Jessup, Brad
In the most recent television production of Armistead Maupin’s ‘Tales of the City’ book series, shown on Netflix, there is a moment at a dinner party where a group of ageing gay, white cismen are challenged by a younger coloured gay cisman about their use of language. The younger man is particularly annoyed about the word ‘tranny’, which operates to diminish, segment and exclude parts of the queer community. It is meant to be a provocative moment that invites queer viewers to understand both the histories and contemporary privilege within the queer alliance and appreciate the increasing plurality of the movement and its goals. I suspect that Dennis Altman, a Netflix consumer, would have watched and loathed that scene; just as I did. In part because Altman confides to readers in his new book ‘Unrequited Love: Diary of an Accidental Activist (Unrequited Love)’ that he prefers Maupin’s earlier work; ‘I liked him better before he became a celebrity’, we are told. Perhaps also because the scene is not nuanced. Altman would not see himself in either caricature on the small screen.
Article source: https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=088227137534029;res=IELHSS
