Why It Matters that Steven Slater is Gay
Posted on August 13th, 2010 in Uncategorized |
Because I once had an unpleasant altercation with a flight attendant that was totally not my fault, I’ve been slightly skeptical about the Steven Slater as folk hero trope.
And that’s not the only reason: I also kept thinking about the people on that plane who were surely delayed disembarking, and the people on other flights who were surely delayed by the fact that JetBlue’s plane had its evacuation chute deployed.
Now, of course, comes the inevitable evidence that Slater’s whole act was a fraud.
But before he’s completely undermined, it’s worth taking a moment to consider why Americans felt comfortable making this man a folk hero.
Yes, many people want to quit crappy jobs in a dramatic fashion. But do we really want to risk lives (you wouldn’t have wanted to be under that chute) and inconvenience hundreds of people to do it?
And here’s what I really think: That Slater’s homosexuality is a sine qua non for him becoming a hero.
Why? Because his flamboyant gayness makes him non-threatening, and adds an element of humor to the whole silly affair. How many times in film and television have we seen stereotypes of gay men throw a similar hissy fit, or act like a diva, or a bitchy queen, all for comic effect?
We laugh at Steven Slater because we’ve been programmed to do so; he conforms to preexisting prejudices.
But…two things.
I’ll bet there are a lot of gay men who don’t find this episode so funny, and certainly don’t think of Slater as a hero.
And: How do you think the country would have reacted had Steven Slater been a heterosexual black man who swore at a white woman and all the other passengers, stole beer and jumped out of the plane, then was arrested at home in bed with his live-in girlfriend?
17 Responses
8/13/2010 9:35 am
Anyone who has ever worked long term in a customer service position is relating to him. Nothing to do with gayness. I worked a long time in customer service and was yelled at, belittled, people snapped thier fingers at me, touched me inappropriately, asked inappropriate questions, threw fits, and my job was always to smile and be the reasonable one. You can only do that for so many years before you finally snap at someone. The frustration builds up. Customer service is rated the highest stress of any job. If you had ever worked long term in a customer service job you’d understand. If you haven’t you won’t understand. People are inherently mean spirited and cruel. And I think he just snapped. He was wrong deploying the chute. But I understand.
8/13/2010 9:41 am
Except that he didn’t just snap—he had long dreamed of deploying the chute, and as the article linked to above indicates, there’s no evidence that passengers acted inappropriately to him during this flight. I sort of wonder if he had fallen off the wagon; the fact that he stole a couple of beers but was apparently a recovering alcoholic is telling.
Agreed that it’s tough to be in the service sector; we’ve all been there.
And again I ask: If a straight black man had done the exact same things that Slater has done, would America love him so?
8/13/2010 9:56 am
I think the big gash on his forehead is proof that he was hit before the flight started. Again sometimes frustration builds up. Working for the public for years is very very hard.
Your question is odd. I’m not sure why you have to bring race into this. Or assume the outcome if it was a straight black man. I think your question shows more about you than anything else. We have a black president. We elected a black president. So America probably would love him, too.
8/13/2010 10:12 am
I mention race because my point is that, at least in their initial perceptions of people, Americans respond to stereotypes, whether of gays or African-Americans. So, no, I don’t think the question is odd. If you think so, why don’t you put it to a black person and see what he or she says?
8/13/2010 10:22 am
And I’m sorry, but it is a pet peeve of mine when people assume that everyone is prejudiced. Doing that is a way to keep prejudices alive when they may have already died or never even existed.
8/13/2010 10:28 am
This angle is pretty thin gruel. Look at how people responded to the lovely girl on thechive.com, with the dry-erase board. She didn’t seem flamboyant, and she’s more viral than Slater. (Even more a hoax though.)
I agree that it seems likely he got whacked somehow before the passengers interviewed noticed him. So not clear what the provocation was. In any case what’s the difference? He’s SO fired — no one is arguing he should be reinstated — and he brings new attention to service employees. Where’s the harm?
