hateration, holleration
I'm sure you've all seen the whole thing about how Danny Gokey is a douchebag. I mean, like we didn't already kind of know that? But it's a little different seeing the douchebaggery in motion.
I have a lot of thoughts about this whole episode, and I think I will
So, Gokey. I have to admit, I liked him during auditions. I liked him during Hollywood week. Yeah, I thought it was kind of weird that a guy would try out for Idol a month after his wife died, but having had close family die before, I know that people do things that seem odd to the world at large when they're grieving. Sometimes you just need something good to happen to you; sometimes you just need a big distraction to keep you from remembering that this person is gone and never coming back and there's nothing you can do about it. So I felt for Danny. I empathized with his story.
And then semi-finals happened, and I started losing my empathy. The picture of the dead wife. The tears. The obvious exploitation. The terrible song choice! I could've still forgiven him if he'd been good, but he wasn't, and the judges were basically giving him a rimjob and NAME DROPPING HIM TO KRIS and like, anointing him our new leader or whatever. I am one of those people who hate the producer manipulations (unless the Chosen One is really really good and hot, in which case I can forgive them) so even if I could've liked Danny again at some point, that Simon name-drop was the final straw for me. Gokey was dead to me. I barely even watched his performances. I would just leave the room after finding out what boring song he'd be singing that week, and his "performance" style was just so awkward and... ugh. I was not a fan.
I'd heard about the whole "love in a godly way" thing, but at the same time, I was still willing to cut the guy some slack, being that he was clearly a bit deranged what with his wife's death and his own inability to form a coherent sentence. I know a lot of religious people, of many different faiths, and I thought, well. Maybe spending three months living with an awesome gay dude will teach Danny that we are people, too, and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and humanity like every other person.
I know people who don't agree with The Gay, don't understand it, don't accept it. Some of my own family, in fact, are quite against The Gay. They're not bad people, they're just ignorant and they've spent their entire lives being taught lies about The Gay that lead inevitably to intolerance and hate. I'm lucky that my parents were so awesome, that I grew up around gay people and people from different countries and of different ethnicities. My parents used to rent out our basement to university students, and usually they were foreign students who couldn't get dorm rooms for whatever reason. There was Chi-Chi from Nicaragua, a girl from Thailand who taught me how to play piano, Kuni from Japan, two guys from Mexico, a guy from China who always burned his rice... in Toledo, Ohio, where the population was like 80% white and 30% Jew and there were maybe 2 Asian kids in my high school class and one black family who, of course, my parents happened to be close friends with, the fact that I was exposed to so much diversity is kind of amazing. My mom's best friend was a lesbian called Gail, andshe and her partner Linda lived in the "gay ghetto" of Toledo, the West End, and we'd hang out at their house and wander around the neighborhood during yard sale time. My dad would tell stories about his air force buddies doing circle jerks when they got bored.
It just never occurred to me, growing up, that I should hate someone because of who they were or how they were born. Except for Ronald Reagan, and certain other Evil Republicans, obviously.
But I try to cut other people slack, because they weren't raised with my advantages. I would just like the chance to change their minds, and for them to give me the respect and attention necessary for such a thing. Debate with an open mind; be willing to alter your view based on new evidence. I respect the views of religious people, and sometimes I even envy them their faith, because I think it must be very comforting to believe that there is a higher power watching out for you and that your loved ones go to a better place in death. But in return for my respect, I expect that religious people will follow the tenets of their religion and be knowledgeable about what those tenets ARE.
For Christians, that means that I expect them to have actually read the bible, to have thought about its teachings and the different interpretations thereof, and to follow in Jesus' example not by strict letter-word, but by INTENT and SPIRIT. I was Catholic for about nine years, until I told my mom that I didn't like CCD and the teachers wouldn't explain how virgin birth was possible or why we would want to eat and drink Jesus; my dad was a Jew and never cared if I went or not, and finally my mom gave up the ghost and let me quit. At the age of nine, my bullshit detector was off the charts re: the bible, but I do think that at its heart, Christianity, especially modern-day Christianity, is about following the spirit of Jesus' teachings. Acceptance, love, charity, grace. Alleviating poverty and sickness. Helping people and demonstrating that people will find God through your good actions towards them.
