So let’s talk about The Kiss. Let’s really, really talk about The Kiss. The song may say a kiss is just a kiss, but the reality is often so much more complicated. A kiss, The Kiss, is always more when it comes to gay relationships both on screen and in real life. Something as simple as a smooch takes on complex cultural and socio-political ramifications when you’re gay. I know, and all you wanted to do was make out with your girlfriend.
So then, let’s talk about The Kiss. The thing is The Kiss wasn’t even the first kiss. That was the small peck shown earlier in the episode. The first kiss was the briefest of A-frames, a split-second lip touch we gives to our loved ones almost without thinking. A “I love you”-drive-by by way of your lips. But The Kiss, the one at the Sugar Shack, well, that’s different. And, as we all know, that kiss wasn’t really their first kiss either. But their first on-screen kiss. And in short, it was perfect. I could go on for a couple days about how perfect, but it was all there, the love, the tenderness, the passion. Granted, no tongue. But, hey, this isn’t Showtime.
But what I’m more interested in, besides the gorgeous aesthetics, is what led to them. Instead of just having them deliver their long-overdue first kiss – the one us faithful on the S.S. Brittana had been screaming for since the beginning – they made sure to make a point. Which is, why can’t gay couples kiss just like straight couples – on TV, in the street, at school, anywhere for public consumption? What’s with the insane double standard that lets Finn and Rachel suck face for several uncomfortable minutes but that takes nearly three seasons to let Santana and Brittany touch lips?
In short, to quote Santana, it’s bullcrap. Gay couples should get to kiss in public just like straight couples. We shouldn’t have to worry who a simple sign of love might offend. What someone might say. What someone might do. Yet, all too often, we do. Or, at the very least, we know and we don’t care. If I want to hold your hand when we go out, I’m going to hold your hand. If I want to give you a kiss on the cheek when we’re sitting together, I’ll give you a kiss on the cheek. If I want to kiss you at the Valentine’s Day dance, I will damn well kiss you at the Valentine’s Day dance. But there’s the thing, there’s always – even if only in the backs of our heads – the moment of recognition that someone might object. And it’s not there for straight couples, and that’s fucking bullcrap.
Granted, I’m not talking about some gratuitous make-out session here with hands up shirts and down pants and all over. Gay, straight, whathaveyou – that’s the “get a room” kind of stuff that should be private. But the everyday affections – the little kisses and big hugs and long lingers – those we should all share all the time because they make us more human. In the end, we’re really not that different. All I want to be able to do is kiss my girlfriend. And you should be able to kiss your boyfriend or your wife or your husband or your non-labeled, full-committed life partner whenever and wherever. Because kissing is awesome. And everyone should do it more. Happy weekend, all.
p.s. Oh ye of little faith who were impatiently waiting for me to get my Brittana on this week. Have I ever jumped ship, ladies? Our girls sure have come a long way. And what better way to seal it than with a kiss. Once more, from the beginning. Le sigh.
I don't watch the show, and that made me cry.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. There's something about the way the episode unfolded that really rubbed me the wrong way. The whole random new Christian kid who has to think about whether he's okay with singing to a lesbian couple seemed to legitimize the idea that you can use your so-called religious beliefs to determine how you're going to treat people.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad they finally kissed on screen, but it's not like it's 20 years ago when there was no internet and it was actually difficult to find images of women kissing. I mean my tumblr feed is pretty much just women kissing.
Overall, I think this episode was an improvement. I'm still mad Brittany didn't say a word in the scene at Figgins office, but what's done is done.
ReplyDeleteHopefully, they'll stop with the double standards now, and give us more insight into their RS.
And that was the best kiss ever, hands down. No other couple on Glee has the chemistry Naya and Heather have.
Snarks, I am going to forgo the ‘Durango crap’ for today. My heart’s just not in it. Also, the following is going to be wildly off-topic I am afraid. Please take the time to read it despite that and your general euphoria over THE KISS. (I am very happy you’re happy btw. And yeah – it wasn’t a bad kiss.)
