MovieChat Forums > Outrage (2009) Discussion > This film is completely stupid

This film is completely stupid


So he is talking about these closeted gay politicians who are hypocrites apparently, because they vote anti-gay?

How does that make them hypocrites? Maybe they vote against gay marriage because....wait for it...wait for it....they don't agree with gay marriage.

Maybe they vote against gays in the military because....wait for it...are you ready...they don't think gays should be in the military.

Why does the fact that somebody has sex with members of the same sex mean that that person must think in a particular way, otherwise he's a hypocrite?

The whole idea of "outing" is stupid - and so are the people who support it.

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hypocrite: a person who pretends to be what he or she is not


You just outed yourself as a really stupid poster. You prove the point by saying that these people have gay sex and pretend they are straight and don't think anyone else should have that right. Anyone you reads this will now know how stupid you are. Hey, Everybody who reads this ...Hubert is really stupid and wait for it... really gay....oh yeah and wait for it are you ready ........ a big hypocrite.

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You do not understand what the film is about.

It's not about the outing of gay politicians who are not open about the fact, are married, etc.

In Kirby Dick's own words, it's about "those gay politicians who vote anti-gay".

In other words, he is saying that, just because a politician is gay, he MUST vote on certain issues in a certain way, or else he is a hypocrite.

And THAT is stupid.

What if a politician is gay but doesn't agree with gay marriage? What if a politician is gay and thinks hate-crime laws are wrong? What if a politician is gay but thinks that gays shouldn't be in the military? How does that make him a hypocrite? Maybe he just sees these issues differently from the gay activists.

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While I do not agree with the methods of the filmmakers as I read further into this controversial subject, I think I understand the core of the argument on hypocrisy. Politicians are elected representatives, and their records on voting are a reflection of personal belief and civic representation. If a politician is gay and votes against legislation that is helpful to the cause of gays, the very act is hypocritical. At the very least, it reveals a conflicted position. Conflicted representatives are detrimental to the overall political process, because the position of the conflicted has a poor philosophical foundation.

What I do not like about "Outrage" is that the targets in this film are not conclusively gay. Ed Koch is targeted because he was reluctant to speak up about AIDS during the early '80's. That is not the same as the former New York mayor voting actively against laws helping gays, and Koch is attacked for his bachelorhood. It's poor logic because it relies on inference, not facts. Other politicos are not conclusively proven to be gay, but they are convenient targets because they have a political position antithetical to that of the filmmakers. Then, you get Terry Dolan, someone who fits the theme of the film. If everyone targeted in the film fit Dolan's criteria of being a closeted gay political player, the film would be controversial for the best reasons, not these cheap excuses.

Personally, I am for gay rights. But this film seems like a massive step backwards, because its premise hinges on a kind of pseudo-journalism. That lack of rigor sets everyone back.

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True nealklein, but then it's not always as easy to determine "what is the (one and only) pro-gay stance on an issue", not as easy as many gay activists want to have it. Adoption of children from other countries is a good example: it's been campaigned for with frenzy in Europe, probably also in the US, because it's seen as a key issue of "being accepted as a family like everyone else". Applicant adopter parents mostly get screened to some extent, to ensure that they are fit to take on children and understand what it impliies - adopting a child is not the same as having one by birth, the problems can be very different. So there's been strong pressure to allow gay couples to adopt more widely, because many adoptions agencies don't approve of them. But the real point here is, the orphanages and agencies in countries of the third world that supply nearly all adoptive children (China, Colombia, Vietnam etc) don't like the idea of gay couples either - and that's where the real knot is. They will sometimes aay "if we'd reasonably suspect that some of our children are given to same-sex parents, we might pull out of future collaboration in adoptions". So whatever laws and rules you pass in Britain, France or the USA on this, it can become a merely symbolic matter, or even counter-productive: it destroys confidence.