SE
8/13/2010 10:28 am
If we are going to substitute race and such, let’s make him a woman. An Indian woman with one leg and red hair and a hairlip! Wonder if American would love her chute blowing foalmouthed rant? Or an old man with a a dying wife and war record! Or an overweight spinster with 12 cats and long fingernails and hair roots!
We could do this all day.
8/13/2010 10:29 am
Forgot to say re “non-threatening.”
No flight attendant is threatening. Ever. You could put Dick Cheney in a flight attendant’s uniform and he’d be non-threatening. Emperor Palpatine. Cruella de Ville. You name it.
8/13/2010 10:57 am
To say that no flight attendant is threatening is in itself a stereotype, SE. But in any case, my point is not that people are responding to reality, but that they filter reality through preexisting bias.
When Chris Rock does this as a routine, perhaps then you will believe me.
8/13/2010 11:00 am
That was me (Richard), SE, don’t know why it showed as you.
8/13/2010 12:58 pm
He’s gay? I’ve only been skimming the surface of this story, so I didn’t know he was gay until I read this post. None of the conversations or podcasts I’ve heard on the topic have mentioned it, and finding out that he’s guy doesn’t make me think differently about the opinions that I’ve heard. I think this interpretation is a stretch.
8/13/2010 2:36 pm
No offense, Whimsy, but–really? You didn’t know until you read this post? Your gaydar needs a tuneup.
In any case, if you couldn’t tell by looking at his photos/listening to him, both New York tabloids reported that when police arrested him, he was in bed with his boyfriend. I’m sure that’s since been widely reported elsewhere.
8/13/2010 3:04 pm
I said I’d only been skimming the surface of the story. I haven’t read any of the news stories, seen his picture, or heard him interviewed. I’ve only heard the incident described by other people who have done those things. Of all of those people, you’re the first one to mention that he’s gay. For example, I’d heard that he was arrested, but nobody had said that he was in bed with his boyfriend when he was arrested.
That’s why I feel like your interpretation is a bit of a stretch. The massive interest in this story seemed natural before I knew that he was gay, and finding out that he’s gay doesn’t make me think any differently about the incident. To me, this is just a typical August media storm over a ridiculous, unique event that everyone will over-interpret and try to make into a microcosm of American society.
8/13/2010 5:58 pm
It remains to be seen why YOU think this is worth writing about… So the guy was a FAGOT. WGAS? Apparently you do, and will endlessly Bloviate about it.
I too have dreamed of sliding down the chute. How far would you go to make a point? Not far apparently.
8/14/2010 4:05 am
I simply don’t see what his being gay has to do with it. Nor do I understand how the link you post shows that “the whole act was a fraud.” Perhaps you have a different understanding of the word “fraud” than I do. Other news reports have said that he was hit in the forehead by a passenger opening the door of an overhead bin at the beginning of the flight. Clearly, he got mad because the bin door accident caused a gash to his head. From there on, the story is just about how he let his anger get the better of him. It’s understandable that he was angry, and it’s understandable that some people got a vicarious thrill out of his ride down the chute. But of course it was wrong for him to have expressed his anger in the way he did. I really don’t think he was staging a scene from a sit-com. And, just to repeat: I don’t see that his being gay is in any way relevant.
8/14/2010 8:11 am
I’m not content to have anti-gay epithets posted without opprobrium and/or moderator intervention.
Herewith the former.
Wanted to say about stereotypes: if someone is wearing a uniform, then you’re SUPPOSED to stereotype them if the stereotype correlates with their job description. As I say, if Dick Cheney wore a flight attendant’s uniform, he would be putting himself in a certain social position. If you didn’t respond by assuming he was in that (quintessentially non-threatening) position, you would be missing a perfectly legitimate social cue.
SE
8/14/2010 9:29 pm
Here in Indiana I have not seen any mention in the media at all that Slater was gay. This post was the first I saw of it. His gayness is not being widely reported. Go figure. No one really cares.