Transcriber: Helena Bowen Reviewer: Denise RQ
Usually, when I tell people
that I won first place at a national intercollegiate speech tournament,
they say: "Cool, so what's your speech about?"
And then I tell them, "The commodification of gay men,"
it's this idea that it's become trendy in our pop culture to have gay friends.
You know, someone to brunch and shop with and tell you
that you don't look fat in those jeans.
And then they say, "Oh, so why that speech?"
I asked myself the same question when I was writing it.
Why does this matter?
Why should people care
about the tokenizing of gay men into politically fashionable tools
just to build up their own pseudo-progressive status,
and more importantly,
how do I show that this happens to all kinds of gay men,
a whole swath of gays, a rainbow if you will.
(Laughter)
We don't even know that we're doing it.
So I was thinking about this,
and I was being all analytical and meta with it.
This one Thursday afternoon,
I was walking across campus with my boyfriend
and we were debating back and forth
about what I should put in the speech, what I shouldn't,
this, that, and the other thing, and then this young woman,
a senior I sort of knew from something, walks by.
She's a really smart student, English Lit program, honors,
you know, the type.
And so I give her a wave, and she sees my boyfriend and me
and she does this: (She gasps)
"You two are so cute."
(Laughter)
I know she wasn't talking about how we looked because like I said,
it was a Thursday afternoon, so I had something with coffee stains on it,
and I'm sure my boyfriend was wearing flannel.
So that's kind of one of the examples that we knew there was a problem,
and unfortunately,
the problem wasn't just limited to me or this one experience.
I'd like to share with you some headlines written in the past three years
of news and feature stories about this hot new trend.
So from Teen Vogue,
"Is a GBF, gay best friend, the new, must-have accessory for teen girls?"
(Laughter)
Guess what their answer was?
And then on a Sundance Channel website:
"The top 10 reasons girls need gay best friends."
I'll tell you, before I continue, that I did read those ten reasons,
and not one of them was that he might give a TEDx talk later in life,
so I think there is some flawed research.
Then, my personal favorite:
"Leftover women tap into gay best friends," from China.
(Laughter)
I don't actually know what that means, but...
(Laughter)
if there's any women out there
who equate themselves with yesterday's macaroni salad,
(Laughter)
I'll meet you after the show.
(Laughter) (Applause)
So my speech was called an after-dinner speech,
and an after-dinner speaking uses humor to make its point alongside information.
My speech was broken into three sections: problem, cause, and solution.
And it became pretty clear, as I was crafting this speech,
that the problem was widespread and pretty much accepted as normal.
This is not just the "Will and Grace" effect,
or Kurt from "Glee", Stanford from "Sex and the city,"
Brian from "New normal,"
the token gay friend from television and movies that we all know
has caught on with mass media
and is perpetuated by the likes of Teen Vogue,
so that especially within my generation,
as young gay men feel more comfortable coming out and becoming who they are,
young straight women are being told to snatch them up
faster than the hottest new thing from Prada,
and defining them before they get the chance to define themselves.
In other words, my coach and I knew that we had a speech.
This leaves the cause and solution segments.
I could just tell you what those are, but wouldn't you rather see
an award-winning humorous speech on the subject instead?
Audience: Yes! Mark Pampanin: Yeah? Alright.
So to finish this presentation, I'll just perform
the second half of my speech from Pi Kappa Delta Nationals.
Sound good? Great.
So, why am I so cool?
Duh, tea tree oil and organic goji berries,
but to explain this trend of the gay best friend,
we have to look at three main causes.
First, we are often portrayed as one-dimensional caricatures.
According to the Daily Utah Chronicle of September 5, 2012,
gay men on TV are often portrayed as the effeminate male tokenized-side
who just loves to help you with your hair.
TVtropes.org, last accessed on September 24, 2012,
even has a name for these types of characters: pet homosexuals.
Gay men who exist to add cheap laughs
to an otherwise all-straight and all-boring story.
I mean, how funny would the Kardashians really be without Bruce Jenner, right?
(Laughter)
You know it's true.
The second cause is that having gay friends
is seen as pseudo-progressive.
People want to appear knowledgeable and trendy,
even when it comes to taking up of civil rights of homosexuals
without really having to prove themselves.
On January 13, 2013, Fox News reported:
"Liberals!"
Just kidding.
(Laughter)
They reported that support for gay rights in America has doubled since 1996,
as people more openly make gay friends.
Basically, it's like saying:
"Well I'm cool because I know gay people."
I mean what can a black friend do for you nowadays?
He isn't going to fondle your boobies and tell you you're fabulous,
unless of course you had a gay black friend - oh!
(Laughter)
Huh. I have to get me one of those.
The third cause is hipsters,
and according to The Huffington Post of March 13, 2012,
hipsters' tastes are based on fashion
rather than expression of their actual feelings.
Being cool nowadays means standing up for gay rights.
I mean just walk into an American Apparel store.
Everyone in there is dying for a gay friend
to match their disco pant and velvet polka dot bow tie.
Plus, if I can blame anything on the hipsters, I will.
(Laughter)
So, we've gone from the gay man's oppression
to the kind of weird obsession,
but how do we turn your GBF into no longer a possession?
I know you're stressing with this problem-cause direction,
but don't worry,
you're about to get a lesson from Mark's solution session.
First, don't let TV and the Internet be the only place you go
to learn about gay culture.
That's what Crate and Barrel, H&M, Zara, and Lady Gaga are for.
The point is to get a well-rounded education
because there are so many different types of gays.
Tall gays, short gays, smart gays, dumb gays, fun gays, young gays,
bum gays, bengays (Laughter)
which is the type of gay you rub on your body
for instant, long-lasting pain relief.
(Laughter)
Second, don't be so mean to each other.
In 2012, Amy Astley, the editor of Teen Vogue,
said the reason women in particular seek out gay friends
is that none of them want to hang out with each other.
Apparently, they'd rather find a homosexual man sponge
to soak up all of their venomous venting.
But I have to tell you, if one more person tells me
about how their coworker-frenemy-nemesis says something kind of, sort of insulting,
I'm going to strangle them with my banana hammock.
(Laughter)
Now, to avoid stereotypes,
Yahoo.com, of July 26, 2012, reflects: "Yes, there are women out there
who champion female camaraderie and sisterhood,
but there are also those who will not hesitate to spirit their nastiness."
That being said, ladies!
Don't let your lady friends make you feel so bad about yourself.
That's why we have Scarlett Johansson.
(Laughter)
Third, and lastly, and probably the easiest:
treat people like people.
I don't care how Kathy Griffin is treating Anderson Cooper.
I am here to tell you that I am a person.
I paid 12 dollars for this haircut, I hate the mall, and I still don't know
if it's really pronounced Ralph Laur-en or Ralph Lah-ren.
If you really need to, you can make flashcards or something.
Prada, designer.
Person: Mark.
Hi, nice to finally meet you.
So today, we looked at the problem of the gay best friend trend.
Second, we delved into some of the causes that were perpetuating this trend,
and finally, we looked into some solutions for killing the trend,
which in my opinion, is uglier than UGG Boots.
Just as Karl Marx, who coined the term commodification, put it best in 1887,
a commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing
and is easily understood.
Its analysis shows that it is in reality, a very queer thing.
I know!
More like a fabulous manifesto.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)