I'm reminded a little of the dearly departed Tammy Faye Bakker, who was kind of crazy but honestly, one of the best examples of true Christian goodness I've ever seen. She accepted everyone, she was one of the first to advocate for victims of the AIDS epidemic. I have watched The Eyes of Tammy Faye probably ten times.
My point being, there are examples of how Christians can be really awesome and amazing people. So I was willing to cut Gokey some slack, thinking, if he's a true Christian and a true believer, just spending time with people like Adam and Kris will open his mind and help him realize that The Gay isn't some scary San Fransisco thing and we don't want to rape your babies or whatever, we just want to live our lives without fear, and we want the same rights as everyone else.
Apparently not. I just think, you know. Danny isn't evil. But he's got a mean spirit. He seems to enjoy humiliating people and putting them down under the guise of a "joke". He's sort of the classic bully type who hides behind his dogma and "how he was raised" to justify his mean-spiritedness. He wants acceptance, but he's unwilling to give it to others. And being the way he is, doing the petty, mean shit that he does while being a public figure? That reflects poorly on the body of people he claims to represent. It reflects poorly on Christians, who are clearly not all created equal. Some of them are much better than others.
In conclusion, Danny Gokey made a douche move, and because he's ignorant and mean-spirited, he will probably never recognize why trying to humiliate someone whose talent he is clearly threatened by is so incredibly far from what Jesus would do. I just really hate hypocrites more than anything else, and for Danny to claim that he's living life according to Jesus' teachings is just ridiculous. Ignorance, fear, hate, and vitriol... those are not what Jesus was trying to save, they were what he was trying to save the world FROM.
Dear Danny Gokey: The amazing Ms Lily Allen has a few choice words for you:
I have a lot of thoughts about this whole episode, and I think I will
So, Gokey. I have to admit, I liked him during auditions. I liked him during Hollywood week. Yeah, I thought it was kind of weird that a guy would try out for Idol a month after his wife died, but having had close family die before, I know that people do things that seem odd to the world at large when they're grieving. Sometimes you just need something good to happen to you; sometimes you just need a big distraction to keep you from remembering that this person is gone and never coming back and there's nothing you can do about it. So I felt for Danny. I empathized with his story.
And then semi-finals happened, and I started losing my empathy. The picture of the dead wife. The tears. The obvious exploitation. The terrible song choice! I could've still forgiven him if he'd been good, but he wasn't, and the judges were basically giving him a rimjob and NAME DROPPING HIM TO KRIS and like, anointing him our new leader or whatever. I am one of those people who hate the producer manipulations (unless the Chosen One is really really good and hot, in which case I can forgive them) so even if I could've liked Danny again at some point, that Simon name-drop was the final straw for me. Gokey was dead to me. I barely even watched his performances. I would just leave the room after finding out what boring song he'd be singing that week, and his "performance" style was just so awkward and... ugh. I was not a fan.
I'd heard about the whole "love in a godly way" thing, but at the same time, I was still willing to cut the guy some slack, being that he was clearly a bit deranged what with his wife's death and his own inability to form a coherent sentence. I know a lot of religious people, of many different faiths, and I thought, well. Maybe spending three months living with an awesome gay dude will teach Danny that we are people, too, and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and humanity like every other person.
