Survey says -

Not that I intended to post three blogs about the probably already over-hyped controversy about a supposedly offensive LGBT film festival poster, but I recently found a site that conducted a survey about it (if you haven't read my last two blog posts, you can read more about the poster incident here and take a look at the poster in question here).

In a survey last week by North County NOW, people were asked:

Do you think the St. Lawrence County administration was justified in removing a poster advertising a movie festival about gay issues from a public bulletin board in the Department of Social Services building?

53.1% said No and 46.9% said Yes.

682 people had responded to the survey and 246 comments were posted. Here are a couple of comments from the people who agreed with the poster being taken down:

- "It was inappropriate for the workplace. Dyke and butch are not words that I want posted -they are derogatory in nature and are not necessary to advertise any movie."

(I would assume that s/he doesn't know about the film Straight Hike for the Butch Dyke, which aired on LOGO as a twist on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.)

- "I think you should post the poster in question so people can see the descriptions that were used! One movie in particular: Itty Bitty Titty Commitee, A rockin' lesbian love song to the heady rush of sex, freedom and rebellion. Full of mosh pits, power fists and utter charm. or Butch Jamie: Hilarious gender-bending comedy. Struggling actress Jamie is a spiky-haired butch dyke tired of auditioning in femme "drag" for women's roles."

(Hmmm. Sounds like two really great movies to me. But what can I say? I suppose I'm biased.)

About half of the people who were in favor of the poster removal argued that it didn't have anything to do with LGBT issues, but that the poster was inappropriate in the workplace as well as in a building where children and teens could see it. Another sizable percentage who agreed with the poster's removal posted a slew of hated-filled comments about the LGBT community.

For the 53% who didn't agree with the poster's removal, most of them referred to our freedom of speech. As Noam Chomsky states, "If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

You suck! ...but thanks for the publicity :)

As I discussed in my last blog post, Butch Jamie has recently gained a smidgen of infamy in Upstate New York regarding the censorship of a film festival poster.


I found a silly little blog post that tried to compare the poster controversy to Clarkson University hockey games. The writer says that the poster incident has nothing to do with homophobia and that it's like yelling "You suck!" to the other team at hockey games. S/he says that while both are protected legally by free speech, "It’s inconsiderate to use those words around people who may feel uncomfortable with that type of language."

While Butch Jamie is cited as one of the offensive film titles along with the movie Itty Bitty Titty Committee, the writer only uses "titty" as an example of "coarse" and "disrespectful" language. How Butch Jamie fits into this coarse language where s/he tries to argue that "much of the objection [is not because of] homosexual issues," is not addressed.

I hadn't seen the poster before today and I did find the word "dyke" in the description of the movie which probably didn't go over too well either, although there's been no mention of it.

Here's a link to a brief article about the response to the poster incident from the New York affiliate of the ACLU.


However, I do have to admit - the fact that Butch Jamie is involved in a mini controversy over free speech is an interesting sort of honor.


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