Newsworthiness or Prejudice?

I posted a first version of this article last week in French. After the situation evolved, and considering my international readers (yes, all two of you), here is an updated version in English.

When I received the e-mail notifying me of the publication of the newsletter of the French Consulate in Houston, Le Trait d'Union (the title means "The Hyphen," but the French phrase evokes the sense of "connection" better than the English word, and therefore implies that it is a means to connect the local French community), I was surprised that one of its articles was entitled Portrait of Annise Parker, First Homosexual Woman in the Houston City Hall.

Upon reading the content, it was clear that while it stated her history, competence, and summed up her campaign, the newly elected mayor's sexual orientation was indeed a key aspect for the author. The article was certainly positive in its tone, but I tended to dismiss this as rather insignificant, because how else was an official publication of a foreign government going to talk about the mayor of its host city anyway? But the tabloid title rubbed me the wrong way.

I then discovered that the newsletter contained no link to respond to the editor, which made me feel like the Consulate only cared about one-way communication, a very "regal" French way of doing things (the French actually use the word régalien to refer to things that authorities do in a way that is reminiscent of the omnipotent kings).

So I composed my very critical (surprise!) response to the Consulate as an open letter, which I posted here and was reflected in my Facebook status. A local French friend saw this, and sent me the contact information for the Consulate's press service, to which I sent the same message in an e-mail. I very quickly got an e-mail back from an official, containing a personal response from the Consul General, Mr. Grandjouan, and I had a nice phone discussion with the gentleman who had relayed the response.

The gist of the reply was that many publications has focused on the new mayor's orientation; that she was very open about being a lesbian; and that it was important to mention this because people tend to have a false image of all Texans as very conservative people. Therefore, the argument went, the article was trying to point out how positive and progressive her election was.

While I acknowledge that there was probably no actual prejudice at work here, and I appreciate the communication effort and the personal attention the Consul gave to my criticism, I still think that the focus on "first gay woman in City Hall" in the title was inappropriate. It would have been fine to talk in the article about the "conservatism" issue. For example, the writer could have written that Ms. Parker has long served the local community as an openly gay woman, that her sexual orientation was not an issue in the campaign (until a last-minute desperate maneuver by her opponent), and that her victory demonstrates that Houstonians are not as socially conservative as people tend to depict Texans in general. This would have been fine in the body of the piece — but you can't claim that something is a non-issue... then try to grab the reader's attention by making it an issue worthy of the headline.

It is also a little ironic that a French publication refers to the sexuality of the Houston mayor in a headline in 2010, given that in 2001 Paris elected a mayor whose homosexuality was public knowledge since 1998. It almost sounded like the author of the article on Ms. Parker had not heard of Mr. Delanoë.

More generally, this reminded me of the general debate about invisibility vs. recognition in the LGBT community. Some people might point out that we are in general trying to be recognized for our presence, contributions, and need of equality. But equality precisely implies that our sexual orientation should not be newsworthy — it is its still-rampant denial that should be.

Of course, what is and should be much more important to the French representatives in Houston, and was completely omitted from the article, is this: in the current climate of a still lingering recession, what will the new mayor do to control its impact on her city? And incidentally, how can the strong French community in Houston, including all the French who work in the Oil & Gas industry, be involved in a mutually beneficial manner in the economic workings of this city?

Apollo, Hush, and Fancy Free

After a bit of a dry spell, I went to the Houston Ballet tonight and saw three good pieces. And since the season's Playbill has Connor Walsh on the cover, about whom I wrote before ("Arts and Politics, part II" on February 23, 2008, and "Icing on the Cake" on November 7 of the same year), I came back with a little prize besides having seen a great performance:

All three pieces had the common quality of combining great choreographers with great musicians. Apollo is by George Balanchine, on music by Stravinsky. However, composed in 1928, this is both relatively early Stravinsky and very early Balanchine. Interestingly, this means the score is more classical — not sense-jarring and almost cacophonous like the Rite of Spring — while the choreography is more modern than what Balanchine became known for later, even though it is based on Greek mythology. At least I was positively surprised.

Hush is by Christopher Bruce, who also choreographed Swang Song, the piece danced by Mr. Walsh that I commented on in my post two years ago. The dancing, while inventive, did not strike me as particularly extraordinary, but the accompaniment by Bobby McFerrin and Yo-Yo Ma, with McFerrin's amazing ability to make his voice sounds like various sorts of musical instruments, added an extra dimension.

Fancy Free is a fascinating piece, not only because of its inherent qualities, but because it was premiered in 1944, and one might have almost found it sacrilegious to feature sailors on leave while WW II was still going on. But the other interesting aspect is that while it is a very traditional "boys chase girls" story, the guys try to win the girls by demonstrating their not-very-macho footsteps, there are gestures that hint at the traditional semi-funny, semi-homophobic jokes that guys can make about each other... and then both the music and the dance were composed by two of the biggest closet queens in New York's so-very-gay artistic world, Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein!

I got my autograph in the Wortham Center's Green Room after the performance, and had time to chat a little with Mr. Walsh. I complimented him on giving a very complex dimension to his character in Fancy Free: especially during the duo dance with one of the girls, his sailor had at times the cocksure attitude you would expect of a slightly drunk sailor on leave in New York; at times, the hesitancy and shyness of a corn-fed boy who doesn't know what to do in a new world; and finally, a big grin on his face that says "I can't believe what's happening to me!" He said, in different words, that there was indeed a conscious attempt to layer several personality aspects onto the character, and he seemed genuinely pleased to be told that it had come across successfully.