In an interview with PrideSource openly gay actor and comedian Scott Thompson best known for his work as one of the “Kids In The Hall” comedy group talks about hs carrer, Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, his bout with cancer, how “boring” being gay has become and has interesting advice for bullied teens.
PrideSource: You’ve addressed bullying before, specifically how the It Gets Better campaign is basically a lie – it might not get better, you say. What would you tell bullied kids then?
Thompson: Grow a pair. Here’s the thing: The world is not kind to us; it never really will be. The gay male is always going to be at the bottom. I believe the things that happened to me as a child scarred me terribly, and I wish somebody would have helped me with some of the things that happened. But you have to fight back. So much of these bullying campaigns are part of the trend that we were just talking about – the recasting of gay men as eternal victims and it’s like, fight back! Fathers should start teaching the boys how to punch. He does that to you, here’s what you do: You fucking punch him in the face.
You can read the entire interview with Scott over at PrideSource. (Bring a stiff drink)
In the meantime. PLEASE feel free to comment
I actually agree with a lot of what he said.
I believe the it gets better trend is a lie. I don’t think it gets better when you leave high school; I think it gets easier, but not better. The homophobia still runs rampant but at least you can control where you live and, depending on where you work, the environment may be less conducive to bullying.
I also recognized the fact that the public’s attention is very limited. The opportunity we’ve received due to the fact that the public eye has finally settled on bullying and the effects there of is going to be short lived, and we only have a precious, short amount of time to put laws in place to protect ourselves and our children from the animals that bullied and eventually caused the deaths of those poor children.
I also fear that Mr. Thompson is right when he says that gay’s will always be at the bottom. Looking at history we see that even though minority groups fought and won rights, the culture didn’t fully change. Women, or anything feminine for that matter, are still seen as inherently negative and week. It’s been nearly 100 years sine women fought for and won the right to vote in america and still they are oppressed. African americans fought for equality, racism still exists and african americans are still being oppressed today. It goes on and on as I fear it will go on and on with the gay community.
Women, african americans, and every other minority group have had to constantly fight get and keep their rights. From their fighting came the few and incomplete changes to society that we currently have. Yet each group is still actively oppressed. We gays are fighting and winning victories here and there, but it hurts me to know how long it will truly take for us to be seen as not only equal but a part of society instead of the dangerous animals we are seen as right now. I don’t think I’ll see it in my lifetime, but I hope to god that I and Scott Thompson are wrong and we won’t always be on the bottom.
But Mr. Thompson is right; we have to fight back as hard as we can for any good thing to happen.