Jonah Goldberg: Tinky Winky Is So Gay!
Lucianne Goldberg’s idiot kid secures his place as dumbest denizen of The Corner with today’s defense of Jerry Falwell humiliating himself by attacking Teletubby Tinky Winky as gay. His defense is to argue that Tinky Winky really is gay.
Can I just make one small point that has always bothered me? Last night during NBC’s coverage of Falwell’s life they recycled the whole Falwell-thinks-Tinky-Winky-is-gay thing. . . .
Nonetheless, the coverage at the time made it seem like Falwell watched the Teletubbies a few times, laid eyes on Tinky Winky and said “Holy Brokeback Candy Mountain! That one is a friend of Dorothy!” . . .
The problem with all of this was that Falwell didn’t get the idea from watching the show, he got the idea from gay people. Tinky-Winky was a campy icon of gay clubbers in London and New York long before Falwell even knew who Mr.(?) Winky was. At least according to sources such as the Washington Post.
I didn’t know that the WaPo’s been reporting on this issue, and if so then they’re fruitier than Falwell. I’m also not aware that Tinky Winky was hot on the club circuit (but shit, if Kenny Kenny’s still partying, why not the Teletubbys?). I could be wrong on both counts, though; I seem to have tanked my gay cred. But by any standard, this is a spectacular failure of an attempt to make Falwell look sane (not that it could be anything else).
First, the official Falwell defense is that the Gaytubby Crisis story actually appeared in one of his newsletters, not from Falwell himself, and he had nothing to do with it. Goldberg helpfully steps up and hangs the adorable, tiny purple albatross right back around his neck. But worse than this, Goldberg can’t seem to keep a single thought in his head for two successive paragraphs. He confuses “is liked by gays” with “is gay” immediately after citing the definitive counterexample.
The wingnut knock on Tinky Winky is that the non-existent, sexless, fictional cartoon character was, in fact, gay. (Goldberg, ironically, even gets the pop-cult phrase right: a “friend of Dorothy” is a homosexual. He must have found it in the Washington Post.) It’s obvious: Tinky Winky is purple and has a stalk with a three-sided loop on his head as an antenna. Because pink triangles were used by Nazis to demarcate gays in death camps (the symbol has been reclaimed by the modern gay-rights movement), and Tinky Winky is purple, er, has a linearish triangular, well, holds a bag that’s like a purse carried by women but is gender-inappropriate for Tinky Winky who has no visible gender . . . well, that thing is just gay, or would be if it existed which it doesn’t and had sex which it can’t or expressed a sexual preference which it didn’t, OK? But even in his attempt to defend this incomprehensible nonsense, Goldberg can’t keep his story . . . um, straight (sorry). His “evidence” is not that gays recognize Tinky Winky as gay, but that Tinky Winky was an “icon” in gay nightclubs.
By direct inspection, saying something is an “icon” for gays isn’t the same as saying that thing is itself gay. Leaving aside the basic-English-skills thing, though, even Jonah Goldberg should be able to puzzle this out because he had explicitly cited the quintessential non-gay gay icon just three sentences previously. “Friend of Dorothy” is a reference to Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, played to a Fal-thee-well by Judy Garland. Garland was a goddess to generations of gay men and still is, but was not herself gay (just ask her five husbands). Similar such icons include Liza Minelli (for obvious reasons), Edith Piaf, Maria Callas, Steve Reeves (for the Rocky Horror crowd) . . . oh, hell, here’s a list of them (some gay, some not).
Goldberg, like Falwell, assumes that anything displaying the trappings of gay culture, even inadvertently, is a portent of hot gay action. (This, by the way, is the sort of thing that underlies the common assumption that many or most homophobes are really self-hating gays.) He pointedly avoids saying whether he agrees that that is a bad thing, but you also get the impression that the issue is more than just “one small point that has bothered [him] a little bit”. But Goldberg is too blind and too dumb to see even what he sees, let alone understand the words that come out of his own mouth. He references a straight woman as a telltale of homosexuality, then claims a genderless cartoon figure is also gay on the same evidence. It’s hard to tell the stupidity from the sheer looniness of it all, but, as is so common, our little Jonah has proven himself a world-class wanker.
And for your continuing Jonah-Goldberg-admiring pleasure . . .
The liberal media loves — loves! — casting evangelicals as sexually hung up prudes. It should not detract from the basic unfairness of this bias to also concede that some evangelical leaders have supplied their enemies with ample ammo in this regard.
Um . . . actually, Jonah, the existence of “ample ammo” does prove that the stereotype is not unfair. It’s that little “sufficiency of evidence” thing that you’re having so much trouble with, again. Please, for the love of God, find a job that doesn’t require cognitive skills.
