Broken

My brother and I used to fight all the time when we were kids.

It was usually over something stupid like what we were going to watch on our one TV. I was a big fan of The Brady Bunch and General Hospital (this was way back in the Luke and Laura days). Or who’s turn it was to play on whatever video gaming system we had at the time. Colecovision, anyone?

Things usually turned violent. Punches were thrown. Someone was tossed into a wall.

And then it would happen.

They looked something like this.

The peace pipes mounted on a little wooden frame over the basement door would fall and break.

They weren’t real peace pipes. At the time, our house was decorated in a style known as colonial. The peace pipes were long and white and made out of some kind of fragile ceramic material. They were arranged in an X with the heads of the pipes at opposite ends of the wooden frame.

The crash always ended the fight.

My brother would run to get the Scotch tape and superglue. I’d start putting the broken pieces back together. We worked as a team as we raced to get the pipes glued back together and back up on the wall before my mother came home.

This show spoke the truth.

Ironically, it was like that Brady Bunch episode where the boys break Carol’s vase with a basketball. Mom always said don’t play ball in the house.

By the time we were too old to be fighting like that, the peace pipes were in sharp white shards that were held together by tape, luck and sheer will.

Another crash or two, and they would be too broken to put back together.

Luckily, we had stopped fighting by then.

These days, I’m those peace pipes. I’ve fallen too many times to count. I’m in a hundred pieces.

And I worry that the day will come when I’ll be unable to piece myself back together.

 

 

ParaNorman redefines ‘normal’

I took the kids to see ParaNorman a few weeks ago.  It’s a terrific stop-motion animated kids’ flick about Norman, a pre-teen who has the ability to see and communicate with ghosts.

The movie is better than most PG-rated films.  It’s no Despicable Me mind you, but the characters are interesting and some of the jokes and gags are actually funny.

I especially enjoyed a scene in which Norman, his sister Courtney and a zombie are riding in the backseat of the family car.  Norman’s father turns around, wags his chubby finger and gives the three of them the classic if-I-have-to-stop-this-car speech.  It’s funny because there’s a zombie in the backseat.  Zombies make everything fun, even Jane Austen.

The movie is all ABC After School Special as it talks about not being afraid to be yourself and accepting others for who they are.  “You don’t become a hero by being normal,” the movie poster says.

The most significant part, says this lesbian movie watcher, comes at the end when Norman battles a witch and returns the zombies to their graves, saving the town from a paranormal disaster of epic proportion.  Courtney, who has been salivating over the town’s muscle-bound jock, Mitch, for much of the movie, bats her eyelashes and suggests that the two of them catch a movie sometime.

Mitch, voiced by Casey Affleck, consents and says something like: “You’ll love my boyfriend.  He’s a big fan of chick flicks.”

Mitch

Whoa.

It turns out to be a big reveal that really isn’t so big after all.  And, that’s what makes it so great.

Our kids groaned.  I think they get their fill of same-sex coupling at home.

But none of the characters in ParaNorman batted on eye.  Courtney reacts in much the same way that any jilted lover would, regardless of whether her possible paramour’s competing love interest is a man or woman.

The movie got me thinking about other movie and TV characters.  I often think that I came out later in life because there weren’t many Mitch’s around when I was growing up.

My life might have turned out differently if Shirley had kicked Carmine to the curb and abandoned her roommate ruse with Laverne in Season 3.  “Vo-dee-o-doe-doe” would have had a completely different meaning.

Laverne and Shirley

Or, what if Kate and Allie had retired to the same bedroom each night?

During an episode of the show, I once suggested to my college roommate that we continue to cohabitate Kate-and-Allie style after school.

“Uh.  Yeah.  No,” she quickly replied.

At that moment, I realized that most women did not aspire to such a lifestyle.  Personally, I thought the whole Kate and Allie idea was brilliant.  Two women sharing expenses and responsibilities and child rearing, rendering the male role superfluous.

It would be like a slumber party every night of the week, except we’d have to pay rent and buy our own Doritos and not stay up too late because there’s work the next day.  Oh, and the kids.  We better put them to bed before we bake brownies and watch In Her Shoes.  Ah, heck.  We might as well go to bed, too.

Kate and Allie

I can’t help but wonder what my life would have been like if Alice had run off with the Brady Bunch’s free-spirited, world-traveling Aunt Jenny (played by Imogene Coca).  Aunt Jenny might have been a plain Jane in the looks department, but she had a limo (sweet), knew Wilt Chamberlain (score — free NBA tickets) and rubbed elbows with world leaders.  “Sorry, folks, but Aunt Jenny and I will be leaving tonight to have a lot of falafel with Golda Meir,” Alice might say.

Aunt Jenny

Or, what if Lacey had left Harv for Cagney.  Freeing Harv to date Magnum P.I. (a match made in moustache heaven, if you ask me).  Or, if the fireworks between The Facts of Life‘s Jo and Blair erupted into a make-out session in a utility closet on the third floor of Eastland School for Girls.  I can almost hear Mrs. Garrett’s shocked, trilling “Girrrrrrls.”

Of course, there’s always Charlies Angels.  “Once upon a time, there were three little girls …”

Gratuitous Charlies Angels photo

The moral to this story is that the world needs more Mitch’s.  Gay characters who are just that– gay characters.  Not punch lines, or caricatures, or targets or closet dwellers or even grand lessons in tolerance and acceptance.  Just characters who move about in a fictional world in the same exact way that everyone else does.

And, who aren’t afraid to state that they have boyfriends who like chick flicks.

How about you?  Who would like to see playing for team rainbow on the big or small screen?