ReplyDeleteMy Weekend Crush - Robert Green
Robert Green, a brave Englishman I once considered a close colleague (perhaps even a friend) was jailed today for one year(!) for the ‘heinous crime’ of trying to alert the decent and law-abiding people of Scotland to the fact that there is paedophile ring in Aberdeen that has amongst its ranks members of the local establishment. Members of this ring have allegedly included at least one judge, at least one senior police officer, accountants, social workers (at least one of which has been accused of abusing a child in their care!) and the headmaster of a school for children with learning difficulties. The alleged ring includes women as well as men. The ring (and no doubt many more like it!) is being protected by some of the highest placed people in Scottish society, with the former Lord Advocate (Chief Public Prosecutor) Elish Angiolini herself directly implicated in the cover-up!
The existence of this little coterie of evil perverts was brought to light around ten years ago when a courageous woman called Hollie Greig told her mother Anne that her father and brother had been sexually abusing her since childhood. At the time Hollie was around twenty, now she is in her early thirties. It should also be mentioned that Hollie has Down’s Syndrome. I believe this actually bolsters her credibility as a witness because people with Down’s Syndrome are seldom able to lie convincingly (or lie at all for that matter). In fact Hollie has been assessed by two independent psychologists who both found her to be a credible witness. She also received £13,500 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board for what she went through. Incidentally, in my opinion there are few crimes that are worse than the sexual abuse of a Down’s Syndrome child.
As well as telling Anne about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father and brother, Hollie also informed her shocked mother that around fourteen other people had also abused her and at least seven other children! Naturally Anne reported all this to the police who then proceeded to question *only* Denis and Greg Mackie (the father and brother)! Think about that for a minute. Imagine if Olivia Benson was told a Down’s Syndrome woman was alleging she had been abused by a gang of paedophiles and in response Benson elected to question *only* two of the alleged ring’s members and none of the other alleged victims. There would be serious questions raised regarding her obvious failure to apply due diligence, right?!! (Cops – it ain’t always like what they show you on TV!) Incidentally, nothing more was done in regard to the Mackies and both subsequently fled the country and (so far as we know) are now living in exile in Portugal.
Shortly after Anne informed the police about Hollie’s allegations, a group of around fifteen people (comprising police officers, medical personnel and social workers) showed up unannounced at her flat and proceeded to ‘section’ her. (Following Hollie’s revelations Anne had fled the family home taking Hollie with her.) To put it ‘politely’; this meant she was informed that two doctors had decided that she was either a danger to herself or to others, and that (for her own good) they had come to take her to Cornhill psychiatric hospital. What actually happened was a furious Anne protested vociferously as they forced her to the ground in front of the apartment block before proceeding to drag her kicking and screaming into the lobby of the building where they pulled down her trousers and injected her in the buttock with something that knocked her out. A petrified Hollie could only look on in horror from a flat window as her mother was carried off. The social workers then returned Hollie to her father.
Colleen, I try not to think about Glee too hard whilst watching it. If I do think to hard on it I start getting big ole cognitive dissonance headaches.... :)
ReplyDeleteI definitely disagree that it was the best kiss ever. Then again, pretty much all the kisses, f/f, m/m, or m/f tend to make me wince at how uncomfortable they look... so...
Anne very shrewdly played a passive ‘grey man’ role whilst in Cornhill and went along with what they asked of her. She was able to leave after a week or so. Later she had an independent psychologist assess her. The verdict? Stressed but completely sane! After several years of harassment from the authorities in Aberdeen, Anne and Hollie eventually fled south to England where they live today.