Having kids is not a universal human right, hundreds of millions of couples have to live with the fact that they cannot have children for medical reasons, and some others abuse their own children. And from the point of view of the child, growing up in another country where you stand out at once by your colour and by having two-parents of the same sex can create a double outsiderhood ("your parents didn't know how to produce a girl so they had to import a mongrel n***a from deepest dirty Africa") that might be very hard to handle. It gives a double excuse for punching on the kid., and sometimes it's a situation they can't escape.

I don't think you can ask children to go in the forefront of scrapping prejudices surrounding race and sexual orientaion. Kids don't form reasoned, sustained, independent opinions on this kind of thing, they will listen to the one who can work the schoolyard crowd or who's the top dog. And - sometimes - to their parents. As long as there isn't some general, broad acceptance of gay/lesbian family building, and I mean acceptance on street level, not at universities or in some political groups, international adoptions to gay couples remains a poorly chosen issue to campaign around.
This whole family/adoption issue takes special understanding, and it's not just a basic human right to adopt kids as if you were shopping around at K-Mart. To a vociferous part of the gay movement, that's just what it is though: a simple clear-cut issue of equality with the straights. And if you don't all-out support the right to adopt children from another country, then you're an evil anti-gay person. This is realy a totalitarian logic, it prescribes that you must hold this position to be acceptable.

After the revolution everything will be different. Your password is 'Giliap'!

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"What if a politician is gay but doesn't agree with gay marriage? What if a politician is gay and thinks hate-crime laws are wrong? What if a politician is gay but thinks that gays shouldn't be in the military? How does that make him a hypocrite? Maybe he just sees these issues differently from the gay activists."

I am glad you get it. It is the same as a woman politician favoring every women's issue because she is a woman. Can't a woman politician be anti abortion rights? Can't a woman politician be against Affirmative Action?

The real hypocrisy is voting against your conscience.

I am gay. In the gay world there is a lot of pressure to follow the liberal line whether you want to or not.

I have a dim view of all anti discrimination laws because I believe they encourage employers to be more stealth and underhanded in their discriminatory practices. If a company wishes to discriminate, then it will. If a company does not discriminate then it does not need a law compelling it to do so.

I do not favor hate crimes laws because such laws tell the people "My life is more important than your life because I am a certain way and you are not." All life is equally important.

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Now that is a fascinating point: the analogy between women's rights and gay rights. It's both valid and misses something basic, but just barely. (Personally, I think the analogy forces thought --- I love it!)

Try this out, AltaireIII.

Affirmative Action - Legislating gender quotas so people are not chosen based on merit. It dilutes the value of the employment but gives more women opportunities they would not normally get. I can see a female legislator opposing it because AA does not address discrimination, just a symptom. No hypocrisy taking either side.

Abortion Rights - The legal right to terminate a pregnancy within one's body. A woman representative can take issue with Abortion Rights for moral or religious reasons. No hypocrisy here either way as far as I can see.

Now, I'll jump to the analogous examples on the "gay" side.

Anti-discrimination and Hate Crime laws - Both forms of legislation are trying to discourage crime against a specific group of victims by adding to the punishment. Kinda reminds me of Nicholas Cage asking Sean Connery to do something about the twitching dead soldier in "The Rock." "What do you want me to do? Kill him again?" So I don't see it as hypocritical for a gay legislator to oppose such legislation.

Gay marriage - This is the acid test for me. When do we as a nation decide that the separation of church and state, and equality of people, are not conditional? If a legislator is gay and does not support gay marriage, I have to understand how the lawmaker can justify that position. Moreover, I want to know how someone can be sexually gay or bisexual and actively work to sabotage societal progress in leveling the playing field. That's when I have to point the finger and say that the legislator is a hypocrite.

But alas, "Outrage" seems to miss its intended mission by not using nice, solid evidence. It resorts to allegation and innuendo. It's an attack film, a political film disguised poorly as a documentary. I think it sets the progress for GLBT rights backward by reinforcing the stereotype that gays are reactive and politically angry. It's a poor representation of the voice of the minority it's supposed to expand.

Write more, AltaireIII, and I'll gladly read what you have to say. Very good stuff.

