RSS
Anderson Cooper is liberal! I care!
Gotta' love this headline from the Philly Daily News:
What the headline writer and newspaper is trying to suggest is that people shouldn't care that Anderson Cooper, or anyone else, is gay because being gay is now so common... and kind of awesome.
And yet, it's not that common, though people mistakenly think that it is. According to a Gallup survey last year, a majority of U.S. adults believe that one in five people are gay. The actual number is closer to 1 in 50.
Why the misperception? Why do you think? The media/hollywood/industrial complex has exaggerated the presence of gay people in our society beyond their actual numbers. Understandably so.
Let's face it, gay people are more interesting than straight people. They are often very smart, funny, and talented people. They go into the arts, the media, fashion and big business. Not all, of course, but a disproportionate number do. And as a group, they are more successful than straight people. At least, they make more money.
And yet, like that joke Chris Rock tells about being black, a straight guy wouldn't trade places with the richest gay man in the world. Tell me I'm wrong!
Homosexuals in polite society didn't use to admit being gay, it was just understood by their friends and even their families. Then, with the gay rights movement, "coming out" almost became a duty. That it took Anderson Cooper so long to do it in this day and age, irked many gays and sophisticated straight people.
So finally, he did it. And it wasn't an admission. It was a celebration.
"The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn't be any more happy, comfortable with myself and proud." Cooper wrote to fellow gay man Andrew Sullivan. His reticence in coming out sooner he attributed to his own sense of personal privacy and professionalism.
But you've still got to love the "Who Cares?" Anderson is being praised and getting "love bombed" for his public announcement.
As reported in the New York Daily News:
An issue? I suppose Ms. Brill means that those Fox New watching sort of people will question Cooper's professional objectivity on certain matters when covering issues like gay rights, AIDS, same-sex marriage, etc. Maybe. That he referred to Tea Party activists as "tea baggers" a sexual term known well in the gay community certainly raised past questions about his "professionalism" and "objectivity."
Also, I recall Cooper's aggressive questioning of a spokesman for the Milton Hershey School and its decision not to accept an HIV-positive 13-year-old applicant and Cooper's assertion that the kid posed virtually no risk to the 1,800 other students at the boarding school. That Cooper and CNN found a host of public health professionals to interview who also downplayed the risk of knowingly admitting an HIV-positive teenager to a boarding school for teenagers is hardly surprising. But it certainly reflected Cooper's personal attitude on the subject. Clearly, he was more concerned with the kid's civil rights than he was with the school's right to consider potential risks to other students over the next four or five years.
There was not a whiff of Cooper being an objective or disinterested journalist in that case. He was acting purely as an advocate for the kid and the cause. Did he do this because he is gay? Maybe. But more likely it is because he is a liberal. Now there's something more CNN talking heads should come out and admit.
Anyway, I loved the headline and would like to see more of them.
John Travolta is gay. Who cares?
Green Lantern is gay. Who cares?
Obamacare Upheld. Who Cares?
Phillies Lose! Who Cares?
I do!
Anderson Cooper is gay. Who cares?Who cares? Presumably a lot of people. Otherwise it wouldn't be "news." Right? The "news" wouldn't have made it into the newspaper.
What the headline writer and newspaper is trying to suggest is that people shouldn't care that Anderson Cooper, or anyone else, is gay because being gay is now so common... and kind of awesome.
And yet, it's not that common, though people mistakenly think that it is. According to a Gallup survey last year, a majority of U.S. adults believe that one in five people are gay. The actual number is closer to 1 in 50.
Why the misperception? Why do you think? The media/hollywood/industrial complex has exaggerated the presence of gay people in our society beyond their actual numbers. Understandably so.
Let's face it, gay people are more interesting than straight people. They are often very smart, funny, and talented people. They go into the arts, the media, fashion and big business. Not all, of course, but a disproportionate number do. And as a group, they are more successful than straight people. At least, they make more money.