UPDATE: Big U, in comments (below), notes that oh-so-gay gossip columnist Michael Musto had made the same claim (that Tinky Winky is gay, not merely a joke among gays) before Falwell did, which makes Falwell’s (or whoever’s) claim at least not unprecedented, even if still ridiculous. I don’t give that much credence as evidence of sentiment in any part of the gay community not actually named Michael Musto, but it’s a data point. That doesn’t touch the gist of my remarks above; Goldberg’s argument is still incompetent even if his basic point can (sort of) be defended.
http://www.rightgrrl.com/carolyn/teletubbies.html
Take a look at this link. Seems that everyone who lambasted Falwell for “outing ” Tinky Winky didn’t look at the history. CNN started it and apparently the Village Voice is filled with “wingnuts” (based on your words above). Almost a year before the article in Falwell’s newsletter others were talking about Tinky Winky being gay. Funny/sad how the media was so quick to mock Falwell for saying something they had already pronounced themselves.
Also, here is a quote for you:
“Tinky Winky is out and proud,” crowed homosexual Village Voice columnist Michael Musto. “It’s a great message to kids-not only that it’s okay to be gay, but the importance of being well-accessorized”
There’s also this from Salon in 1999 (italics mine):
Who’s Outing Whom?
When Jerry Falwell issued his famous warning that Tinky Winky, the lavender character on the children’s show “Teletubbies” who carries a red purse, is a gay role model, the smirking mass media wondered: Has he lost his mind? A smaller minority wondered: This is news? Anyone who’s paid a scrap of attention to the TV series since it premiered in the States last year knows Tinky had long ago lit up the gaydar, not of the Moral Majority, but of the gay community. Last month, the Village Voice’s Michael Musto crabbed that his long-standing observation that the Teletubby “sends kids the welcome message that it’s OK to be gay” — more or less the same point Falwell made, albeit with opposite sentiments — earned him a “Jeer” in TV Guide: “TV Guide,” Musto wrote, “which has so many sisters on staff that the TV should stand for transvestite … didn’t care much for that remark, self-loathingly enough.” Last spring Harper’s Bazaar quoted a media-studies academic calling Tinky “the first role model for queer toddlers.” The outing runs back to the show’s origins across the pond. In 1997 James Delingpole in the Spectator wrote that “homosexuals (in Britain) have elevated the handbag-toting Tinky Winky to a gay icon”; and the firing of the actor who first wore the purple suit in 1997 prompted protests among British gays.
At the time no one was dismissing Mr. Winky’s gay boosters as crackpots (except the show’s nervous production company).
Which raises the question of whether the derision of Falwell’s crusade is another sign of antireligious bias in the secular general media.
When a right-wing Christian leader outs Tinky Winky, it’s proof this Bible-thumping Cletus is missing a string on his banjo — but when a cultural-studies academic or a Voice columnist says it, it’s an insightful apercu on our gorgeous televisual mosaic.
Whatever Falwell’s motives, he’s shown himself hipper to the discourse of pop culture-savvy gays than many of the wags who laughed him off last week. Perhaps, as a result, they’re deaf to a deeper message within Falwell’s cri de coeur. Think about it: A spokesman for a not-exactly-lifestyle-tolerant community is hinting to the rest of the world that he’s been closely following the discourse of gay cultural critics for years. Does no one think that, perhaps, the good rev is trying to tell us something? Well, I for one support the man as he struggles to come to terms with his identity and express himself to an insensitive public. Preach it, Sister Jerry! You will survive!
SALON | Feb. 16, 1999
OK, good catch.
I’m still not quite buying it. Musto is to the gay press roughly what Wonkette was to the straight press, but without all the credibility, professionalism, and maturity. And Goldberg’s article still fails on its own internal logic. But OK – some (one) highly suspect voice[s] in the gay community had claimed Tinky Winky. I’m still not convinced this was a widespread (or even narrowspread) gay trope (and it still makes no sense – it’s a sexless cartoon character!), but you (and . . . ugh Goldberg) are right that Falwell wasn’t the first.
Big U wrote: ““Tinky Winky is out and proud,” crowed homosexual Village Voice columnist Michael Musto. “It’s a great message to kids-not only that it’s okay to be gay, but the importance of being well-accessorized””
Any chance that Musto was being tongue-in-cheek (that is his MO). Dressing in a purple jumpsuit and carrying a red magic purse does not a fashion icon make.
Could be but based on the articles at the time, (see the Salon article) it seems that enough people took it to be true.
Speaking of the devil: Jerry Falwell has gone belly-up in his office and has kicked the bucket with a resounding clank. I am so glad that this foolish conservative, who has eaten much crow lately, is gone with the wind. Jerry Falwell was worse than Ronald Reagan and a total fat-assed wingnut preacher who deserved to be villified by the press. Falwell was a power-mad fool for the big bucks and I am glad he is gone. I hope his Liberty University goes bankrupt… It’s just a third rate bible thumper college. I guess Falwell has found out that God is non-partisan, as he shovels coal for Satan in his new abode.
