Sascha Thau
16.08.2002, 19:50
Judd Winick, momentaner Autor von GREEN LANTERN, hat für eben diesen Helden einen schwulen Sidekick in seine Geschichten geschrieben. Das hat für viel Aufregung gesorgt. Soviel das das Thema auch in einer der momentanen beliebtesten US Talkshows namens DONAHUE besprochen werden mußte.
Hier die Abschrift der Sendung:
GARDERE: Phil, thank you very much for having me.
DONAHUE: When we return, “The Green Lantern” comic books take on the subject of gay bashing. And later, a woman who’s suing a public school system for not admitting her daughter because she is white.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DONAHUE: Welcome back. We’re reading a comic book these days and discovering that it isn’t necessarily funny.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the true story.
DONAHUE (voice-over): He was introduced to us on MTV’s “Real World.” He was a roommate of Pedro Zamora, a young man dying of AIDS. Now Judd Winick is a cartoonist for “The Green Lantern.” And he’s introduced a gay character into comic books. No kidding, gay character in a comic book. Is this a good idea? Not everybody thinks so.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
There you are, Judd. Judd, we should say, it’s not the first gay character in a comic book.
JUDD WINICK, WRITER AND CARTOONIST: No, there have been others.
DONAHUE: OK. And, incidentally, this issue is not on the street yet, is it?
WINICK: No, it won’t be out for another month.
DONAHUE: Another month. You’re in for a little bit of a ride here.
Good luck to you.
WINICK: Apparently, yes.
DONAHUE: Let me show them some panels. Here is the gay character coming out. “You hear me? There is nothing wrong with you,” says his friend. “You didn’t choose to be gay. You just are.”
Next panels. “It doesn’t make you bad. Some people say it’s a sin, but I certainly don’t think so.” Remember, this is a comic book. How old is the kid reading this? “It’s just who you are,” says the other character. And it’s OK to talk about it. You can talk about it with me.”
And, “As far as you and me, Terry, I’m flattered, I am. I think someone would be incredibly lucky to have an amazing person like you in their life.” Well...
WINICK: How cool is that?
DONAHUE: That’s very cool. Pedro was your inspiration to this, first of all.
WINICK: Yes, Pedro Zamora, who was my roommate on “The Real World,” eight years back.
DONAHUE: So you spent a lot of time with him on the set, off the set.
You were buddies.
WINICK: Yes.
DONAHUE: And he dies. At what, 20-something?
WINICK: He was 22 years old. He died three months after we finished filming.
DONAHUE: Incidentally, that resulted in this book. You are nothing if not a great pal, really. This is a wonderful memorial here. “Pedro and Me,” selling very well, we should say. Your story.
OK, gay is nothing to be ashamed of. You’re going right at it here.
WINICK: Yes, absolutely. I think it all started-the best way to go at it is two years ago my editor, Bob Schreck, came up with the idea that would satisfy both a good story and, you know, our commie agenda, to create a gay teenager that would be an assistant to Green Lantern during his day job.
And from there, we just let the character develop. He’s a supporting role but he’s in the comic the whole time. And we wanted to put the message out there that, well, you’ve got a super hero who looks to a young man and says he’s got no problem with who he is.
DONAHUE: Right. Now, this is going to send off rockets, if I know the anti-how I describe them?
WINICK: But really, should it? Is it that big a deal?
DONAHUE: Well, no. I’m on your team. I think homophobia kills. You heard the word they called the kid at Santana.
WINICK: Absolutely.
DONAHUE: “If it wasn’t for his shoes, I recognized his shoes before I could recognize his face.” This is about a hate crime. Look at the body here he’s talking about.
WINICK: His boyfriend, talking about...
DONAHUE: “There he was-just lying there. There was so much blood.” You know, kids are 6, 7, 8, read these books. There are folks out there saying, you’re over the line here, Judd. This is too grim, too...
WINICK: Six, 7, 8-year-olds read it. Twelve, 13, 14, 15, 16-year-olds read it. Thirty-two-year-olds read it. We reach a wide audience. And what is the harm in addressing it now?
