If you noticed that Raven Symone was trending all day yesterday it is because she Tweeted that she was so happy about gay marriage being legalized because it meant she could finally get married. After years of not admitting anything and refusing to discuss her personal life, Raven Symone finally came out yesterday. I think it is great. When you look at Twitter feeds around the world, I would say half of them had no idea Raven is gay. That is why it is important for celebrities to come out and let the world know and show others that it is ok to come out. To be who you are. I'm happy for Raven and now she and her ANTM girlfriend can be open and not have to hide their relationship in their apartment. Raven did clarify later in the day that she is still too young to get married so that won't be happening anytime soon, but is happy she can if she wants.
Didnt kniw, dont care, but mazel tov!
ReplyDeleteNext we will see a blind being revealed saying she is gay.
ReplyDeleteRaven has been out. This is old news
DeleteWho cares?
ReplyDelete@Marybel
DeleteI do
I like the casual tweet about it. Not every gay person needs to come out on the cover of People magazine. She is out and didn't make a big deal of it. Thumbs up to Raven.
ReplyDeleteNow that gay marriage is legal, how long until gay people are sick of answering the "are you going to get gay married?" question.
ReplyDeleteMy kids forgot who she was. When I reminded them that she was the girl in "College Road Trip", they said they ready knew that. I have some recollection of a blind where the person wasn't speaking to a costar, because of something that had to do with her being closeted and the costar telling people about her personal life. Raven was the common guess.
ReplyDeleteI think it was the costar selling info about Raven's personal life, something like that.
Deletenot to be a cynic, but who said she had to hide her relationship before gay marriage was allowed?
ReplyDelete@Marybel, "who cares" are probably a lot of people in Raven-Symone's fan base and community that can now see that lesbians are ordinary human beings...and in Raven's case, two very attractive human beings in love.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a great signal to young urban gay women. Come out, come out, there's an ANTM waiting for you!
To me, that's the positive societal contribution of celebrity gossip...telling human stories that will benefit other humans.
I personally think that Neil Patrick Harris and Ellen Degeneres did more to make gay marriage popularly accepted than a hundred marches or NPR broadcasts.
That's so Raven
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DeleteMy daughter loved her show. She is so talented. Good for her!
ReplyDeleteRaven was never hiding. Just because you don't see pictures of her and her girlfriend ever 5 minutes doesnt mean they're hiding. They are out together in nyc all the time. Good for her.
ReplyDeleteGet it, girlfriend!
ReplyDelete@Hollywood Yes, but being 'out' for the cognoscenti in NYC is a lot different than being 'out' for her fan base living in Cleveland, Birmingham, Tulsa or Cape Town. She made a statement she wasn't required to make, and I salute her for it.
ReplyDeleteNot sure why it just came out yesterday, though. Is she behind on the news, or is the ANTM girlfriend a non-US citizen? That was in the news yesterday, that gay partners will be evaluated under the same rules as straights when it comes to immigration.
Is she dating the woman who was on America's Next Top Model? If so, she has awesome taste in women. She is hot.
ReplyDeleteNvm, Nutty gave the answer in her comment. What a good looking couple!
Deletejeez I hope the rules for marrying an immigrant are the same, Nutty but you can see where this is going right?
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree that NPH and Ellen have helped in the effort to show that Gay people deserve the same rights as straight.
But good for Raven. I hope she gets a lot of positive response. I'm sure there will still be a lot of ugly out there but glad she felt she could say how see feels.
I think it was making news where there was no news to make. In 2011, she said her orientation was just the business of hers and her partner's, before retweeting "She been out, momma just didn't have time for bullshit." from a fan. Some people just need to be hit over the head with a statement, I guess.
ReplyDeleteHer girlfriend is a US citizen. Who knows, maybe someone asked her about her sexual again, and she finally decided to say "fuck it, I'm out". People have been speculating for years. It has to get old after awhile.
ReplyDeleteSexuality*
DeleteGood for her......
ReplyDeleteI take it as a positive sign that things really are changing, perhaps somewhat slowly, but still.. the situation is improving.
ReplyDelete@Phoenix, I actually think things are changing faster than we realize.
ReplyDeleteI was watching an old DVD of Monty Python skits the other day, and it was surprising to me how many skits I thought were hilarious in the 1980s or even 1990s came off as unkind and homophobic now.
The 'camp' army drill, for example....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIFUm70n0fU....or even the famous Lumberjack Song.
When the Lumberjack reveals that he's a transvestite, everyone throws tomatoes at him. It comes off as anti-gay bullying now, particularly now that we know that Graham Chapman was struggling with his sexuality.
If someone is gay or not is nobody's business. I think that some things should just be kept private and people's sex lives is one of them.
ReplyDeleteOn one hand I am happy that she can comfortably be honest about who she is. On the other - Gay, straight, bi, frigid,...I long for the day when people no longer care about the activities of consenting adults in the privacy of their own bedrooms.
