Category: A Spiritual Look At All Forms Of Entertainment…

A few months ago, my partner and I decided to start watching the Netflix series “Grace and Frankie”, starring Jane Fonda as Grace and Lily Tomlin as Frankie. While we both have really enjoyed the show overall, there is one aspect of it that truly bothers me and it deals with how gay people continue to be regularly portrayed in the majority of scripted entertainment.

But before I talk about that, it’s probably best I give a quick description of what “Grace and Frankie” is all about. In a nutshell, it’s about two women who forge an unlikely friendship after their husbands of 40 years (Martin Sheen as Robert and Sam Waterston as Sol) come out of the closet and declare their love for each other. And while the chemistry of Grace and Frankie is what makes this show extremely comical and keeps drawing me back, it’s how Robert and Sol’s relationship is depicted and how the rest of their gay friends are depicted that frustrates me greatly.

You see, as soon as Robert and Sol come out of the closet at the beginning of this series, they are immediately illustrated as a very flamboyant couple who like showtunes, cooking, and theater. Essentially, they are portrayed as feminine in nature, as is each of their closest friends on the show as well. And as the series progresses, the viewer learns through one of Robert’s friends, Peter (Tim Bagley), that most male gay couples are in open relationships after a few years of being together because they get bored with each other. I.E. They are no longer monogamous and instead allow themselves to have sexual partners on the side or together, but usually with “rules”.

Being a gay individual myself, these gay stereotypes are by far the most frustrating part of scripted entertainment, because there are many gay men in this world just like me who aren’t flamboyant, who don’t like showtunes, who don’t enjoy cooking, and tend to abhor most theater-based productions, especially musicals. Just as much as there are plenty of gay men out there like me who are in long-term monogamous relationships and haven’t ever been in an open-based one nor have any desire to ever be in one either. Yet, this is still the way the majority of scripted television entertainment keeps portraying gay men over and over and over again. Thankfully, there have been a few movies though in recent years like Brokeback Mountain and Moonlight that have worked to erode those gay stereotypes and show gay men as being more masculine as well. Unfortunately, I still haven’t seen much of this being portrayed at all on scripted television though.

The very reason why these gay stereotypes on television bother me so much is because of all those people in the world who don’t have any gay friends and have never been around anyone gay in general. It’s they who end up forming judgments, opinions, and projections on what a gay person is like because of what they see represented on TV, which only causes more disunity and damage to our society as a whole. Many of them also tend to be religious people who then tend to form the belief that gay men are nothing more than godless promiscuous individuals filled with nothing but drama. And why wouldn’t they believe this when all they see on television in many of the popular shows is the same gay stereotypes? This is why I honestly wish the tide would change soon in the scripted entertainment industry and begin to show the many facets of gay culture, especially when it comes to gay men. Because not all gay men act or look like what you see depicted on television.

So, the next time you find yourself making a judgment of what you think a gay person is like just because of how one is being illustrated on a television show you’re watching, please know there are many other gay men in this world who aren’t like that and may actually be God-loving, monogamous-minded, masculine-acting individuals…individuals just like me…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Inspiration to keep going for a person like me who’s struggling with chronic pain is often hard to come by, but when it does, it tends to arrive in unexpected ways, as it did when I watched the movie “Alpha” in the theater recently.

Starring Kodi Smit-Mcphee as a young man mamed Keda, “Alpha” takes place some 20,000 years ago during the prehistoric past, where men and women live in small tribes, hunt for survival, and fight off the many perils that tend to threaten their very existence at every turn, ranging from the extremes of the natural elements to ferocious wildlife. As part of Keda’s tribal culture, he must go through a rite of passage into manhood by venturing out on their annual hunt for buffalo that takes them many miles from home. It becomes overly apparent from the onset though that Keda doesn’t feel quite up to the task, as he struggles early on in his attempt to start a fire and is unable to finish killing a wild boar for his father either. When he finally encounters the wild buffalo along with his tribe, his struggles continue when one suddenly charges at him, causing him to run in the opposite direction out of fear. As it attacks him, Keda’s clothing gets impaled onto one of its horns, which ends with him being thrown off a cliff in the process. As he lands on a narrow ledge far below and remains unresponsive to the cries of his father, he’s presumed dead and a sacred altar is left behind marking his passage into the next life. But when Keda awakes a day later to find a vulture pecking at his face and a badly injured left ankle and foot, he discovers his tribe is gone and must face the rite of passage into manhood alone, beginning with a very hungry pack of wolves who are hunting him down. When he injures the alpha of the pack and finds safety from the rest of them in the heights of a broad tree, he’s confronted the next morning with a moral decision to either kill the dying wolf or nurse it back to health. Opting for the latter, thus begins a spiritual journey within for a fearful young adult who’s fighting for survival, against all odds, by choosing to never give up, all in the hopes he’ll find his way back home once more.