For so long, comics have been male, hetero, white. You know, just like the rest of the United States. Why can’t we in this medium, which is supposed to be diverse. We have aliens, we have people from different planets. We have people with all these powers.
Why can’t we present kind of a diverse message? I mean, that’s who our readership is. There are gay teenagers out there. There are gay kids out there reading it.
DONAHUE: Yes. Well, we have waiting to talk to you a person who does not think this is a good idea. This will not surprise you.
WINICK: Shocking.
DONAHUE: In just a moment, we’ll give that person a chance to share his thoughts with you. A gay character in a comic. We’ll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DONAHUE: Welcome back. We’ve been talking about homosexuals and gay bashing in comic books for kids with cartoonist Judd Winick. Joining us is a man who thinks it’s a bad idea. He’s the senior director of culture studies at Family Research Council. His name is Peter Sprigg.
Thank you, Mr. Sprigg. Let me just show this. Ever since Al Capp and Daisy May, there are no small breasts in the comic books. We are very definitely-in fact, here’s a bedroom scene. Yada-yada here.
WINICK: He’s proposing.
DONAHUE: Well, that helps a little.
WINICK: Helps a lot, actually. Trying to make an honest woman out of her right there.
DONAHUE: OK, but we’re talking about the gay character which, incidentally, I think is very well-integrated into the story.
WINICK: Thank you.
DONAHUE: And we have the panel showing him coming out, very innocent.
What’s wrong with this, Peter Sprigg?
PETER SPRIGG, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Well, first of all, I disagree with the message in that panel itself, in saying that, you know, you were born gay and so forth. People aren’t born gay. There are psychological forces that contribute to people becoming gay, and to developing same-sex attractions. People choose to engage in homosexual behavior.
WINICK: There is no proof in that and everybody here knows that.
(CROSSTALK)
WINICK: Well, if that’s your jumping off point...
SPRIGG: Just saying that because that panel showed it. That’s one reason we object to it. You know, it’s not so much there’s a problem with having a gay character. It’s because there are untruths being communicated about homosexuality.
WINICK: It’s not an untruth because it’s never been proven.
SPRIGG: It’s never been proven that anybody is born gay.
WINICK: There’s more genetic factors in place than there is anything else.
SPRIGG: None of those have ever been proven. And there’s an abundance of research that shows behavioral factors. Well, you talked about the father. The impact of a relationship with the father is a major factor...
DONAHUE: You’re talking about the last segment, we’re talking about the shooting. So fathers can make gay sons then, huh?
SPRIGG: A poor relationship with fathers and poor relationships with peers can impact that. I don’t know if you want to talk about that or go on to the hate crime issue.
DONAHUE: Do you think gayness is a sin?
SPRIGG: Well, I personally, in my religious conviction, believe that it’s a sin. But I believe that homosexual behavior is undesirable for people to engage in, even if you don’t believe it’s a sin. I believe it’s a threat to the health of the people who engage in it and to public health as well.
DONAHUE: What should we do with all these gay people, Peter?
WINICK: Besides put them in comic books.
DONAHUE: Really, your position obliges you to at least consider the consequences of what you are saying.
SPRIGG: I do not believe we should ever engage in acts of harassment or violence towards them.
WINICK: But you’re perpetuating an environment that causes just that. You’re saying-you’re not actually saying the words it’s a sin, but you’re saying it’s just nearly that.
(CROSSTALK)
SPRIGG: There are people who believe for any reason, for religious or moral reasons, for medical, practical, psychological reasons. People who believe that homosexual behavior is an undesirable thing are not people who are filled with hate. They are not responsible for violence that is committed by people who go off the deep end like this. I’m totally against that.
WINICK: But according to the FBI, there’s 1,000 hate crimes against gays every single year. There were two transgendered teenagers who were shot dead in your hometown in Washington, just two nights ago. Just a couple of blocks from your home, 10 bullets apiece.
SPRIGG: Right. Over 1,000 hate crimes a year against homosexuals. But 30,000 domestic violence incidents a year between homosexual partners - - a rate 20 times higher than the rate of gay bashing.