ReplyDelete@Nutty Flavor: Yep, society has gotten ultra sensitive. All In The Family would not be allowed on network tv today. Neither would Hogan's Heroes.
ReplyDeleteCrap, for that matter, I don't know if Good Times would be allowed on. When was the last time a poor black family was portrayed on network TV? Off the top of my head, I can only think of middle class (Family Matters) and rich (Fresh Prince, Cosby). Granted, I haven't watched much network TV in the last decade or so.
@Count-My father had been a POW during WW2. Hated Hogans Heros. Never said much, but said it was NOTHING like portrayed.
DeleteIt will be nice when celebrities are able to just be who they are and not feel pressured to hide parts of their lives out of fear of not being hired, and for being judged on who they love.
ReplyDeleteI am happy for her and I think she will get an even bigger fan base now.
Good for her. Can't wait for the day when this isn't news.
ReplyDeleteEven I knew she was gay and I'm not up on that usually. Happy she can get married whenever she wants to--she seems like a nice young woman.
ReplyDelete@Nutty_Flavor
ReplyDeleteThe Monty Pythons are hardly homophobic. Actually, Graham Chapman (King Arthur, Brian) was actually one of the first British celebrities to come out publicly! In 1969.
In the early episodes of Flying Circus, the other Pythons didn't know about his sexuality (even his writing partner John Cleese was surprised when Chapman confessed) but Chapman would have vetoed any homophobic sketch or left a group where the ideas were homophobic.
The camp army drill was mostly about mocking authority and the army. Chapman played a lot of authority figures, especially army officers, who don't take any criticism and refuse "silliness".
And the lumberjack song isn't about a lumberjack. It's about a hairdresser who first reveals he wants to be a lumberjack before the song mentions he's also a transvestite. Which is why the chorus of mounties starts by embracing his choice then turns angry towards him.
And remember that as early as the second episode, the Pythons mocked the derogatory depiction of homosexuality on television with the "Mouse Problem". So, they were hardly homophobic. But they hated prejudice and hypocrisy.
@Angela - nice job :)
ReplyDeleteNow her former coworker can stop selling stories about her being gay so that he can score money for drugs.
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ReplyDeleteAre we sure she might not be bi? I'm still holding out hope...
ReplyDeleteBi and looking for older men...*fingers crossed*
@Liddy: It was a sit com, not a documentary. They weren't going for an accurate portrayal.
ReplyDeleteI can see how someone who went through it would resent it, though.
@Angela, I wasn't debating the Pythons' motives - you sound like you know more about the troupe than I do.
ReplyDeleteI'm talking about how these skits look to modern eyes, and 'camp army,' regardless of its 1970s anti-authoritarian intentions, looks pretty cruel from a 2013 perspective.
In the 1930s, blackface sketches were often performed by people who were ahead of their time on civil rights - like Fred Astaire or the Marx Brothers, both early NAACP supporters - but that doesn't mean they aren't offensive now.
I wasn't gay before, but now that gays are allowed to get married I think I might just give it a try!
ReplyDeleteReally, I feel like saying "who cares?" but that seems a little insulting to the millions of gays who DO care, so I'll just say "Best Wishes!". It doesn't currently effect my life in any way, but I imagine it will one day. And if gays want to have their souls ripped to pieces by someone who they thought they would spend forever with just like straight people, then spend thousands of dollars to have lawyers fight over who gets to keep the shrimp forks you never used anyway, then by all means have at it.
Her girlfriend is hot when she's out of all that model makeup mess.
ReplyDeleteI love her dress in this picture.
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ReplyDelete@Nutty Flavor
ReplyDeleteI agree it's all in the context. If you just take the snippet you mention, it could seen as homophobic. But if you watch the whole sketch, the intrusion by the officer in the drill camp or the whole routine with the murderous hairdresser, it's totally different.
The original Flying Circus version (not the "And Now For Something Completely Different" film adaptation, the only one where you have the rotten fruits) closes with a letter of complaint about the sketch itself. So, straight from Wikipedia:
"Dear Sir, I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about the song which you have just broadcast about the lumberjack who wears women's clothes. Many of my best friends are lumberjacks, and only a few of them are transvestites. Yours faithfully, Brigadier Sir Charles Arthur Strong (Mrs.) P.S. I have never kissed the editor of the Radio Times."
And, by the way, I would never use a chorus of Canadian mounties as role models for how I should envision homosexuality...
Theo!
ReplyDeleteI love it! And gay people have the right to get married AND to get divorced and fuck up relationships, or make them work just like straight people. This is rad, and a nice understated way to come out
ReplyDeleteThis is nice news :)
ReplyDeleteRaven has grown up to be a smoking hot lady! Congrats to her for coming out.
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