“Alpha” was truly an inspirational film for me, mostly because I saw myself in Keda’s shoes quite a bit throughout the movie. There have been so many times, especially as of late, where I’ve wanted to give up because the odds of making it through all of my suffering have felt utterly impossible. With pain bearing down on so many parts of me on a regular basis and one thing after another frequently causing me to feel like life is ridiculously upside-down, the desire to keep going just hasn’t been there more than not. Yet, somewhere deep within me something has kept me going, some desire to not give up, no matter how bad things may seem or get. And like Keda, who too fought through the very same feelings along his journey, all to simply make it home, my only desire has been the same, with my home being to reach a oneness and healing with God.

So, in the end, for a movie that had no English-speaking parts and only subtitles throughout, and one that focused solely on a young man and a wolf doing their best to defy the odds of survival on a quest that seemed next to impossible, I became greatly encouraged on my own healing journey to not give up, and that alone was exactly the inspiration I needed and why I ultimately appreciated the movie “Alpha”.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

I’m a chick flick kind of guy who really enjoys watching those gushy romantic types of movies from time to time, especially the ones were two people fall in love from totally different worlds. “Crazy Rich Asians” is a great example of a recent film that follows this very path and one that also reminded me of the ills that having a lot of money can bring.

Based upon the first book in a series by Kevin Kwan and directed by Jon M. Chu, “Crazy Rich Asians” primarily revolves around New York University economics professor Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) and her boyfriend Nick Young (Henry Golding) who’ve been dating for over a year when the movie begins. When Nick asks her to accompany him to Singapore where he’s to be the best man at his best friend’s wedding, Rachel is more than thrilled, but has yet to discover that Nick essentially comes from one of the wealthiest families in Singapore. Her first awareness of this occurs on their flight there, when she learns Nick has upgraded them to first class and was only able to do so because his family has a business relationship with the airline. When asked by Rachel what his family actually does for a living, he merely responds that they are real estate developers, but little does she know the full depth to that. It doesn’t take long for her to figure that out though when she arrives at his family’s estate for an elaborate party on her second night there.

Accompanied by her closet college friend Peik Lin Goh (Awkwafina), who also lives in Singapore, she begins to meet each of Nick’s family members and friends one by one where it’s becomes overly apparent from the onset that the majority of them are more into themselves and their wealthy status than anything else. Unfortunately, Rachel realizes all too quickly that many are not happy with Nick’s choice of a girlfriend, given she doesn’t come from money and is Asian-American. At the center of all that dissatisfaction is Nick’s mother Eleanor Young (Michelle Yeoh) who makes it blatantly clear Rachel isn’t truly welcomed there. As Rachel tries desperately to find acceptance and a place in Nick’s world where there seems to be far more judgements than anything, I found their love story reminiscent of another beautifully done romantic film I saw way back in 1990, one titled “Pretty Woman”, which was also a story of two unlikely people falling in love (Julia Roberts as Vivian Ward and Richard Gere as Edward Lewis) from totally different worlds.

Like “Pretty Woman”, “Crazy Rich Asians” depicted quite well the gap that continues to exist in modern society between the very wealthy and those who aren’t wealthy at all. While I myself have never reached any type of elite wealthy status like Nick’s family has in the film, I did grow up in a family that lived very comfortably on the financial level for some time. And with that, came a set of rules from my mother, who could have been the American version of Nick’s mother Eleanor at one point. My mom rarely approved of the majority of people I dated or became friends with once I left home, as I always seemed to gravitate to those who came from families that lived paycheck to paycheck and had very little to speak of, at least in the way of what money could buy. That didn’t stop me though from developing a number of relationships with those who came from the opposite side of the tracks so to speak, and through the years, I’d come to learn through them that money often corrupts the mind and body into doing things and acting in certain ways that isn’t founded on any solid higher vibrational spiritual principles.

Really, the sad reality I learned during that period was this. The more money and notoriety I gained, the more I became solely focused on maintaining it and sticking with those who can protect it or increase it, and in the process, the more I tended to judge and avoid many I deemed as beneath me. It was a very superficial life, which is why on some level, I’m thankful I lost the majority of that money back in 2010 when my business went under and I almost went bankrupt. Because it was then I finally got to see how much all that money had been blinding me from the truth. The truth that my heart was consistently being blocked from feeling true love for anything on this planet, other than the love for money and status itself.

This is why overall, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the beautifully done romantic film “Crazy Rich Asians” because it clearly was a great reminder to how money and status can oh-so-often come in between any true God-given love. It also reminded me as well that when people choose to live by their heart and not by money or status, that even an unlikely couple from totally different worlds can come together and unite in a love that is one to last for ages…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson