PSU “MEdIA Day” Panel
I will be one of four panelists at Portland State’s “MEdIA (Media Education In Action) day” which takes place at 1:00 Tuesday (tomorrow) in Room 236 of PSU’s Smith Center. According to organizers, I’ll be a part of a “panel discussion focusing on the portrayal of homosexuality within the media.” I’m not quite sure what exactly the discussion will encompass or why they invited someone from the Commentator, but I’ll be there. The other attendees are Marty Davis (Publisher of Just Out), Sue Burns (Manager of In Other Words Bookstore), and Wende Morgaine (PSU University Studies Instructor and Faculty Team Leader).
I do wonder if the organizers think the Commentator is some sort of hysterically anti-homosexual journal. Are they expecting me to show up with a “Straight Pride” t-shirt or do they actually know that I’m quite liberal on these sorts of issues? We’ll see.
Well Ian, did you support the use of Ze and Zir as pronouns?
Ahh, if only I’d known sooner, I would have offered to join you up there.
So how’d it go Ian?
Well, it pretty much sucked.
I took the day off from work (there’s money down the drain) to drive up to Portland (more money down the drain). While there, my car was broken into and my girlfriend had her totebag stolen (even more money down the drain). All this for a one hour panel which had four panel members and a total of 18 attendees (most of whom left early). There was nothing to really argue about– we all agreed that the media inevitably stereotypes people, that “the media” is not one single entity, etc. etc.. I did confirm that the organizers had indeed believed that the Commentator was very conservative on these issues. I guess they were disappointed that I didn’t call for more flamboyant stereotypes of gay men or something.
Anyways, it was a giant waste of money and time since the PSU people wouldn’t pay for my gas and I had a bunch of school-related shit to do for classes on Wednesday. *Sigh*
My buddy Jesse, a PSU student, was making fun of this in his livejournal today.
A choice quote:
“It was a joke. We were supposed to learn about media from PSU students, and sure enough… we didn’t learn shit. We didn’t watch shit. The students could barely talk.”
Meh maybe it’s not that funny, but you get the idea….