ReplyDeleteIn an effort to get justice for herself and her daughter, Anne, and subsequently other members of the Hollie Demands Justice campaign team, have engaged in a vigorous letter writing campaign. Letters and emails have been sent to politicians, relevant charities, and the press. At one point BBC Scotland was going to make a program about Hollie’s case. However they pulled out and Mark Daly -the journalist spearheading the project- told Anne that he and his colleagues had been warned off the story and were told that if they went ahead with it not only would they lose their jobs, they would never work in journalism again. Daly has since retracted this statement.
Robert became involved in the case in 2009. He made the bold decision to ‘name the names’ of Hollie’s alleged abusers. Given the strict liable laws we have in the UK it was indeed one hell of a bold decision! He also took the step of writing warning letters to residents of the areas of Aberdeen where he suspected the ring was operating.
In early 2010 Robert decided to visit Aberdeen himself in order to hand out leaflets highlighting Hollie’s case and to announce publically his intention to stand for election in Aberdeen at the forthcoming General Election. I travelled to Aberdeen to help him in his efforts. Perhaps you can imagine my bewilderment when the ever punctual Robert failed to show up at our arranged meeting point? For a good two hours I hung around wondering what the hell was going on. (His mobile was turned off.) During this time I made the acquaintance of a brave Aberdonian man by the name of David E (the only other campaigner to show up). He was in a fairly agitated state and kept repeating; “He’s in the harbour! He’s in the harbour!” (meaning he feared Robert had been murdered). This may sound overly paranoid to the uninitiated, but all I can say is study cases like the Franklin Cover-up Scandal and you will see it’s not entirely ‘off the beam’! Anyway, only after another hour or so of much prodding from us, Anne and other campaign members did the police finally admit they had Robert (on a charge of Breach of the Peace). Just to add to the general creep factor of that afternoon’s events; David and I were appalled to see a STASI-style picture of us in the local newspaper (the Aberdeen Press & Journal) the next day. We had agreed to be interviewed (in the end they chose not to do so) regarding Robert’s arrest but David had explicitly asked that no picture of him accompany the story. I have subsequently found out the photographs emanated from two private detectives hired by the judge at the centre of the allegations. I will leave it to readers to ponder what business a local newspaper had publishing photographs from private detectives in the employ of a judge with allegations of paedophilia hanging over him…
Very little about that strange and stressful weekend of Robert’s arrest in Aberdeen was normal. I could go on at length about how police from Aberdeen travelled several hundred miles south and raided Robert’s home removing documents and personal items that have yet to be returned. Or how Robert’s bail hearing happened 15miles out of Aberdeen in Stonehaven and not in Aberdeen itself as would have been the normal procedure. Or how no-one from staff in the court in Aberdeen to the Procurator Fiscal’s Office (District Attorney) would tell me when or where his hearing was going to take place etc. etc. etc.
Much has happened in the two years since Robert’s first arrest. (At one point he was even arrested in England and whisked off Aberdeen.) As the Crown Office (Public Prosecutor) in Edinburgh has pursed its “vendetta” against the unfortunate Robert, both he and the Scottish taxpayer have had to spend a small fortune on what has become the longest running and most expensive Breach of the Peace case in Scottish legal history.
ReplyDeletehttp://scottishlaw.blogspot.com/2012/01/record-12million-breach-of-peace.html
In the summer of 2010 Anne and Hollie’s house was raided by English police and council workers. Various forms of gag order have been placed on people either involved with the case or reporting on it. Robert and Anne have received court orders preventing them from discussing certain aspects of the case, while almost the whole of the mainstream media in Scotland have either chosen to ‘toe the line’ and keep silent, or have been intimidated via threatening lawyers letters and the like into doing so. And thus we return to Angiolini. Before she became Lord Advocate she spent some time as Procurator Fiscal for –yes, you guessed it!- Aberdeen. She was in the job when Hollie first went to the police with her allegations. Therefore, as well as the police, Angiolini also failed in her primary duty to serve and protect! She has tried to claim she was unaware of Hollie’s case, but the Hollie Demands Justice campaign has in its possession documentary evidence that says otherwise! And who was behind those threatening letters sent to many of Scotland’s journalists and editors? Why, none other than lawyers acting on behalf of Angiolini! Lawyers engaged while she was still in the office of Lord Advocate and paid for using monies taken from the public purse!
