Originally posted by ahinton
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Please Mr h, you're ruining my perfectly servicable impersonation of the Sage of East Cheam with your punning pranks. -
Out of dreadful occurrences, good can spring ...
It appears that Prison Break star Wentworth Miller has published a strongly worded letter declining an invitation to attend a Russian film festival in light of the country’s new anti-gay laws.
The actor, 41, who confirmed that he is gay publicly for the first time via the letter, turned down an offer to be a “guest of honour” at the St. Petersburg International Film Festival.
He wrote: "Thank you for your kind invitation. As someone who has enjoyed visiting Russia in the past and can also claim a degree of Russian ancestry, it would make me happy to say yes. However, as a gay man, I must decline."
"The situation is in no way acceptable," he wrote, adding: "I cannot in good conscience participate in a celebratory occasion hosted by a country where people like myself are being systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly."
Miller stated that he was "deeply troubled by the current attitude toward and treatment of gay men and women by the Russian government.”
You can read Wentworth Miller's full letter here:
Good for him, I say, using his 'coming out as gay in such a strategically powerful way. I hope that he experiences no discrimination as a result and that maybe, just maybe, it causes influential Russians somewhere to re-think their perverse stand on the lives of lesbians and gay menComment
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Sorry, who?Originally posted by amateur51 View Post
It appears that Prison Break star Wentworth Miller has published a strongly worded letter declining an invitation to attend a Russian film festival in light of the country’s new anti-gay laws.
The actor, 41, who confirmed that he is gay publicly for the first time via the letter, turned down an offer to be a “guest of honour” at the St. Petersburg International Film Festival.
He wrote: "Thank you for your kind invitation. As someone who has enjoyed visiting Russia in the past and can also claim a degree of Russian ancestry, it would make me happy to say yes. However, as a gay man, I must decline."
"The situation is in no way acceptable," he wrote, adding: "I cannot in good conscience participate in a celebratory occasion hosted by a country where people like myself are being systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly."
Miller stated that he was "deeply troubled by the current attitude toward and treatment of gay men and women by the Russian government.”
You can read Wentworth Miller's full letter here:
Good for him, I say, using his 'coming out as gay in such a strategically powerful way. I hope that he experiences no discrimination as a result and that maybe, just maybe, it causes influential Russians somewhere to re-think their perverse stand on the lives of lesbians and gay men
If I've never heard of him, I very much doubt that many influential Russians have, so I doubt that they'll pay this little exercise in self-promotion the slightest bit of attention. :yawn::yawn:Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
Mark Twain.Comment
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You didn't read the letter he sent to the Russians, did you Mr Pee? He was replying because they'd invited him over, so they do know who he is.Originally posted by Mr Pee View Post
Even by your standards that was a spectacularly silly error.Comment
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Yes, they invited him over, along with dozens of other names no doubt supplied to them by Hollywood agents. It's quite possible that some of the organisers of the St.Petersburg Film Festival have heard of him- (hardly Cannes is it?)- but -and I hate to break this to you, Amsy- the organisers of a film festival probably don't count as influential Russians. :yikes:Originally posted by amateur51 View PostPatriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
Mark Twain.Comment
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Influential in the world of film in Russia perhaps, Mr Pee just as you are a trailblazer in the world of iced-lollies in a theatrical part of Chichester :smiley:Originally posted by Mr Pee View Post
Your wriggling capacity is proving to be quite a challenge to scotty'sComment
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Oh well, they'll definitely have a hotline to the Kremlin then...........http://www.4smileys.com/smileys/happ...y-smiley07.gifhttp://www.4smileys.com/smileys/happ...y-smiley07.gifhttp://www.4smileys.com/smileys/happ...y-smiley07.gifOriginally posted by amateur51 View PostPatriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
Mark Twain.Comment
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Which is sadly a whole lot more than you do. Never mind all of these details - just try, if you can, to appreciate that the proposed laws are going to upset plenty of people outside Russia who will quite understandably make their thoughts and feelings about it known and, where that might involve sanctions against Russia, it is likely adversely to affect the interets and concerns of Russian people as well as those of its current government. Thankfully, we no longer live in a world in which Russia or anywhere else can seriously coinsider itself to be wholly isolated.Originally posted by Mr Pee View PostComment
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Musical Homophobia - or The Homophobia Histories
Russia predictably furnishes us with a perfect example of how Art and Politics can't be kept separate, any more than Sport and Politics can...
"the script went through five revisions, and the final version has "absolutely no homosexuality"..."
Well that's a relief isn't it? Our greatest composers must be Pure and Noble and either married or sexless...
As soon as you decide that one group of people are less valid than another, more deserving of discrimination, prejudice and suppression, and then pass a law codifying that distinction - even some creative people will opt for the safety of servile self-censorship rather than risk The State censoring or fining them. So the truth about a given artist has to be distorted, airbrushed of anything which runs contrary to the State's decree about what is and is not an "acceptable" sexual behaviour or identity. The result is more lies about Art and Humanity, and the complex and often agonising relationship between them. The world becomes a narrower, stupider, more hatefilled place.
Not all great music is intimately connected to its creators' lives; but in Tchaikovsky's case, to deny that link is to deny at least part of the essence of his Creator Spiritus - of what made him, and his music, the gorgeous, extreme, agonising and redemptive thing that it is.
There may be some flat-earthers who say, "oh but we don't know for sure he was gay..." but that wouldn't matter even if it were true. Tchaikovsky's life story needs to be fully told to be fully understood.Comment
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As far as I could see there were no responses to this post, so the rest of the thread has been removed to what appeared to be its main topic: Gay interest: Discussion v campaigning. Even that appeared to have been derailed.
I'm bumping this in case anyone wants to respond to this last post rather than dispute its presence. Please don't derail it again.It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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I see Gergiev has just recorded the Szymanowski symphonies - does that count as promotion of homosexuality ?Comment
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Who knows?
Almost anything drawing attention to a homosexual person could be interpreted in that way, if the authorities chose to interpret such a badly-framed law in that way.Comment
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No, as there is no promotion of anything apart from the music and performers as far as I'm aware.Originally posted by Barbirollians View Post
The First Violin Concerto of Szymanowski is one of my favourite works which I've loved for over 30 years.Comment
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It's a nonsense, isn't it ? I just hope he isn't planning to record King Roger !Originally posted by Barbirollians View PostComment
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I could not agree with you more! Mind you, the second is almost certainly the finest of his late works.Originally posted by scottycelt View PostComment
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