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I must disagree about hate crimes legislation. Yes, all life is equally important, but to be targeted for skin color, religion, and/or sexual orientation is appalling and must be stamped out. Would Matthew Shepard have been tortured and murdered if his attackers had faced harsher sentences? Ok, probably, but perhaps the next set of thugs stopped and thought twice.

(Another point addressed in the film was the Reagan years of neglect, specifically regarding AIDS. Those legislators literally KILLED people by ignoring the epidemic. My friends were dying and nobody cared.)

I'm with Barney Frank on this one.


Not that it's pertinent, or should be, but I am not gay.



I like to watch.

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jeannie-45, I am a supporter of gay rights, but I do strongly disagree with you and in general on hate crimes. Not that I think hate crimes are okay, but that's just it. What kind of message do hate crime laws send; that it's okay to assault or murder someone as long as they're the same color or religion as you?

South Park did an episode on it a few years back that summed it up nicely. Cartman is accused of a hate crime after he throws rocks at Tolken, and at his trial the judge says, "I am making an example of you to send a message out to people everywhere: that if you want to hurt another human being, you'd better make damn sure they're the same color as you are.

"Ninja monkeys are meeting as we speak, plotting my demise."

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Scotty7617: your argument makes sense if people didn't get singled out and attacked for being gay or black or whatever. But they do. People don't usually attack people "Just like them" for kicks. It's usually a robbery or argument but people will go out looking for certain minorities just to harass them. Hate crime laws address this.




Open the door for Mr. Muckle!!

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Your point is intelligent, thought through, and offers an intriguing perspective to my U.S.-centric view. I appreciate you taking the time to write it. My girlfriend is a vocal advocate for GLBT rights, and she will enjoy chewing on this intellectually. She loves it when people think and put their viewpoints into writing.

It does, however, go on a tangent from the original conundrum, that being whether the targets of "Outrage" are hypocrites or voting their conscience. I still think that the expectation of the voter of what motivates the representative they vote into office is more related to the original post.

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Well, I wrote that one because where I live (Sweden) some gay groups have been campaigning fervently for the right to internatinonal adoptions, and the support of the state in this cause vs other countries. And it was really conducted as if "you've got to give us the right to adopt children, it's a bloody civic right" and if you're not with us on this, then you're a homophobe. They also got the decision on state level that it was okay, but it proved to have only symbolic value because most adoption agencies were unwilling to cooperate. The perspective of the children was pretty nuch pushed out of the discussion by gay lobby groups and it was said openly that "when the kids at school see that other kids around have two daddies (or two mothers) they will accept this before long and that way prejudice will come crashing down". I really don't think that's the way to break prejudices.

It isn't comparable to affirmative action imo; if a child stands out both by skin colour and by having parents of the same sex, it makes him/her a sitting duck for bullying and that's not something you can therapize away or declare unlawful with any real effect. Change there will only happen when everyday people on every street are solidly embracing the idea of a family that's been formed without any blood ties at all.

By the way I support gay marriage, which is legal here since a few months, and I have no real trouble with a same-sex couple having a child by insemination or two gays adoptiong a child that one of them procreated with another woman, in a consensual arrangement. I understand both of those methods are already used.

After the revolution everything will be different. Your password is 'Giliap'!

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"It does, however, go on a tangent from the original conundrum, that being whether the targets of "Outrage" are hypocrites or voting their conscience. I still think that the expectation of the voter of what motivates the representative they vote into office is more related to the original post."

That is another aspect too. There is an openly gay Republican legislator in the state of Minnesota who intends to vote against the legalization of same sex marriage. So, the guy is not in the closet. He is voting against his own personal interest.

His reasoning is his voters do not favor same sex marriage and he is voting based on that.

I suppose one could call that being a vote whore. But every politician is guilty of that.

One could assert he is upholding his integrity. His voters elected him and they did not elect him to legalize same sex marriage.

On the other hand, there is a school of thought that elected officials need to assert wisdom in place of will. Just becase people want something does not mean they should have it. Of course asserting wisdom over will can result in being voted out in the next election.