I should also point out that YouTube has on numerous occasions censored videos pertaining to the Hollie Greig case, and when the campaign was at its height in the wake of Robert’s first arrest Facebook pulled a 15,000 member group without so much as a warning or explanation! (So much for Facebook and their supposed support of political causes!) Perhaps now you understand why I sometimes resort to the unconventional (some would say uncongenial) means I do Snarks? You see, when you analyse the situation you quickly come to realise we don’t have any true freedom of speech in Scotland, or on the Internet for that matter!
Anyway readers, let’s pause once again to consider… All *that* to counter some ‘delusional’ accusations from a bunch of ‘conspiracy whackos’???
Returning to today and the sad (although not altogether unexpected) disproportionate sentence doled out at the culmination of that two year Breach of the Peace “vendetta”. It should be noted that the maximum sentence normally handed down in the type of court (a Sheriff Court) Robert’s case was heard in is six months!
I have to admit that at this point that I am rather worried for Robert’s safety as he faces a year ‘banged up’ in Peterhead jail ‘at her Majesty’s pleasure’. As are many others including Hollie and Anne. (It ain’t always like they show you on ‘Bad Girls’!) This is not mere paranoia – they have after all already taken the draconian step of sectioning Anne and then there are shocking precedents like the case of whistleblower Andy McCardle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bphI-5UUqv0
So, in between viewings of THE KISS please spare a thought (or even an email or postcard? ;) ) for an *innocent* man now languishing in a Scottish prison, the poor children in Aberdeen who continue to be at the mercy of powerful paedophiles, and Hollie and Anne who have for the moment ‘lost’ a trusted friend and tireless campaigner.
ReplyDeletehttp://holliedemandsjustice.org/
http://www.ukcolumn.org/article/robert-green-imprisoned-1-year
And before any of you accuse me of taking my ‘trolling’ to a whole new level of ‘uncongeniality’, ask yourselves what you would do in my shoes?!!
Scotland – it ain’t always like what they show you on ‘Lip Service’ or on the shortbread tins!
PD’s PA
PS Yes I am Scottish and yes I am a lesbian. (Crushes needn’t be sexual, right? :) ) Not all my characters are though. The delightful PD for instance is half Scottish, half Italian, but was exclusively schooled in exclusive English public schools. (“Accent? I do both darlings! English RP or a Scottish brogue; take you pick!”)
PPS “New Zealand - a paedophile movement fronting as a country!” –Greg Hallett.
The Duroux Affair, the Franklin Cover-up Scandal, Haut de la Garenne, the Canadian Residential Schools etc. etc. etc. Elite paedophilia is hardly confined to Scotland! No, the world really is run on shame! I don’t care what country you’re in - you can bet your bottom dollar that the people you call the leaders of your society are either embroiled in this evil or are actively covering for their paedophile colleagues!
PPPS If you prefer to watch rather than read, here are Hollie, Anne and Robert on a satellite TV show from almost two years ago (before Hollie and Anne were banned from appearing on TV):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4UZ9cI5iE0
WE LOVE THE KISS!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe screen caps were perfect and so enjoyed the recap!
And we agree: kissing is awesome. More kissing!
Thanks, Ms. Snarker, once more.
But but but, unless you're thinking of a different song, the song says "A kiss is STILL a kiss," which is an entirely different thing.
ReplyDeleteI love this post. I love that vid. And I love that I just noticed that your post was made at 11:11. The best of luck to our S. S. Brittana.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I wasn't that impressed with The Kiss. It's great that they kissed, and of course I'm glad that happened, but it seemed REALLY chaste compared to all the full out snogging sessions put on by Kurt and Blaine--and, of course, let's not forget the Kurt/Blaine sex scene.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope their scenes get better as time goes on.