And yet, like that joke Chris Rock tells about being black, a straight guy wouldn't trade places with the richest gay man in the world. Tell me I'm wrong!
Homosexuals in polite society didn't use to admit being gay, it was just understood by their friends and even their families. Then, with the gay rights movement, "coming out" almost became a duty. That it took Anderson Cooper so long to do it in this day and age, irked many gays and sophisticated straight people.
So finally, he did it. And it wasn't an admission. It was a celebration.
"The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn't be any more happy, comfortable with myself and proud." Cooper wrote to fellow gay man Andrew Sullivan. His reticence in coming out sooner he attributed to his own sense of personal privacy and professionalism.
But you've still got to love the "Who Cares?" Anderson is being praised and getting "love bombed" for his public announcement.
As reported in the New York Daily News:
The decision to go public now brings the subject to a larger general audience — a move experts predicted won’t hurt his career and one that fans and friends cheered.
“This wasn’t some shocking announcement; this is certainly something that people have been saying for a long time,” said Robert Thompson, pop culture professor at Syracuse University.
Media strategist Shari Anne Brill agreed. “For those people who think it’s an issue, they’re probably watching Fox News anyway,” she told the Daily News.
An issue? I suppose Ms. Brill means that those Fox New watching sort of people will question Cooper's professional objectivity on certain matters when covering issues like gay rights, AIDS, same-sex marriage, etc. Maybe. That he referred to Tea Party activists as "tea baggers" a sexual term known well in the gay community certainly raised past questions about his "professionalism" and "objectivity."
Also, I recall Cooper's aggressive questioning of a spokesman for the Milton Hershey School and its decision not to accept an HIV-positive 13-year-old applicant and Cooper's assertion that the kid posed virtually no risk to the 1,800 other students at the boarding school. That Cooper and CNN found a host of public health professionals to interview who also downplayed the risk of knowingly admitting an HIV-positive teenager to a boarding school for teenagers is hardly surprising. But it certainly reflected Cooper's personal attitude on the subject. Clearly, he was more concerned with the kid's civil rights than he was with the school's right to consider potential risks to other students over the next four or five years.
There was not a whiff of Cooper being an objective or disinterested journalist in that case. He was acting purely as an advocate for the kid and the cause. Did he do this because he is gay? Maybe. But more likely it is because he is a liberal. Now there's something more CNN talking heads should come out and admit.
Anyway, I loved the headline and would like to see more of them.
John Travolta is gay. Who cares?
Green Lantern is gay. Who cares?
Obamacare Upheld. Who Cares?
Phillies Lose! Who Cares?
I do!
posted by Spencerblog at
9:04 AM
5 Comments:
Who is Anderson Cooper? And why should I care that he is anything?
Is he having ratings problems on his shows? This feels an awful lot like he needed to garner attention in an opportune time.
Wouldn't it be appropriate for an ethical journalist to advise his viewers of his apparent bias?
While the entire print and electronic media has serious credibility problems, Cooper's "tea bagging" denunciation of patriotic Americans casts real doubt on his integrity and class.
Who cares what his sexual orientation is? Not me... He's a long-haired (albeit now short-haired) left wing liberal. I could care zero or even less who he wants to make cozy with. At the same time, I'm really tired of the wave of homosexual persons "coming out"... When is the last time you ever saw a so-called prominent person saying ""I'm coming out as a hetrosexual"? Again, I don't cae what someone does in his or her bedroom or other similar situate. So why do you as GLBT people force me to climb into your bedroom by telling me what you are?
"CNN plummeted in the second quarter this year to its lowest ratings since 1991.
Viewership for all three major cable news channels from March 26 to June 22 was lower this year than in 2011. It was modestly off at Fox News Channel, sharply down at MSNBC and precipitously lower at CNN.
In prime time, CNN averaged 446,000 total viewers, with 129,000 in the 25-54 demographic that advertisers covet. That’s down 35% and 41%, respectively, from the second quarter of 2011."
I think jake gets the prize for intuition!!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home