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I like this. Now, that's thinking. :-)

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"If a legislator is gay and does not support gay marriage, I have to understand how the lawmaker can justify that position. Moreover, I want to know how someone can be sexually gay or bisexual and actively work to sabotage societal progress in leveling the playing field. That's when I have to point the finger and say that the legislator is a hypocrite. "

Let's imagine you are an elected legislator, openly gay and you do your job very well. You've achieve many great things while in office and you have more work to do.

A Bill is up for vote in your state to legalize same sex marriage.

Your vote won't change the end result.

The people you represent oppose the Bill 60% to 40%. If you vote in favor of the Bill then you highly risk ending your political career. All of those great things you have left to do may not get done. Someone else may do them. But that person won't be you.

So, your vote is not going to change the outcome. Do you risk your great career with all of its achievments on one issue?

I can see a lawmaker voting No on the Bill and using the above to jusitfy why. I would not fault such a move or consider the person a hypocrite.


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I agree,maybe they don't want to have a gay marriage. Just because they're gay doesn't mean they want a gay marriage.



Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

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I would respond simply that the reason why one would be surprised to learn that an LGBT person would vote to subvert the civil rights struggle for their community, would be similar to reason why we would be surprised if women voted to repeal the 19th Amendment. Or, if people of color massed a campaign to overturn the Supreme Court ruling in Loving Vs. Virginia.

It would seem that the newest stage of civil rights struggle includes identifying those who vote in opposition to their own convictions and life experience. My vote is cast with the expectation that my leaders exercise their legislative powers consistent with the will of their constituents, filtered through their own lens of life experience. History has shown without exception, that often the uniform consensus does not precede action to correct civil rights disparity based on bigotry. In most cases elected officials, appointed official, activists, and sadly martyrs are needed to affect change. Correctly identifying leaders, as gay, straight, lesbian, or what have you, gives us all the opportunity to evaluate the motivations for their hostility towards certain races, creeds, sexes, or sexual orientations.

I look forward to more transparent dialogue in the future!

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Agreed. This movie is nothing but propoganda.

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Ok, I haven't seen this movie yet but from what I have heard and read about lately, I'll probably check it out. and, ok, so Ed Koch (former mayor of NYC) is gay? Seriously? I never would have pegged him being gay...and that's probably a good thing! :-) It's kind of odd to think of a really, really, really ancient & old guy like Ed Koch being gay. I didn't even know that he was still ALIVE! >:-) Anyway, the whole thought of gay Ed Koch is just creepy. Not that gay people are creepy but a gay Ed Koch is certainly damn creepy. :-) Yikes!

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They're hypocrits because they lie about who they really are and then they oppress and stigmatize other LGBT people. They're in a position of power and they abuse it and ruin people's lives in the process.

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Yes, and...

It's one thing if a gay politician votes as his constituency would vote. That's what representation is all about. Here is the important question (IMO):

Why is it that almost 100% of closeted gay politicians vote as if they weren't gay (i.e. against pro-gay legislation) while openly gay politicians vote almost 100% pro-gay?

Understand that question and you'll know why outing hypocritical politicians isn't such a bad thing to do.

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The OP's premise (and many of the following comments that support it) contains a glaring "stupidity" at its core, one that I'm very surprised so few have noticed.

When a female politician votes against a traditionally feminist issue such as abortion rights, she's not hiding the fact that she's a woman.

When a Black conservative endorses a conservative stance that is widely perceived as in opposition to the civil rights of his fellow African-Americans, he's not hiding the fact that he's black.

Likewise, when an openly gay politician votes against gay marriage, or DADT repeal, or whatever, because it's a matter of conscience for him, he can be accused of having a questionable conscience, but his right to assert what he honestly believes will be respected by the majority of people.

If, on the other hand, a closeted gay politician votes in those ways (or a well-known religious figure evangelizes in favor of persecution and hatred towards his own kind, which this documentary doesn't touch on much, though cases like that have been astoundingly numerous) and it is then revealed that he's a closet case, he quite simply doesn't deserve respect, and he's not likely to get any, either.

"I don't deduce, I observe."

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