Oct. 26, 2011 - Issue #836: Winter Guide 2011
Queermonton
Men with two faces
Conservative party "It Gets Better" video an insult
One has to wonder who at the Conservative party floated the idea to shoot an "It Gets Better" video. Nothing like the party that strips you of your rights telling you why you ought to keep slogging through. Inexplicably, the party listened and to commemorate last Thursday's Spirit Day it released its own version, featuring an array
of Conservative politicians.
Titled and edited like a PSA, it's quite an awkward video. Dedicated to Jamie Hubley, it starts off with two badly synced but heartfelt messages from two unknown people. Then it's a parade of 10 MPs and one Senator telling the camera that "it gets better" in the most robotic way possible, followed by a recommendation to ask for help when you need it. These same lines are then repeated by each speaker for no apparent reason. The only individuals to say anything unique are the two speakers from the beginning who are not politicians. The rest not only read obviously from a cue card, they appear to offer what's probably a line off the back of a Kids Help Phone brochure. They don't talk about anything queer or related to bullying and they never say anything controversial—like the word "gay."
It's almost funny—so absurd, late to the game and off-mark. All speakers featured have bad voting records on queer issues. Vic Toews is vehemently anti-gay marriage and he along with Mike Wallace, Rona Ambrose, David Sweet and Deepak Obhrai all voted against it in 2006. The video includes Don Meredith, a former pastor who believes being gay is a choice. I suppose then that it gets better once you decide to stop being gay? Of the 10 MPs featured, only Shelly Glover and John Baird voted for Bill C-389, last session's gender identity protections. These are the people who can make it better and at every turn it seems they have chosen not to.
Last year for Spirit Day, a day on which many MPs wore purple to show their support against homo/transphobic bullying, Stephen Harper wore a tie with minor purple stripes, as if he could tell supporters he was wearing it for them and deny it to anyone else. His absence from the video his party members released just might be the most heinous part of this indignity. I don't need to tell you that Jack Layton had made one, and even Michael Ignatieff's isn't half bad. The video's an affront on it's own, but Harper's absence is a noticeable slight to queer Canadians. If any of these members really did believe what they were saying, they can be sure they don't have any support from the top.
All I can hope is that somewhere over in Inuvik or Antigonish a young gay dude caught that video and managed to watch the whole thing—looked into the eyes of the worst kind of men with two faces like Vic Toews and Mike Wallace—took his pain and outrage and turned it inward in the right way, into strength, and he realized that he had to keep going, finish school and make a real life for himself so that he can get them out of power. Somebody has to. V
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