I know people who don't agree with The Gay, don't understand it, don't accept it. Some of my own family, in fact, are quite against The Gay. They're not bad people, they're just ignorant and they've spent their entire lives being taught lies about The Gay that lead inevitably to intolerance and hate. I'm lucky that my parents were so awesome, that I grew up around gay people and people from different countries and of different ethnicities. My parents used to rent out our basement to university students, and usually they were foreign students who couldn't get dorm rooms for whatever reason. There was Chi-Chi from Nicaragua, a girl from Thailand who taught me how to play piano, Kuni from Japan, two guys from Mexico, a guy from China who always burned his rice... in Toledo, Ohio, where the population was like 80% white and 30% Jew and there were maybe 2 Asian kids in my high school class and one black family who, of course, my parents happened to be close friends with, the fact that I was exposed to so much diversity is kind of amazing. My mom's best friend was a lesbian called Gail, andshe and her partner Linda lived in the "gay ghetto" of Toledo, the West End, and we'd hang out at their house and wander around the neighborhood during yard sale time. My dad would tell stories about his air force buddies doing circle jerks when they got bored.
It just never occurred to me, growing up, that I should hate someone because of who they were or how they were born. Except for Ronald Reagan, and certain other Evil Republicans, obviously.
But I try to cut other people slack, because they weren't raised with my advantages. I would just like the chance to change their minds, and for them to give me the respect and attention necessary for such a thing. Debate with an open mind; be willing to alter your view based on new evidence. I respect the views of religious people, and sometimes I even envy them their faith, because I think it must be very comforting to believe that there is a higher power watching out for you and that your loved ones go to a better place in death. But in return for my respect, I expect that religious people will follow the tenets of their religion and be knowledgeable about what those tenets ARE.
For Christians, that means that I expect them to have actually read the bible, to have thought about its teachings and the different interpretations thereof, and to follow in Jesus' example not by strict letter-word, but by INTENT and SPIRIT. I was Catholic for about nine years, until I told my mom that I didn't like CCD and the teachers wouldn't explain how virgin birth was possible or why we would want to eat and drink Jesus; my dad was a Jew and never cared if I went or not, and finally my mom gave up the ghost and let me quit. At the age of nine, my bullshit detector was off the charts re: the bible, but I do think that at its heart, Christianity, especially modern-day Christianity, is about following the spirit of Jesus' teachings. Acceptance, love, charity, grace. Alleviating poverty and sickness. Helping people and demonstrating that people will find God through your good actions towards them.
I'm reminded a little of the dearly departed Tammy Faye Bakker, who was kind of crazy but honestly, one of the best examples of true Christian goodness I've ever seen. She accepted everyone, she was one of the first to advocate for victims of the AIDS epidemic. I have watched The Eyes of Tammy Faye probably ten times.
My point being, there are examples of how Christians can be really awesome and amazing people. So I was willing to cut Gokey some slack, thinking, if he's a true Christian and a true believer, just spending time with people like Adam and Kris will open his mind and help him realize that The Gay isn't some scary San Fransisco thing and we don't want to rape your babies or whatever, we just want to live our lives without fear, and we want the same rights as everyone else.
Apparently not. I just think, you know. Danny isn't evil. But he's got a mean spirit. He seems to enjoy humiliating people and putting them down under the guise of a "joke". He's sort of the classic bully type who hides behind his dogma and "how he was raised" to justify his mean-spiritedness. He wants acceptance, but he's unwilling to give it to others. And being the way he is, doing the petty, mean shit that he does while being a public figure? That reflects poorly on the body of people he claims to represent. It reflects poorly on Christians, who are clearly not all created equal. Some of them are much better than others.
In conclusion, Danny Gokey made a douche move, and because he's ignorant and mean-spirited, he will probably never recognize why trying to humiliate someone whose talent he is clearly threatened by is so incredibly far from what Jesus would do. I just really hate hypocrites more than anything else, and for Danny to claim that he's living life according to Jesus' teachings is just ridiculous. Ignorance, fear, hate, and vitriol... those are not what Jesus was trying to save, they were what he was trying to save the world FROM.
Dear Danny Gokey: The amazing Ms Lily Allen has a few choice words for you:
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