Amen and Amen. Let a tinky-winky doll decorate his grave!
Ah, more refreshing open-minded tolerance from the left.
Liberty College was third rate? They’re moving up. What, did they finally hire one professor with an education less than 6000 years out of date?
BU, could you describe a kind of open-mindedness that would find Falwell’s claims acceptible? Could you tell me how it’d be tolerance to acquiesce to the efforts of an authoritarian to remove religious and sexual freedoms from others?
Dan M. > I didn’t find a lot of Falwell’s claims acceptable. Being open-minded does not mean acqiescing to his efforts. It does mean accepting the fact that he is entitled to his beliefs and his desire to spread those beliefs. Open-minded individuals need to be willing to listen and assess based on what is stated and all the facts rather than just responding with a shrill voice because they don’t like what they hear.
Falwell disagreed with the gay lifestyle and in one of his letters criticized the idea that Tinky Winky was gay. National media ripped him apart for being so stupid as to say such a thing, and yet in 10 minutes of searching, I found indication of other people and groups that had said the same thing about Tinky Winky more than a year earlier and NOBODY said anything about it. To me, that speaks more of the attitude towards the person saying it than to the content. To me, that is a sign of close-mindedness. An attitude of “Jerry Falwell said it so it must be attacked”.
Re open-mindedness: So, would it help if I pointed out that I’ve listened to Falwell’s claims, as well as those of other anti-gay Christians. I did the research to find out that they are completely misrepresenting their own scriptures, I looked at what affect their ideas would have. I myself, and a huge portion of my friends, would be ostracized, banned from some forms of legal protection, lose our civil rights to equal protection under law (Heck, it’s still technically illegal for me to testify in court in thirteen states), as well as effectively lose our human rights as society returned to a time when “the twinky defense” was accepted (“He was so gay, I just had to beat him!”). Now can I call Falwell a hateful bigot and say that radical Christian politics are evil, repugnant, and deceitful? How open does my mind have to be?
As to Tinky Winky, I don’t know what the various talking heads said about it, but at the time, i clearly remember the reactions of those I know. It was ridicule. Falwell wasn’t criticized for thinking the character was gay (He certainly set off plenty of gaydar.) Falwell was mocked for thinking that a gay character promoted being gay. The radical anti-gay Christians aren’t disdained for thinking being gay is bad. They’re disdained for thinking it’s a sin that is chosen, and for thinking that their records of their god tell them to hate it. Both are factually false. Any idiot who’s known a gay Christian can see it’s not a choice, and anyone who studies biblical history knows that idolatrous gay prostitution is the only thing scripturally forbade.
Yes, Falwell was criticized for picking up on a claim made by others, because of what he did with the claim. He was an anti-gay bigot flapping his jowls, and it was the flapping that got him attacked.
Big U:
Falwell disagreed with the gay lifestyle
Excuse me? “Disagreed?” That’s like saying the KKK has an “aversion” to blacks. He didn’t “disagree,” he condemned as evil, he vituperated, he slandered and stormed, he (in part) blamed 9/11 on it. And the very use of the word “lifestyle,” as if being gay was some trendy fashion statement instead of a core part of who someone is, is itself revealing as, at best, gross ignorance.
criticized the idea that Tinky Winky was gay
No, he didn’t “criticize” the “idea” that Tinky Winky was gay, he condemned the character as gay, indeed as “promoting” homosexuality, in his mind among the worst, if not the worst, of social crimes.
a sign of close-mindedness
So Falwell wasn’t close-minded but those who attacked him for his bigotry were? That is just pathetic. Those earlier references you rely on to try to justify such nonsense are irrelevant: Affectionately embracing some symbol for a silly, inside joke is simply not the same as raising that symbol for the purpose of hatefully condemning millions of your fellow citizens. If you can’t see that difference, I truly feel sorry for you.
And as for
more refreshing open-minded tolerance from the left,
figure it just means we imagine that Jerry F. endorsed the Golden Rule and did unto others as he would have those others do unto him – and so could offer no complaint.
“He didn’t “disagree,” he condemned as evil,”
He just agreed with God’s judgment of homosexual acts. Nothing wrong with that.
Fred, didn’t you say that you’d actually learned about mistranslations in seminary? Have you forgotten that already?
Can you cite any documentation showing where your god judges homosexual acts, per se? How about the homosexual lifestyle [sic]? Can you cite this documentation without mistranslations?
I’m sure you’ve heard all the pros and cons. It would be a waste of time to repeat them. Would it make any difference to you what the Bible says?
It’d make a difference if you could demonstrate some understanding of your Bible. I’ll take your lack of real answer as an admission that you can’t cite any such things.
“I’ll take your lack of real answer as an admission that you can’t cite any such things.”
You can take it as you wish. It would just be another example of you getting it wrong. What else is new?