DONAHUE: Where does that come from, Peter?
SPRIGG: That comes from the Department of Justice statistics.
DONAHUE: The fact is that you’re-the minute you say that gay people are bad, you make it easier to beat them up, especially if you’re young, male, adolescent, maybe a little apprehensive about who you are. That’s the reason.
That’s the reason language, like we heard in Santana High School directed against this shooter, it’s the worst thing you can say to a person if you’re in high school. The worst thing you can do is suggest they’re gay. And you have to help-you really have a responsibility to help us as a society to just step back for a minute and understand how.
SPRIGG: Sure. I think we need to do a better job as a society teaching people that violence and hatred are not the answer to anything.
DONAHUE: So gay people should just be celibate all their lives, is that it? Should just stand there. No intimacy at all, never hold hands?
SPRIGG: There are a lot of people who have successfully come out of the gay lifestyle and are living happy, heterosexual lives right now.
WINICK: And some who pulled right back in. The leader of the movement went back to being homosexual after, what, two or three years?
SPRIGG: I’m not sure who you’re referring to there. But we’re not doing homosexuals any favors by saying it’s OK for you to engage in homosexual behavior, when it leads to all these-you know, you should know more than anybody because of your friend Pedro, who began engaging in homosexual behavior when he was 13 years old. Is that something we want to encourage? Or say, well, it’s OK as long as...
WINICK: You’re right about that. We should have talked about it earlier when he was in school. We should have heard about something when he was 8, 9 years old. We should have talked about sex and sexuality. He would have protected himself and he would never have contracted AIDS. He wouldn’t have died.
Instead, you create an environment where we don’t talk about sex.
Homosexuality is bad. No, you are. You’re saying homosexuality is bad.
Being gay is bad. One thing leads to the other.
SPRIGG: I’m saying there’s a distinction between same-sex attractions and homosexual behavior. Same-sex attractions I believe are a psychological problem which can be overcome. Homosexual behavior I think is bad.
WINICK: Well, can we go back to the old argument...
DONAHUE: Make your point briefly.
WINICK: There’s a comic coming out in a month, which discuss the issue.
DONAHUE: Thank you, both.
Hier die Abschrift der Sendung:
GARDERE: Phil, thank you very much for having me.
DONAHUE: When we return, “The Green Lantern” comic books take on the subject of gay bashing. And later, a woman who’s suing a public school system for not admitting her daughter because she is white.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DONAHUE: Welcome back. We’re reading a comic book these days and discovering that it isn’t necessarily funny.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the true story.
DONAHUE (voice-over): He was introduced to us on MTV’s “Real World.” He was a roommate of Pedro Zamora, a young man dying of AIDS. Now Judd Winick is a cartoonist for “The Green Lantern.” And he’s introduced a gay character into comic books. No kidding, gay character in a comic book. Is this a good idea? Not everybody thinks so.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
There you are, Judd. Judd, we should say, it’s not the first gay character in a comic book.
JUDD WINICK, WRITER AND CARTOONIST: No, there have been others.
DONAHUE: OK. And, incidentally, this issue is not on the street yet, is it?
WINICK: No, it won’t be out for another month.
DONAHUE: Another month. You’re in for a little bit of a ride here.
Good luck to you.
WINICK: Apparently, yes.
DONAHUE: Let me show them some panels. Here is the gay character coming out. “You hear me? There is nothing wrong with you,” says his friend. “You didn’t choose to be gay. You just are.”
Next panels. “It doesn’t make you bad. Some people say it’s a sin, but I certainly don’t think so.” Remember, this is a comic book. How old is the kid reading this? “It’s just who you are,” says the other character. And it’s OK to talk about it. You can talk about it with me.”
And, “As far as you and me, Terry, I’m flattered, I am. I think someone would be incredibly lucky to have an amazing person like you in their life.” Well...
WINICK: How cool is that?
DONAHUE: That’s very cool. Pedro was your inspiration to this, first of all.
