The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation isn't backing down when it comes to bullying its way into protected-class status. The gay advocacy group has rejected actor Vince Vaughn’s defense of using the term “gay” to describe electric cars in his yet-to-be released movie, “The Dilemma.” According to the Hollywood Reporter, a post on the official GLAAD website rebutted, “Vince is right. Comedy does bring us together, unless one of us is the punchline. Then it pushes us apart.”
Last week the Culture and Media Institute reported that Vaughn defended his character’s use of the term “gay” by saying, “Comedy and joking about our differences breaks tension and brings us together.”
Universal pictures responded to pressure from GLAAD last week, and pulled the “controversial scene” from trailers for the movie “The Dilemma” which opens on Januray 14. On National “Coming Out” day last Wednesday, GLAAD's website issued a press release calling on supporters to urge Universal to scrap the scene from the movie entirely.
GLAAD is effectively calling for gays to achieve the status as an untouchable class of individuals, in which the group can mandate acceptance by determining what can and cannot be said about gay people. If “tolerance” is GLAAD’s goal, demanding censorship from Hollywood would seem counterproductive.
It remains to be seen if Hollywood and the media will greet GLAAD’s calls to expunge the scene with the same derision it hurls at Christians who find some material objectionable.