Gee I don't how far ahead of the learning curve I am but who the hell cares if the little christian boy sings or not?!
ReplyDeleteIf the others wanted to sing to the two girls they should have just said: We're going to sing to them, and if you want to join us we'd be delighted but if not that's fine also.
The whole thing was such a NON ISSUE, clearly I am not a member of the demogaphic that show or this blog panders to.
Giving that kid a forum to even state he was uncomfortable or whatever legitimizes his belief system on an issue that is a non sequitur.
Brittana's sexual orientation isn't related to what hhe believes. Sorry but it isn't. Religion was created by man to establish a set of rules that benefis men and they certainly do not seem worthy.
That's as bad as letting dysfunction heterosexuals determine whether there will be marriage equality. There will be, it will tsake time but it's happening right now, it's inevitable.
Is it wrong that I want to use this as a contemporary monologue for my theater class?
ReplyDeleteBecause I do.
I thought it was wonderful, I thought it was perfect, it was everything *I* wanted their first on-screen kiss to be, so... I'm good. And happy. It's quite a thing to see a show THAT mainstream showing two teenage girls kissing in a way that is NOT meant to titillate a boy. It doesn't really matter what's on our tumblrs or Showtime or any of that. This was Fox. This was national. This was huge.
ReplyDeleteNora sums it up.
ReplyDeleteSo freaking perfect!
Your blogs are always great but this one was exceptional. "The Kiss" wasn't just about one episode, which I liked a lot, by the way. As you said, it reflected on how homosexual shows of affection have, for years, been regarded as undesirable and as such made homosexuals second-class citizens and many times put them in great danger. It was also a high point on the long road of Santana's coming out, on Fox, no less.
ReplyDeleteAs an older woman, I can only say that GLEE would NEVER have been produced when I was a young girl. Homosexuality was NOT discuss. Many women avoided following their dreams and passions for fear of being labeled "lesbian."
So, not only did "The Kiss" represent Santana's long, brilliantly portrayed journey, to me it represented the continuing breakdown of the hideous double standards.
The dialogue video was both beautifully done and heart-breaking.
Thank you, so much.
I loved the kiss but.. the "Emaya" kisses on PLL are way hotter. It is cable but, it's also "ABC Family". I would have liked to see some tongue or more head movement but, we are lucky we got this. Lesbians aren't taken seriously. I'm 35 and my mom still likes to think it's a phase. So that being said, I'm very glad we got a sweet lesbian kiss on Glee! Finally! :)
ReplyDeleteOur ship has finally sailed! In primetime! We will now mark time as "AfterBrittana". Cgrrl
ReplyDelete"Because kissing is awesome. And everyone should do it more."
ReplyDeleteSo, so true.
This post, this episode, this kiss, all beautiful.
And I watched that video the other night and cried like a child. I think it unearthed some emotions I had been keeping tucked away for quite some time. So thank you for sharing.
A few days ago an italian deputy compared a lesbian kiss with a piss in public.
ReplyDeleteWe'd need more Brittana kisses here.
Dot said:
ReplyDelete"But the everyday affections – the little kisses and big hugs and long lingers – those we should all share all the time because they make us more human. In the end, we’re really not that different. All I want to be able to do is kiss my girlfriend. And you should be able to kiss your boyfriend or your wife or your husband or your non-labeled, full-committed life partner whenever and wherever. Because kissing is awesome. And everyone should do it more. Happy weekend, all."
As Stevie Wonder said once in a song, "love's in need of love today."
"A few days ago an italian deputy compared a lesbian kiss with a piss in public."
ReplyDeleteHe's either jealous or a stupid puritanical conservative or a hater of women, or all of the above come to think of it.
Furthermore, men are marking territory when they unzip the outdoor plumbing in public. I don't think women when kissing are thinking anything about territories, treaties and ownership.