WINICK: Yes, Pedro Zamora, who was my roommate on “The Real World,” eight years back.
DONAHUE: So you spent a lot of time with him on the set, off the set.
You were buddies.
WINICK: Yes.
DONAHUE: And he dies. At what, 20-something?
WINICK: He was 22 years old. He died three months after we finished filming.
DONAHUE: Incidentally, that resulted in this book. You are nothing if not a great pal, really. This is a wonderful memorial here. “Pedro and Me,” selling very well, we should say. Your story.
OK, gay is nothing to be ashamed of. You’re going right at it here.
WINICK: Yes, absolutely. I think it all started-the best way to go at it is two years ago my editor, Bob Schreck, came up with the idea that would satisfy both a good story and, you know, our commie agenda, to create a gay teenager that would be an assistant to Green Lantern during his day job.
And from there, we just let the character develop. He’s a supporting role but he’s in the comic the whole time. And we wanted to put the message out there that, well, you’ve got a super hero who looks to a young man and says he’s got no problem with who he is.
DONAHUE: Right. Now, this is going to send off rockets, if I know the anti-how I describe them?
WINICK: But really, should it? Is it that big a deal?
DONAHUE: Well, no. I’m on your team. I think homophobia kills. You heard the word they called the kid at Santana.
WINICK: Absolutely.
DONAHUE: “If it wasn’t for his shoes, I recognized his shoes before I could recognize his face.” This is about a hate crime. Look at the body here he’s talking about.
WINICK: His boyfriend, talking about...
DONAHUE: “There he was-just lying there. There was so much blood.” You know, kids are 6, 7, 8, read these books. There are folks out there saying, you’re over the line here, Judd. This is too grim, too...
WINICK: Six, 7, 8-year-olds read it. Twelve, 13, 14, 15, 16-year-olds read it. Thirty-two-year-olds read it. We reach a wide audience. And what is the harm in addressing it now?
For so long, comics have been male, hetero, white. You know, just like the rest of the United States. Why can’t we in this medium, which is supposed to be diverse. We have aliens, we have people from different planets. We have people with all these powers.
Why can’t we present kind of a diverse message? I mean, that’s who our readership is. There are gay teenagers out there. There are gay kids out there reading it.
DONAHUE: Yes. Well, we have waiting to talk to you a person who does not think this is a good idea. This will not surprise you.
WINICK: Shocking.
DONAHUE: In just a moment, we’ll give that person a chance to share his thoughts with you. A gay character in a comic. We’ll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DONAHUE: Welcome back. We’ve been talking about homosexuals and gay bashing in comic books for kids with cartoonist Judd Winick. Joining us is a man who thinks it’s a bad idea. He’s the senior director of culture studies at Family Research Council. His name is Peter Sprigg.
Thank you, Mr. Sprigg. Let me just show this. Ever since Al Capp and Daisy May, there are no small breasts in the comic books. We are very definitely-in fact, here’s a bedroom scene. Yada-yada here.
WINICK: He’s proposing.
DONAHUE: Well, that helps a little.
WINICK: Helps a lot, actually. Trying to make an honest woman out of her right there.
DONAHUE: OK, but we’re talking about the gay character which, incidentally, I think is very well-integrated into the story.
WINICK: Thank you.
DONAHUE: And we have the panel showing him coming out, very innocent.
What’s wrong with this, Peter Sprigg?
PETER SPRIGG, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Well, first of all, I disagree with the message in that panel itself, in saying that, you know, you were born gay and so forth. People aren’t born gay. There are psychological forces that contribute to people becoming gay, and to developing same-sex attractions. People choose to engage in homosexual behavior.
WINICK: There is no proof in that and everybody here knows that.
(CROSSTALK)
WINICK: Well, if that’s your jumping off point...
SPRIGG: Just saying that because that panel showed it. That’s one reason we object to it. You know, it’s not so much there’s a problem with having a gay character. It’s because there are untruths being communicated about homosexuality.
WINICK: It’s not an untruth because it’s never been proven.
SPRIGG: It’s never been proven that anybody is born gay.
