How many of you have grown up with some actor, singer, artist of one kind or another, whose work has meant so much to you in those pivotal character forming moments of your life, only to have them later do something or say something that just feels wrong, alien to the idea of who you are, and who they felt like they were to you?
Now I am not saying that those who we find are closet racists, or transphobes, homophobes or any of the damn ignorant narrow minded shit are anything but ignorant throwbacks to Cro-Magnon times, what I am saying is that there are those few who slightly dismiss our concerns about issues, from their place of privilege, as if we are making something out of nothing.
They will dismiss our concerns about Racism, or Transphobia, or misogyny as blown out of proportion in a comment, or a reaction to something, but when pressed on issues of people suffering, or faced with the reality of pain and torment of our Trans family, they will be supportive, caring and full of empathy.
How can this be? How can they not understand the general fears in this increasingly toxic society of ours?
Because they don’t live in it.
It’s not their fault that society, which many of them created their art on the fringes on in the first place, isn’t what they think it is.
They were never, and will never, really be a part of the mainstream, they never could be. But because of their success, large or small, they are accepted as part of the greater world and shielded by its viscidities from the often brutal and confronting reality that the hate mongers increasingly in power wield against the most vulnerable of us.
You can look at these heroes of yours and see them act so often with care and compassion, with genuine heartfelt concern for individuals that connect with them in one way or another, but they don’t see the world as it has become, because they have lives that are separate from it, and because they were always a step beyond the world that is, a factor that allowed them to succeed in their art, the likelihood of them seeing the world with our eyes is as much as us convincing the truly hateful that love is a better way.
What I am saying is that their hearts are in the right place, it’s just their heads aren’t where we live, and we can forgive these ignorances from time to time, because they are only human, and it’s their fallibility in these small ways, that shows us how true it is of even them, the ones who inspired and awed us with the art they created in those days so long ago.
Marissa Klotzbucher - Thoughts and Comments for Public Consumption