wearing this jacket for the obvious reason of pandering, it’s that he’s clearly a poseur since this coat’s so immaculate. For most wearers, the unworn look ends after a couple of wears.

Maybe Lil’ Ricky shouldda worn something like this. No one would called him a Freind of Narnia is this fabulous outfit!

Dingo

OK Michael let’s look at some numbers:

Total rural population of America: ca. 56,381,768*

Total world-wide sales of Brokeback Mountain: $180,343,761**

Asumming $20 a ticket that’s ca. 9,

Poot! Here are some footnotes!

Dingo

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* CIA World factbook. United States of America.

** Sales figures from here