WINICK: There’s more genetic factors in place than there is anything else.
SPRIGG: None of those have ever been proven. And there’s an abundance of research that shows behavioral factors. Well, you talked about the father. The impact of a relationship with the father is a major factor...
DONAHUE: You’re talking about the last segment, we’re talking about the shooting. So fathers can make gay sons then, huh?
SPRIGG: A poor relationship with fathers and poor relationships with peers can impact that. I don’t know if you want to talk about that or go on to the hate crime issue.
DONAHUE: Do you think gayness is a sin?
SPRIGG: Well, I personally, in my religious conviction, believe that it’s a sin. But I believe that homosexual behavior is undesirable for people to engage in, even if you don’t believe it’s a sin. I believe it’s a threat to the health of the people who engage in it and to public health as well.
DONAHUE: What should we do with all these gay people, Peter?
WINICK: Besides put them in comic books.
DONAHUE: Really, your position obliges you to at least consider the consequences of what you are saying.
SPRIGG: I do not believe we should ever engage in acts of harassment or violence towards them.
WINICK: But you’re perpetuating an environment that causes just that. You’re saying-you’re not actually saying the words it’s a sin, but you’re saying it’s just nearly that.
(CROSSTALK)
SPRIGG: There are people who believe for any reason, for religious or moral reasons, for medical, practical, psychological reasons. People who believe that homosexual behavior is an undesirable thing are not people who are filled with hate. They are not responsible for violence that is committed by people who go off the deep end like this. I’m totally against that.
WINICK: But according to the FBI, there’s 1,000 hate crimes against gays every single year. There were two transgendered teenagers who were shot dead in your hometown in Washington, just two nights ago. Just a couple of blocks from your home, 10 bullets apiece.
SPRIGG: Right. Over 1,000 hate crimes a year against homosexuals. But 30,000 domestic violence incidents a year between homosexual partners - - a rate 20 times higher than the rate of gay bashing.
DONAHUE: Where does that come from, Peter?
SPRIGG: That comes from the Department of Justice statistics.
DONAHUE: The fact is that you’re-the minute you say that gay people are bad, you make it easier to beat them up, especially if you’re young, male, adolescent, maybe a little apprehensive about who you are. That’s the reason.
That’s the reason language, like we heard in Santana High School directed against this shooter, it’s the worst thing you can say to a person if you’re in high school. The worst thing you can do is suggest they’re gay. And you have to help-you really have a responsibility to help us as a society to just step back for a minute and understand how.
SPRIGG: Sure. I think we need to do a better job as a society teaching people that violence and hatred are not the answer to anything.
DONAHUE: So gay people should just be celibate all their lives, is that it? Should just stand there. No intimacy at all, never hold hands?
SPRIGG: There are a lot of people who have successfully come out of the gay lifestyle and are living happy, heterosexual lives right now.
WINICK: And some who pulled right back in. The leader of the movement went back to being homosexual after, what, two or three years?
SPRIGG: I’m not sure who you’re referring to there. But we’re not doing homosexuals any favors by saying it’s OK for you to engage in homosexual behavior, when it leads to all these-you know, you should know more than anybody because of your friend Pedro, who began engaging in homosexual behavior when he was 13 years old. Is that something we want to encourage? Or say, well, it’s OK as long as...
WINICK: You’re right about that. We should have talked about it earlier when he was in school. We should have heard about something when he was 8, 9 years old. We should have talked about sex and sexuality. He would have protected himself and he would never have contracted AIDS. He wouldn’t have died.
Instead, you create an environment where we don’t talk about sex.
Homosexuality is bad. No, you are. You’re saying homosexuality is bad.
Being gay is bad. One thing leads to the other.
SPRIGG: I’m saying there’s a distinction between same-sex attractions and homosexual behavior. Same-sex attractions I believe are a psychological problem which can be overcome. Homosexual behavior I think is bad.
WINICK: Well, can we go back to the old argument...
DONAHUE: Make your point briefly.
WINICK: There’s a comic coming out in a month, which discuss the issue.
DONAHUE: Thank you, both.